Stylistic Influence Of Jean Jacque Rousseau

“In every power, of which taste is the foundation, excellence is pretty fairly divided between the sexes” (Austen Northanger Abbey 22). Is this excellence properly recognized? Are women treated equally according to their excellence? Jane Austen published her opinion on the matter through her novels. Born as the second daughter of eight children on December 16th 1775, Austen was thoroughly educated due to the dedication of her parents towards her education (Mac Adam ix). Austen lived in the transitional period between the Enlightenment and Romantic period; she quickly developed a passion for reading and writing. One Enlightenment thinker in particular, Jean-Jacque Rousseau, had an instrumental role in the outcome of Austen’s works. Rousseau

He was the “first to link stylistic and thematic conventions through the use of highly descriptive language, natural landscape, [and a] nostalgic attitude towards past experiences” (Cohen 2). Austen portrays beautiful landscapes through her novels, as seen in Mansfield Park. Her books are sentimental; many characters experience nostalgia on a daily basis, like Anne Elliot. Austen had an early dependence on this sentimental style developed by Rousseau: “Love and Friendship, Lesley Castle, Lady Susan, and most of the juvenilia are parodies of sentimentalism and, as such, reflects Austen’s early dependence on the sentimental style” (Cohen 2). The characters in these books reflect the values of sentimentalism, along with the common themes associated with them. Austen uses sentimentalism to develop her own style with experience. She ultimately rejects this style, growing independently as a novelist: “a more mature Austen [would] be able to reject Rousseau’s conceptual model through parodic reversal… she could reject Rousseau’s sentimentalism” (Cohen 2). Austen evolved, discarding his literary style through developing her own female roles. Austen abandons Rousseau’s stylistic approach while strengthening her own unique style concerning

He supported a democratic love relationship, but this relationship ends on a class level; Rousseau believed one partner, the man, should be strong, and the woman should be passive in nature (Cohen 3). Class status does not matter in respect to marriage, but gender roles do, according to Rousseau. Austen takes this idea and parodies the notion of gender roles throughout her novels. Austen pokes fun at her society’s ideals in Pride and Prejudice: “it’s a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife” (Austen 1). Austen claims wealthy men desire a spouse to return home to; a final step towards a complete life. This opening of Pride and Prejudice reflects her attitude towards society. This acquired sarcasm, since the novel revolves around women chasing men, not vice versa, takes root from the very beginning of her first major, successful novel. Austen transforms the picaresque genre, “a masculine genre traditionally… [used] to expose, satirize, and thereby ‘deflate’ the gendered conventions and social and political implications that this genre… normally assumes” (Leffel 4). She writes in a genre typically dominated by men, and intends to make an impact in society and the literary world. This displays Austen's lack of fear, revolutionizing writing to defend females. Austen accepts Rousseau’s