who was Jane Austen give any two features of her novel?
Answers
Jane Austen is among the high rank English novelists, though she had written only six novels and the seventh novel remained unfinished because she died before finishing it. Her chief characteristics are as follows:
She is a realist who shows her materials from actual life. Her stories are perfectly convincing. There is nothing artificial or fanciful in them. She depicts the social life in her novels.
Her Principal Theme is marriage. She is occupied with the business of making marriages of her heroines. Generally, the heroine, after a few false starts, meets the right man through Morning calls, dinner parties, dances, shopping expeditions, weddings. And these features are also the main parts of her novels.
She is humorist and her favourite weapon is irony. She shows the absurdities and failings of her characters. Irony can perfectly seen from the words of Mr. Bennet when he introduces Mr. Wickham to his guests. She has a comedian's attitude to life, and her vision is ironical and satirical. But, her humour is of mild type. It may be noted also that there is little malice in her attitude, though a note of bitterness sometimes comes into her view.
Jane Austen gives us many character-portraits. She shows a grasp of the human mind and human motives, and reveals these with great skill. She is not only concerned with the externals of character, but also with a psychological portrayal of it. Her studies of women are more successful than those of men. Jane Austen portrays the character of Elizabeth Bennet with so much perfection that many critics of her novels fall in love with her. And even in the modern age, Elizabeth Bennet is among the famous female characters of English Literature. Another feature about these novels is that there are no villains in them. The greatest villiany is elopement.
There are few dramatic or melodramatic incidents in her stories. We donot find any tragic or heart-rending situations. She deals principally with the comic side of life, not the painful side.
Jane Austen does not show any hidden messages in her novels and she does not show any allegory in her novels. All the things are on the surface and the theme of love and marriage dominate her novels.
Her range is extremely limited. She deals with a narrow mode of existence, and does not even show much interest in external nature. She excludes much of human life from her novels, because she does not have imagination enough to see beyond her canvas. But within her narrow range she is supreme. Her characters are true to life, and all her work shows perfection.