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Jane Austen

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Jane Austen
She is known for her gently satirical portraits of village life and of the rituals of courtship and marriage

she wrote during the Romantic period, when most major writers were concerned with a very different set of interests and values.

Slide 4 At the age of 12 she began writing poems, stories and plays

This showed her early interest in writing and her love for it.

Slide 7 As the 18th century shows that the rich controlled the social situations, issuing and initiating invitations and friendships. hose of low social standing depend upon the charity and initiative of those in the higher class.

Slide 8
She is describing the people present there and also including the society status each of them had.

Slide 9
Emma believes herself to be a skilled matchmaker, and her pride in her discernment of good matches and her ultimate humbling in this regard highlights that she has much to learn in judging others characters, her own, and what makes a good marriage. While Austen in certain ways affirms the social conventions of marriage in pairing most of her characters with partners of equal social standing, she also complicates and critiques these conventions. Though Emma believes Mr. Martin to be below Harriet, Mr. Knightley argues that Harriet would be lucky to be with Mr. Martin on account of the latter’s virtue. Similarly, both Mr. Knightley and Emma come to agree that Frank is lucky to be accepted by Jane, even though she is considered of inferior social standing, because she surpasses him in virtue.

he importance of social class in making a good marriage “match” is highlighted in Mr. Weston’s first marriage, which despite being a love match is unhappy because of the social and familial pressures resulting from the mismatch in social class.

Slide 10
Because she believes herself to have great talent in discerning people’s natures and suitable love matches, she is slow to recognize that she is wrong. It takes many humiliating and hurtful mistakes before Emma is finally humbled into the realization that her interference is often misguided, and that she has much to learn both about the desires of others and her own heart.

The importance of social class in making a good marriage “match” is highlighted in Mr. Weston’s first marriage, which despite being a love match is unhappy because of the social and familial pressures resulting from the mismatch in social class.

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