Jane Austen's Idea Of Female Education In Northanger Abbey

Jane Austen(1775-1817)was born and brought up in a gentry family in eighteenth-century Britain.She read widely and thoughtfully,and was able to form her own idea of education,especially the education of young ladies.In Jane Austen's time,conduct books and Gothic novels were popular;both had important impact on both the principles of female education and the cultivation of women,especially young women.Jane Austen,familiar with the theoretical ideas and literary practices of conduct books and Gothic novels,did not agree.This thesis takes Jane Austen's first novel Northanger Abbey,written at the end of the eighteenth century,as the example to illustrate her liberal and progressive ideas on female education,explain that her ideas of female education and cultivation are essentially different from what conduct books try to promote and from what Gothic novels try to exemplify.By the middle of and certainly the late eighteenth-century,the Enlightenment movement had already firmly established itself in the British society and had impacted strongly the British culture including education and literature.It is clear to me that Austen's idea of female education follows the empirically informed epistemological theory represented by the British Enlightenment philosopher John Locke.That is,knowledge begins with sensory experience,which becomes conceptual knowledge,which is applied in practice,which through further operations of the mind,reaches a new level of conceptual knowledge.This thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter 1 is Introduction in which the general social and cultural background of eighteenth-century Britain is explained.From thence I will show what qualities are expected of young ladies by the society,especially the basic principles and general practice proposed by the mainstream conduct books,and how typical Gothic novels produce such heroines as conform to the guidelines prescribed by the conduct books.I will then explain how Jane Austen differs sharply from the above in theory and practice,how she uses irony and parody in her first-written novel Northanger Abbey to react against the conservative notion of female education by conduct books as well as the ideal image portrayed by Gothic novels.Indeed Austen has designed and depicted the heroine Catherine Morland such as to showcase her unique idea and method on the education of young ladies.Chapter 2 comments on the notions and methods on female education found in representative conduct books of the time,such as Sermons to Young Women(1766)by Scottish Presbyterian minister James Fordyce,and also on the portrayal of heroines and their education seen in representative Gothic novels such as The Romance of the Forest(1791)and The Mysteries of Udolpho(1794)by Ann Radcliffe in accordance to the guidelines of the conduct books.Chapter 3 analyzes Northanger Abbey in light of Jane Austen's idea of female education;the analysis focuses on the shaping of Catherine Morland the heroine,especially on her education in order to show her departure from the model female proposed by conduct books as well as the obvious differences between this heroine and that in the work of Radcliffe in terms of speech,manner,and way of thinking.Chapter 4 summarizes Jane Austen's idea of female education as seen in her maiden work Northanger Abbey.Chapter 5 concludes the analysis by recapitulating the main point of the thesis:that is,Jane Austen's idea of female education is based on Locke's empiricism,for it insists on verifying theory by practice;Jane Austen approves young ladies who are sound in health and mind,who pursue improvement of virtue through continuous social practice.