Title: Jane Austen Shows her Feminist Side in Emma - Owlcation
Headings: Jane Austen Shows her Feminist Side in Emma
Jane Austen Shows her Feminist Side in Emma
Jane Austen: Conformist or Radical Feminist?
Thoughts on Marriage...
Feminist Critics
Austen's Statement
Works Cited
Comments

Content: However, Emma is in a position where she is independently wealthy. She does not need a man to take care of her financially. She is almost on an equal level with men as far as money is concerned. Here she speaks her mind with the same authority as a man would, choosing to use men’s language rather than keeping silent. This scene shows how Austen chose to make her statement by putting men’s words in Emma’s mouth. Austen is therefore not a conformist, as she is so often viewed. According to Claudia L. Johnson, in her book Jane Austen Women, Politics, and the Novel,
If Austen enters the canon because she seemed to deny or devalue her authority, Emma has been the heroine critics have loved to scold… Emma is often charged with the same transgressions – being ‘arrogant, self-important, and controlling’ or ‘narcissistic and perfectionist’ – from which critics diligently attempted to exempt Austen… (Johnson 122). The American feminist critics take a broader approach. Some even base their criticism on “nonfeminist disciplines,” such as Marxism or psychoanalysis (Peterson 334). In general, Americans look at text from a female perspective, and attempt to bring unknown women writers to the forefront.