Key place: BATH, UK | Jane Austen

Jane Austen is a world-famous writer known for her romantic novels. The love stories are the reason why most people read her books and why there are so many films and TV series based on them. However, that is not the reason why her books are considered brilliant. The descriptions (and somewhat criticism) of 18th century society are as accurate as they are timeless.

Creating stories since a young age, she only took it seriously when she was an adult. However, her sharp eye had been observing and her brain had been taking notes. By the time she wrote her six novels, her hands were ready to write what she had been processing. It is no coincidence that most of her books take place in the countryside or have main characters coming from the countryside: Jane Austen was born and raised in rural Hampshire. She also wrote stories set in Bath, a place where she hated to live. In fact, a few months before she died, she had started to write a new novel about a new SPA village, similar to Bath, as a critique to those people who went to resorts looking to cure imaginary diseases. Unfortunately, she only wrote the first chapter.

Her six novels tell tales of people who are living their lives within their communities until they get to know people from other communities. A kind of clash happens and love is born. However, this love is not possible for different reasons, but it usually revolves around money, prejudices, and social classes. Jane Austen masterly describes their struggles, how other people perceive their love story, and how everyone lives according to their own beliefs (and misjudgement of others). In the meantime, we learn about the drama that property law at the time could cause to families, the consequences of bad marriages, and how people would treat spinsters. There are also dishonest men and women who only want to marry for money. Family pressures their youngest to meet expectations or damages their prospects due to a certain reputation.

However, good people and good deeds are also present. Actually, it’s because of them that love triumphs in the end. Yes, love is strong, endures all difficulties, and overcomes all obstacles. Yet, it does need help and it does need people to defeat their preconceived notions. Maybe that is the message Jane Austen would wish to convey: focus on the essential, drop the absurdity. Nonetheless, she also stresses the importance of money. In fact, in her books, there are couples that married for love, but the lack of money turned that love into resentment.

In a nutshell, love is complicated and society is powerful.

 
The six novels of Jane Austen:

• Sense and Sensibility (published in 1811)
• Pride and Prejudice (published in 1813)
• Mansfield Park (published in 1814)
• Emma (published in 1815)
• Northanger Abbey (published posthumously in 1817)
• Persuasion (published posthumously in 1817)