| This study examines the development of Jane Austen's moral and social vision. The questions of perception and right action are intertwined throughout the novels. But as Austen's view of human interaction grows more complex, taking into account more variables, she comes to question the extent to which an individual may exercise control over his life. In her treatment of character, Austen reveals a progressively greater awareness of the numerous factors that influence behavior--both consciously and unconsciously--and of a distorting subjectivity on the part of even the most perceptive individual. In the later novels, qualifications upon the heroine's subjective view of the action are more subtle and pervasive, and formerly clearcut distinctions between authoritative narrative commentary and the partial and limited views of the heroines become blurred. The faulty perception that seems traceable in the early novels to deliberate attempts at deception and a particular error on the part of the heroines is recognized in Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion as an inescapable condition of existence. Fanny Price, Emma Woodhouse, and Anne Elliot are not vouchsafed the complete illumination still possible for the heroine of Pride and Prejudice.;In the Chawton novels, the social backdrop against which the main action occurs is filled out in greater detail, and the involved web of interrelationships is more and more the focus of Austen's attention. Physical setting becomes an integral part of the novels and serves to stress the influence of both the social and moral climates. The harsh realities of life and the element of chance gain greater emphasis. With the appearance of Henry Crawford in Mansfield Park, villainy grows less melodramatic and more insidious. The novels after Pride and Prejudice continue to end happily for the heroines, but the dangers narrowly avoided by Fanny Price, Emma Woodhouse, and Anne Elliot are made more vivid, and the existence of others less fortunate obtrudes painfully. In Mansfield Park, Austen leans toward a deterministic view, but in the novels that follow she refrains from probing analysis and softens her judgments of human conduct somewhat. Austen's stance has become more speculative and cautious. |
