Jane Austen

1. Jane Austen Jocelyn Cooksey

2. Jane Austen Bio • Jane Austen was born December 16th, 1775 to Reverend George Austen and Cassandra Leigh Austen. She was the seventh of eight children. When Austen was eight years old, she and her sister Cassandra were sent to Oxford and then Southampton to be educated. From 1785 to 1786, Austen and her sister attended the Reading Ladies Boarding School, where they studied French, spelling, needlework, music, and dancing. Forced to return home for economic reasons, Austen continued to develop her literary mind under the guidance of her father, who had a hug library.

3. Bio • Austen made up tales and began writing them down at a young age. At first she wrote satires, mysteries, fantasies and romances; gradually she took to recording the detailed observations of English life that made her famous. • In 1816, Austen suffered an illness that ended in her death the next year. Most biographers believe that she suffered from Addison’s disease. Despite her illness, Austen continued to work on her writing, starting work on “Sandition.” She died on July 8, 1817, leaving “Sandition” unfinished, and was buried in the Winchester Cathedral.

4. Pride and Prejudice • Pride and Prejudice begins with Mrs. Bennet telling her husband about Mr. Bingley, a man that will be moving into the neighborhood. She tell Mr. Bennet that he is “a single man of large fortune”, hoping that like she does her husband will see the man as a potential husband for one of their five daughters Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Catherine, and Lydia. When Mr. Bingley moves into the estate of Netherfield Park, Mr. Bennet pays him a secret visit, but finally tells his family by casually slipping it into the conversation. The girls and Mrs. Bennet get excited and start asking questions about Mr. Bingley but Mr. Bennet disregards them. Within the next couple weeks a party is held in town, and Mr. Bingley, his sisters and Mr. Darcy, a close friend of Mr. Bingley. This is where Mr. Bingley and Jane meet, and start to take interest in each other. That same night Elizabeth meets and is disgusted by Mr. Darcy and wants nothing to do with him. One day Jane is invited to the Netherfield estate to have dinner with the Bingley’s and instead of sending her in a carriage Jane’s mother send her on horseback hoping that because of the rain she will have to stay at the Bingley residence. Mrs. Bennet’s plan does work but Jane has to stay only because the rain has made her ill. Elizabeth walks three miles to the Netherfield estate to take care of her sister, and while she is there she starts to take to Mr. Darcy.

5. Pride and Prejudice • Jane and Mr. Bingley's love for each other is tested when he has to move back to London for the winter. Mr. Darcy and the sisters follow him. Over the winter months Elizabeth visits a friend, and unexpectedly meets Mr. Darcy. After a couple of weeks Mr. Darcy confesses his love for her, and asks he hand in marriage. Elizabeth refuses saying that she could never love a man with as much pride as he has. In the spring Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy move back, and Mr. Bingley reunites himself with Jane. They are soon engaged. Mr. Darcy still in love with Elizabeth makes another attempt at her. Elizabeth by that time had a change of mind, and learns that Mr. Darcy isn’t a pride man as he may seem, but is very caring. They soon too are engaged.

6. Pride and Prejudice Review • Pride and Prejudice for me was harder to get into at first. As the book progressed I decided to embrace it instead of hate it so much. I fell in love with Elizabeth Bennetand her morals. The fact that even though she might have been disappointing her mother by not marrying Mr. Collins, she stood her ground and decided she would marry for love rather than marrying for financial security. In the end she gets both and I am a sucker for fairytale endings. This book is a slow read at first but I would recommend it to the love sappy indignant girls. 

7. Sense and Sensibility • Sense and Sensibility is a story about two sisters – Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. When their father dies and their half brother inherit the estate and won’t help them out. Their half brother’s wife Fanny decides that helping them will take away from their son. When Edward Fanny’s brother moves in he starts to become attracted to Elinor. Fanny disapproves of Edward's fondness for Elinor and is so rude that Mrs. Dashwood rents a cottage fortuitously offered to her by her cousin, Sir John Middleton. • When they move to Barton cottage with their mother, Marianne is swept off her feet by a dashing stranger, John Willoughby. John Willoughby and Marianne are soon inseparable and fall in love, but John Willoughby leaves unexpectedly. Meanwhile, Elinor must mask the love she feels for Edward Ferrars because it is impossible for them to marry. Edward eventually proposes to Elinor after a confusion in which she thinks he was supposed to marry Lucy Steele, but in reality it was his younger brother that will marry her. In the end, everything works out; Elinor gets the man she loves and Marianne finds her own happiness, too. She marries Colonel Brandon an older suitor who loves her dearly.

8. Sense and Sensibility Review • I liked Sense and Sensibility a lot more the Pride and Prejudice. I think I liked it so much because I think I’m emotional like Marianne. I also liked that Elinor didn’t have to silently deal with heartbreak for the rest of her life, because Edward came back. I would recommend this book.

