Reading of Jane Austen(TM)s short stories Essay Example for Free

Reading of Jane Austen(TM)s short stories Essay From a reading of Jane Austens short stories what do we learn about womens lives in the late eighteenth century? In Jane Austens a collection of short stories Love and Friendship, she shows us the lives of women in the late eighteenth century, and what they have to deal with. These short stories are written in epistolary (letter) form between women who were friends at the time, these letters show us what their lives were about and what was considered to be important to them. Jane Austen writes about marriage, status, personal views and the attitude to what she saw, she also uses humour in her letters showing us how shallow women were in that time. For young women in the late eighteenth century marriage was very important and a woman who did not get married was considered worthless, all women were expected to get married. There were many important reasons to get married for a woman living in this time, the most important reason being having money. If a woman had no money she would be considered as having a bad status, because women when they were with their parents had no possession of their own. In the three sisters Mary is not sure about marrying Mr Watts she does not like him but she still considers marring him because he has a lot of money. He has a large fortune and will make great settlements on me. I hate him more than anybody else in the world. This shows us the amount of money he has is more important than the relationship and how happy they will be together. She decides to marry him if he will give her all she wants, this shows us how shallow the women could be and what they will do for possessions, she demands a new carriage hung as high as the Duttons, and blue spotted with silver; and I shall expect a new saddle horse, a suit of fine lace, and an infinite number of the most fine jewelsmust always let me do just as I please and make a very good husband. This shows us all the things she expects to get in marring him they are all but one material goods. This shows us that women in the eighteenth century were very much focused on marriage and how much money they could get out of it. If a woman did not get married she would either have to live with her mother or a paid female companion. Another alternative was to be a governess to a wealthy family; this was not a good thing to be because you would be treated a little better than a servant, they would neither be on the same level as the servants or the family. Young women in the late eighteenth century were considered well educated if they had plenty of accomplishment, these were things like sewing, singing, reading and entertaining their guests at a dinner party. In Lesley Castle, Margaret Lesley was writing to Charlotte Lutterell tell her what they did to pass the time in Scotland and what they do is we read, we work, we walk and when fatigued with these employments we relieve our spirits, either by a lively song, a graceful dance or by some smart bon-mot and witty repartee. This shows us that they did not do any challenging or intelligent type of work. The women in the late 18th century were also polite this shows us that this mattered in this time; we can see they are polite because they write long pleasant letters to each other. Lesley Castle demonstrates that it is important to have accomplishments in this time and it allowed them to get into a good marriage which was the most important thing in a young ladys life in the late eighteenth century. Not many girls of the time attended school but the few that did attended boarding school, would not learn to be clever they would only learn things like sewing and singing. Margaret Lesley and Charlotte Lutterell both went to boarding school together, it is four years since my removal from school. School was mostly for boys, some girls went to boarding school but the education was not very good because they did not need lessons and the teachers did not know what to teach them. Women in the late eighteenth century did not own anything or have any property for themselves. A womans inheritance would be given to a distant male relative the woman would never be given the whole of the money. The only way women could get money was through marriage, Mary only wants to marry Mr Watts because he has a large fortune and will make great settlements on me. She also expects the pinmoney; two hundred a year. Which Mr Watts only want to be a hundred and seventy-five. When Mary agrees to marry Mr Watts she expects him to build her an elegant greenhouse and stock it with plants a room on purpose and a theatre to act plays in. she also expects to be allow out of the house all the time she insists on spending every Winter in Bath, every Spring in town, every summer in taking some Tour, and every Autumn at a watering place. Marys mother is set on not letting such an opportunity escape of settling one of my daughters so advantageously. This shows us that money was not only important to the woman but also important to the rest of their family, to ensure that the family would stay with money. It would also be in a mans interest to marry someone with lots of money because some of the family money would be given to him for marring into the family. Marriage was based on material goods not on a relationship. If you did not marry you would have no money and possessions you could have from your father. In Lesley castle Charlotte Lutterell is worried what will happen if by this second marriage sir George should have a second family, our fortunes must be considerably diminished those jewels which once adorned our mother Matilda would no longer sit at the head of her fathers table. This shows us how easy it is to loose money and financial security. Female friendship in the late 18th century come over as shallow, because they are always judging each other Margaret Lesley calls her mother-in-law an insignificant dwarf. Where their mother-in-law Susan Lesley calls Margaret and Matilda scotch giants and continues I am sure they would frighten you out of your wits. This show us that women in the 18th century judge each other and think they look better than each other. There is also a lot of rivalry between friends Mary in The Three Sisters, says how I will triumph over the Duttons and the two families were friends; this shows us that was even rivalry between friends and even though they were nice to them to their faces they were horrible behind peoples backs. Manners and etiquette were more important than actual friendship; Susan Lesley and Charlotte Lutterell are only friends even though they are feed up with each other because she is too polite and I am too civil to say they still write letters which are still as frequent and as affectionate. This show us that women in the late eighteenth century are very selfish, and their lives were very shallow. We have learnt from reading Jane Austens short stories that women in the late eighteenth century had very little choice to what they could do because they had to marry to ensure that they would still have enough money to live. Life in the late eighteenth century for women was very much everyone out for themselves and they all had to fight over having a rich man and material goods better than everyone elses. Jane Austen did not like living in this time we can tell this because of the humour she uses with the women to show how important money was to them in The Three Sister Mary is very indecisive whether she should marry Mr Watts or not. Today we find it hard to compare with how they lived in the late eighteenth century because it is so different to how we live now. I am glad that we live in a society today which is more accepting to women and how both male and female should be treated the same. I also believe that Jane Austen would prefer to live in the society that we live in today because Jane Austen always humours the women in her collection of short stories.