Jane Austen
Jane Austen was born on December 16,1774, in the tiny village of Steventon, where her father, the Reverend George Austen, served as the town rector. Her mother, Cassandra Leigh Austen, was the daughter of a rector herself, and Jane was the seventh of eight children. She had an older brother, George, who suffered from epilepsy and did not live with the family. Wealthy, childless relatives who were very involved with the boy throughout his childhood adopted the Austen's third son, Edward. The remaining six children, however, lived with their parents in the plain, comfortable village rector. Jane's closest relationship within her family was to her adored older sister, Cassandra. Three years apart in age and the only girls among the eight children, the two were close friends from childhood onward. Cassandra was once engaged to a young man who died of yellow fever. Similarly, Jane was very involved with a clergyman who died before they could become engaged. Neither of the sisters ever married, and the two lived together with their mother until Jane's death in 1817. In 1801, George Austen, Jane's father, retired as rector of Steventon and moved with his wife and two daughters to Bath, where he died in 1805. The family's years
Jane Austen was one of the greatest of women authors. Yet so great is her talent and her insight into the complexities of human nature that the seeming simplicity of her books belies the universality of their perceptions. In turning her writer's gaze on the world around her, Austen reveals deeper truths that apply to the world at large. Her portraits of social interaction, while specific to a particular and very carefully delineated place and time, are nevertheless the result of timeless human characteristics. If one looks beneath the details of social manners and mores that abound in Austen's novels, what emerges is their author's clear-eyed grasp of the intricacies of human behavior. What is also readily apparent is that human behavior was a source of great amusement to Austen. Her novels are gentle satires, written with delicate irony and incisive wit. The famous opening lines of Pride and Prejudice capture her style at its best: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." Courtship and marriage are the subject of all six of Austen's novels, and she treats the topic with a skillful balance of humor and seriousness. The elaborate social ritual of courtship and the amount of time and energy expended on it by the parties involved provide Austen with an ideal target for her satirical portraits. Dances, carriage rides, and country walks are the settings for the romances that unfold in her books, and the individual's infinite capacity for misconceptions and self-delusions provide the books' dramatic structure. Her heroes and heroines misjudge each other, misunderstand each other, and mistake charm for substance and reserve for lack of feeling with a determination that seems likely to undermine their chances for happiness-until at last they find their way through the emotional mazes they have built for themselves and emerge with the proper mate. Yet while Austen is happy to amuse her readers with her characters' foibles and missteps, she brings an underlying empathy to her creations as well. Her heroines are never figures of fun-that role is left to the stories' supporting characters-but are instead intelligent, sensitive, amiable young women who are eminently likable despite the flaws they may exhibit. It is human nature in all its complexity that fascinate
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Approximate Word count = 1590
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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