Jane Austen's Fiction

LOCATION

Hunsford Parsonage and Rosings

Pemberley

Exterior-picnics, gardens, countryside, towns

Interior- including dining rooms, balls, drawing rooms,

Weather

unconventional, powerful, personalities eg Elizabeth, Darcy

juxtapose with 'social' interior personalities like bingley and jane

Represents freedom, space, autonomy, which are appealing to Elizabeth's exterior personality

Patriarchal mansions offering restriction
and suffocation, especially for female exterior characters like Elizabeth,

Weather- e.g. raining, sunny

Seasonal weather patterns , e.g. spring, summer, autumn, winter to reflect the stage of the plot and

Reflects the feminine consciousness

foreshadows events , and they impact on the heroine and the courting couple (sunny, rainy etc)

pathetic fallacy

Emma's realisation of her wrong-doings, and the melancholy state is reflected through the rain

Emma's succesful proposal occurs in the summer sun, happy and positive, foreshadows the success of the proposal and their future together

Walking

Plot device to move story forward

symbolises female empowerment for heroines, as well as characterisation (good, logical, characters, both male and female are walkers)

Idea of 'power structures' in relation to males and females

Oppression, patriarchy

Collins Marriage with Charlotte

Elizabeth's marriage to Darcy

serious pastoral, pastoral romance

Jane Austen as a critical observer of women's issues, and lack of female autonomy... feminist, but to what extent?

weather is often a catalyst for romance

pastoral/ agrarian setting is 'utopia'

objective correlation

travelling-moves plot in different directions, demonstrates a heroine's mobility

Body and power- Michael Foucault (in relation to Anne/Emma/Elizabeth) and possibly the males too

Foucault's Body/Power (heroines have power over their own bodies through walking)