9. Literary Devices • Symbolism is defined as “a literary movement that began in France during the late nineteenth century and advocated the use of highly personal symbols to suggest ideas, emotions, and moods” (Elements of Literature, 1202). In Sense and SensibilityElinorDashwood and Marianne Dashwood are symbols of the title. • Theme is defined as “the central idea or insight of a work of literature” (Elements of Literature, 1202). The themes of these books varied, but one overall theme was marriage. Life was not complete until the character was engaged to be married to the right person. • Irony is defined as “a contrast or discrepancy between expectation and reality, it is the difference between what is said and what is really meant, between what is expected and what really happens, or between what appears to be true and what is really true” (Elements of Literature, 1196).

10. Symbolism • Elinor represents the practical, reasonable nature or “sense” and Marianne represents the romantic, passionate nature or “sensibility”. Elinor is much more liable to look at a situation realistically and use's her head rather than her heart when it comes to love. She carefully thinks about every decision she's going to make before she makes it. “The excellence of his understanding and his principles can be concealed only by that shyness which too often keeps him silent. You know enough of him to do justice to his solid worth. But of his minute propensities, as you call them, you have from peculiar circumstances been kept more ignorant than myself. He and I have been at times thrown a good deal together, while you have been wholly engrossed on the most affectionate principle by my mother. I have seen a great deal of him, have studied his sentiments and heard his opinion on subjects of literature and taste; and, upon the whole, I venture to pronounce that his mind is well-informed, his enjoyment of books exceedingly great, his imagination lively, his observation just and correct, and his taste delicate and pure. His abilities in every respect improve as much upon acquaintance as his manners and person.” (Sense and Sensibility, Ch. 4). Even when she falls in love with Edward she falls in love with him because he has the correct qualities and not just because she is in love, there is no real infatuation. While Elinor is thinking before she acts on anything, Marianne is wildly listening to her heart and acting on her feelings. Marianne is often impulsive and discloses her emotions to everyone and is often seen laughing or crying. “Marianne Dashwood was born to an extraordinary fate. She was born to discover the falsehood of her own opinions, and to counteract, by her conduct, her most favorite maxims. She was born to overcome an affection formed so late in life as at seventeen, and with no sentiment superior to strong esteem and lively friendship, voluntarily to give her hand to another!” (Sense and Sensibility, Ch. 50)

11. Theme • Mrs. Bennet had a lot to do with this theme; all she wanted to do was marry her daughters off to wealthy men. When Mr. Bingley moved in all that was on Mrs. Bennet’s mind was the possibility of one of her daughters marrying him. Within just marriage there was the divergence of whether to marry for love or money. Jane through the book is in love with Mr. Bingley and marries him because she loves him. Charlotte, Elizabeth’s best friend marries for financial security. Lydia the youngest of the sisters is the first to get married, she eloped with a man that she barely knew, and was too young to see the difference between marrying for love and wealth. Elizabeth has the on the other hand had a chance to marry for financial reason and chose not to because she wanted to be in love with someone before she chose to spend the rest of her life with them. “It was a long time before she became at all reconciled to the idea of so unsuitable a match. The strangeness of Mr. Collins's making two offers of marriage within three days was nothing in comparison of his being now accepted. She had always felt that Charlotte's opinion of matrimony was not exactly like her own, but she had not supposed it to be possible that, when called into action, she would have sacrificed every better feeling to worldly advantage. Charlotte the wife of Mr. Collins was a most humiliating picture! And to the pang of a friend disgracing herself and sunk in her esteem, was added the distressing conviction that it was impossible for that friend to be tolerably happy in the lot she had chosen” (Pride and Prejudice, Ch. 22). This shows that Elizabeth and Charlotte thought different of marriage.

12. Irony • Mrs. Bennet’s main goal is to marry her daughters off and when Elizabeth is proposed to by Mr. Collins she says no, disobeying her mother’s wishes. It is ironic because most girls want to please their mothers and would do just about anything to please them. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy is an ironic couple. Mr. Darcy initially snubs Elizabeth when she asks him to dance at the ball, but then without realizing it falls for her. Then when he proposes to her Elizabeth is expected to subdue her hatred for him. The ironic part is that through all the bad that happened between them and all the hatred they at one point had for each other was overcome by the feelings they had for each other. One quote that shows irony in Pride and Prejudice is "He then went away, and Miss Bingley was left to all the satisfaction of having forced him to say what gave no one any pain but herself."(Pride and Prejudice, Ch. 3 Vol. III) Miss Bingley, Mr. Bingley’s sister had a thing for Mr. Darcy and was bad mouthing Elizabeth to Mr. Darcy, Mr. Darcy then says what he needs to say about the situation revealing his true feelings for Elizabeth. The irony is that she forced him to say what hurt no one but herself.

13. Works Cited • Anderson, Robert. Elements of Literature: Sixth Course. Austin, TX: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2000. Print. • Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1998. Print. • Austen, Jane. Sense and Sensibility. New York: Knopf, 1992. Print.