Moral Education in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park.

Abstract:

Jane Austen wrote her novels over two hundred years ago. Today many people, especially women, are still affected by them and her characters. She has become famous through her romantic novels where she writes about young women during the late 18^th century who spend their days drinking tea and socializing in order to find a man, marry him and live happily ever after. Even though Austen writes romance and her novels remind the reader of fairy tales, she also focuses on presenting important passages and events that occur in these young women’s lives.

Many of the novels Austen has written have features of a so-called Bildungsroman; a

novel about education which refers to a character’s growth and self-development. The structure of a Bildungsroman often includes the main character, the protagonist, going on a long journey or quest in search of the meaning of life. In this essay I will analyse the heroine’s education in Austen’s two novels Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park and how Austen educates the reader with these novels.

The purpose of this essay is to show that the heroines in Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park under a long period of time receive moral education through different people and events during their lives. However, it is not only the characters that are educated, my opinion is that the reader is educated as well. Both the reader and the heroines are taught that happiness can only be achieved by good education and high moral standards. I will use some of the features of a Bildungsroman, such as journey, self-development, obstacles and maturity and by examining these features in the novels, I will support my thesis.