ghout all herworks, a sweet lesson of homely household womanly virtue is ever being taught"), but once the question has been asked (whichit was not, until relatively recently), it is not hard to see some feminist tendencies.Of course, Jane Austen is not a simple ideologue -- when a character in a Jane Austen novel makes a broad statement thatseems to stand up for women in general, this is actually usually done by an unsympathetic character (such as Isabella Thorpe inNorthanger Abbey or Mrs. Elton in Emma), and is not meant to be taken seriously. In Pride and Prejudice the main exampleis Caroline Bingley's statement to Darcy that "Eliza Bennet is one of those young ladies who seek to recommend themselves tothe other sex by undervaluing their own, and with many men, I dare say, it succeeds. But, in my opinion, it is a paltry device, avery mean art." Here Caroline Bingley is "undervaluing" Elizabeth, and Darcy sees through her easily. Conversely, HenryTilney's teasing remarks on the subject of women during the walk from Bath to Beechen Cliff in Northanger Abbey are notreally meant to invalidate his character.On the other hand, however, Jane Austen presents a rather cool and objective view of the limited options open to women (inPride and Prejudice this is done through the character Charlotte Lucas).And it has been pointed out that Jane Austen makes an implicit statement by simply disregarding certain strictures of her erathat may not be obvious to modern readers. For example most of Jane Austen's heroines (Elizabeth Bennet in Pride andPrejudice, Elinor Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, Fanny Price in Mansfield Park, Anne Elliot in Persuasion, and evenEmma Woodhouse in Emma) don't have anyone whom they can confide in, or whose advice they can rely on, about certaindelicate matters. Thus they must make their own decisions more or less independently (for example, Elizabeth Bennet doesn'treveal to Jane, her sister and closest confidante, her ...
