JANE AUSTEN AS A NOVELIST

Jane Austen wrote out of sheer love of writing without having an eye on popularity or monetary gain. She has often been praised for the silvery perfection of her art. Macaulay has in his journal the entry: "I have now read once again all Miss Austen's novels; charming they are. There are in the world no compositions which approach nearer to perfection." She is perfect because she never strays outside the material and method of her art
Jane's creative range is in some respects a very limited and narrow one. In the first instance it is confined to her portrayal of the gentry class in which she was born and which she knows best. Leonie Villard has rightly pointed out: "The 'gentry,' that class which is essentially proper to English society, holding to the aristocracy as well as to the middle class, and forming a link between them, is not only the class which Jane Austen knows best, it is also the only class that she wishes to know."
Jane further limits herself by taking not a large canvas for her portraiture but selecting only "the little bit of irony (two inches wide)" to work upon. According to her, "3 or 4 Families in a Country Village is the very thing to work on," as she wrote to her niece, the literary Anna. Owing to the fascinating pictures of domestic life portrayed by Austen, her novels are considered the classics of "domes¬tic comedy" novels. She lived through the French Revo¬lution and the Napoleonic Wars, but she does not mention these historic events even once in her novels. There are no adventures, no sensational incidents, and no romantic musings in her novels. There are incidents of elopements such as those of Lydia and Wickham in Pride and Prejudice, or Julia and Henry Crawford in Mansfield Park. They are, however, in no sense romantic affairs but fall in the natural course of events in the story.
Jane Austen's novels deal with commonplace humdrum events of everyday life, in which people do little more than talk to one another about their trivial interests. Life mostly consists of paying Visits, quizzing and speculating about new arrivals, driving to meet relatives or to do shopping, walking in parks, etc. The quiet drama of life that is treated is mostly confined to drawing rooms. That is why Charlotte Bronte regrets that Jane's novels lack the picturesque aspects of external nature for there is "no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck" in her novels. Owing to Jane's preoccupation with ordinary, common¬place events of life, her novels are called "tea-table romances." Walter Scott praised her for her exquisite treatment of ordinary events: "The young lady has a talent for describing the involvements of feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with." He also praises her "...exquisite touch which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters inter¬esting...."
According to Professor Garrod the central situation in Austen's novels is more or less the same, namely, young women in search of husbands. In Somerset Maugham's view, "She wrote very much the same son of story in all her books, and there is no great variety in her characters." Even in the treatment of love Jane is limited in her inability to express impulsive emotions, associated with love, directly and passionately. Charlotte Bronte emphasizes the lack of passions in her novels when she remarks: "She ruffles her reader by nothing vehement, disturbs him by nothing profound. The passions are perfectly unknown to her; she rejects even a speaking acquaintance with that stormy sisterhood." According to George Eliot, Jane
Austen "never penetrated into deeper experience, the powerful and spiritual things of life."
The most important aspect of Jane's narrow range is her comic mode of holding a mirror up to life. She is a comedian and her literary impulse from the beginning to the end, has been humorous. On being asked to write an historical romance by the Prince Regent's librarian, Mr. Clark, she clearly told him that she "could no more write a romance than an epic poem." She could under no condition go beyond her range of the comic vision of life. Most of her successful characters are regular comic char¬acter-parts like Mrs. Bennet and Mr. Collins.
Within her narrow range Austen is among the greatest literary artists, the greatest "artificers" of fiction. Her picture of life is "a delicate water-colour to put beside the more vigorous oil-painting of Fielding." Her work is that of a miniaturist or illuminator. According to Charlotte Bronte "There is a Chinese fidelity, a miniature delicacy in the painting" of life by Austen. Like a true artist Jane holds to the classical ideal, "nothing in excess; everything in its proper proportion." She, however, conceals the effort of her creative activity so well that her work seems absolutely spontaneous and natural, almost a free outburst. Her own conception of a perfect novel as given in Northanger Abbey is "a work in which the greatest powers of mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowl¬edge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language."
Professor Garrod's remark that Jane Austen is inca¬pable of writing a story refers to her inability of narrating sensational and exciting happenings. In fact, such a se¬quence of happenings was beyond her range. But, even while dealing with commonplace events of life, she goes on manipulating relationships among characters by giving twists to them in such a way as always keeps the reader in suspense. The story of the struggle of mutual attraction against mutual repulsion of Darcy and Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice, passes through" such situations as keeps the readers eager to know the next development, till the end. Jane Austen also anticipates Henry James* favourite tech¬nique of telling the story not as the author perceives it, but as one of the characters in the story perceives it. This device helps to eliminate the frequent intrusions of the author, which break the illusion of reality and make the novel rambling and loose in form. The story of Pride and Prejudice is narrated from the point of view of Elizabeth.
