Witticisms in Jane Austen's works

Jane Austen is not what we could call a typical writer of romance as we could expect in 19^th century England. Indeed, her female characters are not simple-minded girls in search of a husband, they are strong women who have to struggle in a man’s world and prove they can live by themselves. They are also admirable women who have taught generations of readers valuable lessons such as family relationships or the mere notion of being true to someone.

By instilling women’s equality and independence in her heroines, Austen seemed to explain that it was high time women stood for their rights to get some respect. Consequently, they shared feminist values, even though the term did not exist then. The examples above which we could qualify as some of Austen’s witticisms clearly show how the author’s characters were determined to get rid of the power that their husbands had on them:

These quotes were meant to help the women’s condition and Austen probably reached her goal even if her inspiring attitude was not adapted to her time. But did she care? Probably not and her sharpened words were her weapon against injustice and prejudices that women had to face with in their everyday life.

What may strike the reader is the tone used by Jane Austen in her writings. As was said earlier she was a writer with a sharp mind and she often used her characters to denounce pride and vanity. One of the most famous quotes illustrating this can be found in Pride and Prejudices when Mrs Bennett says:

What must be understood here is that Mrs. Bennett sees the arrival of the gentleman, Charles Bingley, as an opportunity for one of her daughters to marry a wealthy man.

Here again, it is the women’s condition which preoccupies Jane Austen as well as the social difficulties they have to go through. That is the reason why the main characters in her novels are women. They are very clever, strong and they know how to analyze the situations surrounding them with accuracy. But they often do it with a good sense of humor:

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To conclude, we can say that Jane Austen was a remarkable writer and a woman ahead of her time. She introduced feminism in 19th century England and helped the women to get better conditions. She did not achieve this by using force but words instead, words which were far more powerful than any weapon.