The Value of Female Reason. Echoes of Wollstonecraft in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility

Abstract

This essay examines the connection between Jane Austen’s first two novels, Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, and the ideas represented in Mary Wollstonecraft’s proto-feminist treatise, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. The thesis explores how Wollstonecraft’s work likely influenced Austen, as many of the concerns raised in these novels closely correspond to the progressive topics addressed in Wollstonecraft’s tract. Indeed, the essay analyses how the novels are not merely conservative Regency courtship plots because of their underlying critical tone that subtly critiques women’s contemporary education. In particular, the primary focus of this essay is to discern the moments within Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice that support Austen’s preference for reason. More specifically, by exploring the use of specific character types and the didactic tone throughout these novels, the thesis concludes that Austen presents a clear lesson that women’s ability for critical thinking is of immense importance. First, women’s status and the reductive constructions of womanhood in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are considered, to provide context for the unfair gender norms that Wollstonecraft and Austen, in their own way, rise against. Furthermore, the essay reviews how Austen implicitly argues for the benefits of teaching women to cultivate their rational thinking skills by showing how mindless adherence to empty propriety and sentimentality has a negative effect on her characters. Lastly, the essay demonstrates how Austen repeats one of Wollstonecraft’s central arguments that society would largely improve by bettering women’s education. In other words, Austen implies that the application of sound judgement, which her self-aware heroines adopt, protects women from unnecessary harm, contributes to true modesty, and produces self-reliant individuals. The overall conclusion is that Austen’s Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice convey the message that without reason, women remain vulnerable and perpetuate ignorance.