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 Assignment of  Jane Austen's  style of  writing in " Sense and Sensibility "

Name : Makwana  Daksha  D.
Course : MA
Semester : 2
Roll no :  4
Batch  :  2017 – 2019
Enrollment no :  2069108420180034
Paper no : 5 – The Romantic  Literature
Topic :  Jane Austen’s style of writing in ‘ Sense and Sensibility ‘
Email  Id : makwanadaksha9@gmail.com
Submitted to : Smt. S.B. Gardi Dept. of  English MKBU

Introduction :
Jane Austen

Jane   Austen  was  born in Stevenson , Hampshire , on 16 December 1775.  Jane’s parents were well respected  community  members . Her father served  as  the oxford educated rector for a nearby Anglican parish . The family was close and the children grew up in an environment  that stressed learning and creative thinking. Over the span of her life , Jane would become  especially  close to her father and older sister , Cassandra . Instead  she and Cassandra would one day collaborate on a published work.

Jane spent much of her early adulthood helping run the family home, playing piano , attending church, and socializing with neighbors. She becomes  an accomplished dancer .  She continued to write , developing her style in more ambitious works such as Lady susan , another epistolary novel about a manipulative woman who uses her sexuality , intelligence and charm to have her way with others .and also  started to write some of her future major works and series of letters.

Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction , set among the landed gentry , earned her place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.
She known  primarily for her six major novels , which interpret , critique and comment upon the British  landed   gentry at the ends of 18th century.

Works:
Sense and Sensibility- 1811
Pride and Prejudice -1813
Mansfield  Park  -1814
Emma  - 1815
Northanger Abbey -1818
Persuasion -1818
Lady Susan – 1871

About Her Style :
Her use of biting irony ,along with her realism ang social commentary , have earned her acclaim among critics and scholars.  Austen’s plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage in the pursuit of favourable  social standing and economic security.

Her distinctive literary style relies on a combination of parody, burlesque , irony, free indirect speech  and a degree of  realism . She uses parody and burlesque for comic effect and to critique the portrayal of women in 18th-century sentimental and gothic novels . Though Austen's style was highly individual, it is based on her  close study of the eighteenth-century writers, whose simplicity, accuracy, and precision she admired and imitated. Austen picked up the technique, popularized by Fielding, of the omniscient narrator. But her particular style is more objective.

Character :  
She allows her characters freedom within this, for her implications are subtle and in many case reserved . A good example of this we can see in the development of the character 

 ’ Mrs. Jennings ‘ they are allowed to developed before our eyes .character is vividly conveyed through direct speech. even if they behave irrationally portraying character as they are character of sense and sensibility.

Psychological  element :  Austen uses the consciousness of Elinor as the means through which to narrate her story , as Elinor is rarely treated ironically , her feelings and observations have a seriousness which transcends the ironic . Colonal Brandon too is hardly treated comically and even Marianne , although seen ironically , is finally taken seriously.

 Contrast :  Contrast is used with line effects .Elinor’s  sense is contrasted with her sister ‘s sensibility . Edward ‘s loyalty to Lucy contrasts with Willoughby’s betrayal of Marriane  ,  Mrs. Jenning’s good humour is in strong contrast to Mrs. Ferrars  sourness.

Style : This novel reflects Austen ‘s own  quiet temperament , her good sense and her humor . Though  she can be satirical or ironic on either a small or a grand scale. She is never malicious and her humour never exceeds the bounds of good taste and credibility.

Plot :
Austen steers clear of the formal moralizing common in the early 19th century literature , Morality characterized by manners , duty to society and religious seriousness is a central theme of her work. Though out her novels serious reading is associated with intellectual and moral  development and economic situation.  In sense and sensibility Austen represents  excessive  of sensibility and superiority of sense by the character  Marianne  and  Elinor.

