Book Thoughts: Austen's Characters Read!

One of the questions my profressor, Dr. Kendrick, asked during our Jane Austen class began like this..."The 18th century saw a controversy regarding the reading of novels, especially by women  (and it's interesting that the number of female novelists increased exponentially during this time as well).  Novels were considered by many to be "low" forms of entertainment that enticed women to abandon virtue.  However, Zlotnick believes that this novel ". . . offer[s] an alternative vision, in which wise and judicious female reading emerges as a possible antidote to female victimization"." 

Here are some of my thoughts on Austen's take of the reading habits of women:

The reading habits of Catherine, Isabella, and Eleanor support Zlotnick’s support of the idea that wise female reading may be an antidote to female victimization.  In the case of Catherine Moreland her reading of Gothic novels allows her to read of heroines that have more spirit than the men in the novels, how to navigate in her social world, how to act for herself, and to become an amateur detective in the Tilney household.  She has for the most part avoided reading history (written in this time by male quthors with a view toward repressing females) and so her thinking has been guided more by thoughts of successful feminism than depressing male suppression.  She becomes a voluntary spy through imaginative thinking and her ability to think for herself and to take action on those thoughts (as when she opens the chest in her bedroom).  She believes she has the right to make her own choices, which intrigues Henry.  

Isabella’s reading also focuses on novels.  In her case, she learns to parrot back the words of what she believes eligible bachelors want a marriageable girl to be (the heroine), even though those words are for the most part the opposite of her true characteristics.  She believes that wealth is her ticket to freedom, at least to freedom of choice.  Like the world of commerce around her she tries to trade one man, James Thorpe, for another, Frederick Tilney, because he has greater wealth.  However, she does not realize that the men around her do not value or appreciate a woman who applies market values to them.  She believes that she not only has the right to make choices but that she has the right to trade her choices.  She is not successful in the marriage market and loses both men and her chances for marriage for the time being.

Eleanor mainly reads history books by male authors and her thoughts are thus shaped by a sense of women’s lack of value.  She feels immobilized by her reading.  She is less proactive than Catherine or Isabella and is content to let the men in her world – at this time her father and her brother – make choices for her.  Although she is well-educated she does not have the spirit to act on her education or to imagine a future different than what women before her have held.   This is where we see a great difference between the novel-reading of Catherine (often written by females) and the historical-reading (mostly written by males) of Eleanor.  She does not believe she can make her own choices.   Eleanor is successful in the marriage market only because her suitor becomes socially and financially acceptable, not because she has played a role in making any choices.