Jane Austen [ Art and Literature ]
… Austen’s experience at the same time while making evident disparities in social position, particularly for a young woman with little money. Where her fictional heroines find husbands amongst their dancing partners, Austen herself … Press, 2011), I.287. Despite the social and economic limitations which circumscribed her independence as a single woman, Austen took advantage of opportunities to observe the changing world around her. She resided five years in the … power dynamic inherent in the dance of courtship: for as in marriage as at a ball, ‘man has the advantage of choice, woman only the power of refusal’ ( NA , I.x.74). The young lady who turns down a potential partner, as Elizabeth Bennet …
Courtship | Fiction | Gender | Public sphere
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