Conversation /Language :
Austen’s conversations contain many short sentences , question and answer pairs and rapid exchanges between characters.  Austen  grants each of her character a distinctive and subtly constructed voice ; they are carefully distinguish by their speech . In ‘ Sense and Sensibility ‘ the inability of characters such as Lucy Steele to use language properly is a mark of their moral confusion.

Realism: Austen creates an illusion of realism in her texts , partly though readily  identification with the characters and largely through rounded characters who have a history and a memory.

Mixture of Neo- classicism and Romanticism
In the novel ‘ Sense and Sensibility ‘ Austen represents two chief terms of the time . Elinor and Marianne Dashwood represent the Neo classical epoch and the romantic epoch .

  Neo classicism encourages reason and restrains writing , the character Elinor  is presented with sense , rational judgment  and understanding of social propriety . Romanticism encourages passions and imaginations in writing and enjoyed the simple and emotional aspects of  life . Austen uses Marianne to represent the romantics. Marriane  refuses  to allow reason to govern her feelings , remain immature in matter of thinking and love., she depicts Marianne’s  romantic values are as a fault , not as a virtue.
Sense and sensibility was used by Jane Austen to delineate her social culture of which her life consisted of.

Free indirect speech :
Austen is most renowned for her development of free indirect speech , the thoughts and speech of the characters mix with the voice of the narrator. Austen uses it to provide summaries of conversations or to compare ironically a character’s speech and thought.
Austen’s sentence do not directly state  what she is trying to convey the reader is given information that is not entirely clear untill he reads the independent clause.

Autobiographical element :
The influence of Jane  Austen’s social background is cshown in some characters and situations in her novel . Austen wrote about “ Inheritance  law “ , social class , the gentry and the manners present in ‘sense and sensibility”.
 This novel includes autobiographical elements , Jane  Austen ‘s sister Cassandra , they are very close to each other. This bond is similar like Elinor and Marianne sisters. This  characters also resemble their real life counterparts in their mature and attitude. Elinor possesses the good sense of Cassandra , Marianne  displays  Jane’s love for reading, music, and dance . The Dashwood’s  cottage at Barton in Devonshire resembles Jane  Austen’s house at Stevenson  in Hampshire.

Irony and Satire :

 In this novel  Austen satires on the characters of John Dashwood and  Fanny  Dashwood , his conspicuous mercenary attitude makes him appear as a caricature blinded by money . His wife is portrayed as a  scheming  women  driven by avarice.  Through crude jokes and spicy  gossip, Mrs. Jennings is depicted as  being  blatantly comic.

Irony is one of the Austen’s most characteristics and most discussed literary techniques , she contrasts the plain meaning of a statement with the comic , undermining the meaning of the original to create ironic disjunctions. Her   novels  employs  irony  to foreground social hypocrisy.
Austen uses irony to critique the marriage market through her works. Her irony ranges from the gentle to the severe,

When Austen speaks about Marriane , “ she was generous , amiable, interesting : she was everything but prudent.” Austen weights the first half with pleasing commentary and gently undercuts it in the second.

Description of John Dashwood ,” was not ill-disposed young man , unless to be rather cold hearted and rather selfish, it is to be ill-disposed.”
At first she seems to be viewing his character  amiably ,  suddenly she changes direction and thought process, what we get general impression of  john become negative by statement. Thus she contains in her statement all the elements of  disapproved  without directly stating that he was ill- disposed. The necessary reflection ,  subsequent surprise  and  devastating insight create an effect which is much more persuasive than direct statement could be.

Conclusion :
  Jane Austen in her own style , she is superb . The events of her story may not be  startling, but she makes ordinary happenings as interesting  and sometimes as dramatic , as the most exciting adventure story or romance. Much of the perfection of her style comes from the infinite care and patience with which she polishes her work. Almost all Austen’s works explores the precarious economic situation in which women of the late 18th and early 19 th centuries found themselves.
Jane  Austen remains as  popular  ever and is revered as much as any literary figure in the history of the English language.

“ Is isn’t what we say or think that defines us ,but what we do .”- Jane Austen