| Though men populate the pages of Jane Austen's novels, her interest is not in a male world. This dissertation argues that the central theme of Austen's oeuvre is not marriage, but the bonds forged within female same-sex networks: the three kinds of friendships in which Austen's heroines engage---defined by ties of blood, surrogate kinship, or circumstance---ease them into heterosexual society while allowing them to challenge some of the institutions and conventions that define women as nonentities. Ranging from devotion to manipulation, the three types of friendships present in Austen's six published novels allow the heroines to experience both supportive understanding and competitive hostility in a safe environment. This work argues that the attachment between each protagonist and another woman promotes a strong sense of identity that allows her to enter into the larger society surrounding her female world from a position of strength through marriage---the heroine's only venue of social recognition, visibility, and success. Here, I contend that Jane Austen's novels portray friendships between women as the strongest source of female identity because the self-awareness they advance allows the heroine to resist her culture's unwillingness to acknowledge her as a moral and intellectual agent. |
