Defiance Through Romance

How Romance Novels Turned Jane Austen Into a Feminist Leader

By Sam Minhas

When people think of Jane Austen, they tend to think of picturesque balls and dramatic professions of love, but what if I told you her legacy is so much more than just that? Let's take a look at one of her most popular novels, Pride and Prejudice. On the outside, it simply seems like a romance novel about two people overcoming their own biases and falling in love with each other. Though that is the main crux of the novel, there is another, often overlooked, element: empowerment. Austen's works were mainly used to criticize privileged, societal classes. As a result, her readers were empowered to do the same.

Pride and Prejudice was released in 1813; a time when women's lives were decided for them. The main character, Elizabeth Bennett, is the complete opposite of what a woman should be for that era. She's opinionated, outspoken, and she does not let anybody walk over her. In fact, she even goes as far as to turn down two proposals from men of higher statuses and tells off Lady Catherine de Bourgh for trying to control her future. Is Elizabeth punished for her actions? Not really. At the end of the story, she gets to fulfill her dream of having a love marriage and marries the ultra-rich Mr. Darcy. Having a main character take charge of her own life, in a time when women were condemned for doing so, while still getting her happy ending is huge. For the first time, the women reading were given space to start entertaining ideas of autonomy.

We can learn a lot from Jane Austen. She utilized the power of her pen to defy a world that was made to silence her. In Pride and Prejudice, she critiques the fact that women needed to be attached to a man in order to have the semblance of rights. In some of her other novels, like Emma, she openly mocks the upper, bourgeoisie class. Her, for lack of a better word, audacity is what has cemented her legacy as a powerful, feminist author.

Austen teaches us that in order to become a true leader, we need to go against the grain. Being a leader means breaking societal norms, even if it means out-casting yourself in the process. It means taking ownership of your life, even if everyone is telling you to do otherwise. So, the next time you're hesitant about asserting yourself, take a page out of Jane Austen's book and speak up anyways.