The Study On Elder Female Images In Jane Austen’s Novels

Viewed from the development history of feminist consciousness in British literature, Jane Austen’s appearance is impressive. In her creative works, Jane Austen always paid close attention to the destiny of females, pushed females without speaking right and in a marginalized situation for a long time onto the backstage, and took female issues as the theme of creation. As a woman writer with the awareness of social responsibility, Jane Austen interpreted her unique understanding of feminist consciousness through vivid love and marriage stories in her works, especially a series of activities developed by those young ladies with distinctive personalities for the purpose of getting rid of their repressed situation. Compared with glamorous young heroines, those elder females with lost youth and old appearance are not central figures, but they are still indispensable roles in the "kingdom of females" in Jane Austen’s works. These elder females are also served as media used by Jane Austen to express her feminist consciousness.The following five categories of image constitute the group image of elder females in Jane Austen’s works:unemployed and mediocre mothers, snobbish and vainglorious ladies, gossipy and meddlesome single women, selfish and boring wives, and female elders with perfect personality. Respective marriage and life experiences of the five categories of elder females in her works reflect various dilemmas of middle class women in the family and the society in Britain at that time, and express Jane Austen’s deep solicitude and sympathy for the lives of women at that time. Jane Austen cared about women’s economic status in both family and society. She reflected on the evil consequence caused by utilitarian female accomplishment education at that time to women. On this basis, Jane Austen further decomposed male myths, criticized the patriarchal society, and called for female intelligence and independent personality. Impressed by various dilemmas of females and her own winding emotional experiences, Jane Austen greatly rejected and distrusted marriage. With both beauty and talent, Jane Austen chose to be single all her life.Characterization is always one feature of Jane Austen’s creation of novels. In her novels, elder females with completely different characters also share some similarities while having unique characteristics:as "roles", they are all "flat characters". However, they also trend to be "round characters". While moulding them, Jane Austen also criticized them. However, Jane Austen also expressed great tolerance toward them. This makes them to become images with diversified characters and advantages & disadvantages at the same time. As "actants", they play an important role in promoting the plot of novel. From them, we can explore for reasons for the popularity of Jane Austen’s personal writing.