All of Jane Austen's novels are meticulously inte¬grated. There is not a character or incident that does not make its necessary contribution to the development of the plot. Structurally her novels belong to that type of the "dramatic novel" in which the hiatus between the charac¬ters and the plot disappears. The given qualities of the characters determine the action, and the action in turn progressively changes the characters, and thus everything is borne forward to an end. In Pride and Prejudice, the pride of Darcy and prejudice of Elizabeth give rise to action which in its turn brings about a change in them. Darcy discards his pride and Elizabeth her prejudice and thus the hero and the heroine are finally united. Baker divides the plot of Pride and Prejudice into five acts of high comedy corresponding with the five stages of situa¬tion at the beginning, development of conflict, climax in the middle of the plot, followed by the decline of conflict and final resolution. In the novel the climax is reached when Darcy's proposal is rejected by Elizabeth.
Austen's skill to fuse together good and bad in her characters in the same proportion as is found in nature makes them real and life-like. She has an unerring eye for the outward idiosyncrasies of her characters, their manner, their charm and their tricks of speech. Her characters are therefore so much individualized that each is different from the other. In Macaulay's view she approaches nearest to the manner of Shakespeare in this respect. He says: "she has given us a multitude of characters, all, in a certain sense, commonplace, all such as we meet everyday, yet they are all as perfectly discriminated from each other as if they were the most eccentric of human beings."
Austen has a deep psychological insight which enables her to correlate the surface peculiarities of her characters with their inner nature. She also reveals a keen insight into the processes of the heart and the hidden internal workings of the minds of her characters. These hidden tumults of heart often bring about changes in her characters. Austen's characters are, therefore, not static or flat but well-rounded and vibrant Being embodiments of essential human na¬ture, her characters transcend the bounds of time, to become figures of as timeless and universal a significance as the pilgrims of Chaucer.
What makes Jane Austen a source of perennial interest is the all - pervading presence of humour and irony in her stories. It is the irradiating spark of humour that enlivens her commonplace subject matter and gives to her novels their exhilarating charm. But she never ridicules "what is wiser or good." "Follies and nonsense, whims and incon¬sistencies" (Chapter XI) divert her and she laughs at them. In Pride and Prejudice, Mrs. Bennet and Mr. Collins arc constantly the source of laughter because of their vulgarity and mean understanding. Mr. Bennet misses no opportu¬nity of amusing himself at their cost. Mr.'Collins' foolish display of self-importance and humility and his pompous proposal to Elizabeth are also full of great fun and laughter.
Jane Austen's humour is quiet and delicate. She never exaggerates the fun. Her sense of ridicule is proportioned to the follies which divert her. Her humour is cultivated and genial; it is the humour of an observer — of a refined, satisfied observer — rather than the humour of a reformer. This is why even her satire is mild and genial, and often tinged with irony. When Lydia in Pride and Prejudice suggests to her mother that the family visit her for she can get husbands for her sisters easily there, Elizabeth remarks: "I thank you for my share of the favour; but I do not particularly like your way of getting husbands".
Irony is the most important element of Jane's comic vision. According to Professor Chevalier, "the basic fea¬ture of every irony is a contrast between a reality and an appearance." While "verbal irony" shows the contrast between the apparent meaning of a statement and its real meaning, "situational irony" provides the contrast between the expectation and fulfillment of a situation. "Irony of character" presents the contrast between appearance and reality of characters. Irony is at play continually and all through Pride and Prejudice. All the characters do the opposite of what they wish to do and experience the opposite of what they and others expect them to experi¬ence. Darcy and Wickham are the impressive examples of the irony of character. Elizabeth who describes Wickham as "the most agreeable man I ever saw" and considers Darcy to be "the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry", has to revise her opinion soon to her great mental agony Darcy, who at first sight finds Elizabeth "not handsome enough to tempt me", later on describes her "as one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance". He in good faith tries to prevent his friend Bingley from marrying a Bennet girl, but marries one himself. Mrs. Rennet thinks Darcy to be the most disagreeable man in the world, but soon after goes "distracted" with delight when she hears he is to be her son-in-law. She takes Elizabeth to her husband so that he may persuade her to marry Mr. Collins, but Mr. Bennet instead tells Elizabeth: "An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents — your mother will never see you if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do".
Jane Austen is undoubtedly one of the great prose stylists among prose writers in English. She uses proper and apt words and her sentences are balanced, clear, precise, and simple, yet refined and lively. Though she sometimes uses archaisms and stilted diction, her dia¬logues are very natural and suited to her characters. Dr. Chapman calls her "one of the most accurate writers of dialogue of her own or any age."
Jane Austen's moral-realistic vision, the perfection of her art, her sparkling humour and irony, her skill in framing compact plots and natural dialogues, and portray¬ing living characters, and the universal significance of her stories — all contribute to making her in the words of David Cecil "one of the supreme novelists of the world."