Jane Austen was an author who lived through an extremely difficult time for women, especially those who liked to challenge the natural roles provided by society. Austen's work was full of satire, irony, parody, and feminist qualities that had caused something of a controversy among her readers. With all these qualities, and during the Regency era, Jane Austen must have been courageous in poking fun at the upper class and normal social roles of the time. Austen was an experimental author and paved the way for countless other artists, and will always be remembered as one of the greats known for her challenge to society. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Little is known about Jane Austen herself. We know that he died relatively young, lived for a time with his brothers, his father was a priest and he never married. His upbringing begs the question of where his satirical point of view originated. Jane Austen was not very wealthy growing up, and therefore experienced and witnessed mistreatment. His father was a priest and did not earn much money, while his mother also did not come from a wealthy family. Jane spent most of her time at home and this is where her passion for literature began. “Early on in her reading experience Jane Austen became obsessively interested in the form and language of the novel and her relationship with her readers (Mary Waldron, Jane Austen and the Fiction of her Time, 16). With her newfound knowledge and interest in literature, Jane spent most of her time writing. She began writing at a young age and was apparently very observant as "her youthful writing shows a growing awareness of the economic realities of life for women on the fringes of the nobility, realities that funnel money and lands to men, bypassing women like her mother or herself." It is clear through her writings that Austen must have been bothered by the circumstances in which she lived and the struggles that not only women endured, but also the struggles of those living in poverty. Even from Austen's early writings, she “inserts a series of fashionable fictional stereotypes, often derived from the pomposities of conducted literature as well as fashionable progressive ideas, into a domestic framework that makes them ridiculous and, more importantly, makes them shows how to be repetitive and humiliating” (Mary Waldron, 16). Becoming a published author was not easy for Jane Austen. She risked a lot when she published her novels simply because “publishing one's writings could threaten a woman's reputation as well as her social standing.” Austen could have ruined not only her reputation, but also that of her siblings and parents. Austen's difficult upbringing only fueled her desire to combat social standards in one of the ways most readily available to her: writing a novel. Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice was written in the Regency era. During that era, women were very limited in what they could and could not do. Women were supposed to be “modest, reserved, essentially domestic and private.” Independent women were seen as a threat and would be treated as such. The protagonist of Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet, is considered an independent woman in her time. She is one of the women, if not the only one, in Austen's novel who would not conform to the typical role assigned to her by her society. The novel revolves around the concept of marriage and how it was vitally important for men and women to make their financial alliance. It was “a truthuniversally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife” (Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 3). This quote from Pride and Prejudice makes you assume that men need to find wives to support themselves financially, whereas in the book it seemed much more important for women to find husbands than the other way around. In the novel and film adaptations, it seemed that a woman's only job was to marry a man of higher social status than hers and have a certain set of accomplishments such as singing, mastering languages, playing an instrument, drawing, or whatever. embroidery. “Marriage, of course, was pretty much the only acceptable role for any woman.” Women had to climb the social ladder through marriage, making love a commodity they could not afford. Many women had arranged marriages, arranged by their parents simply so they would no longer be a burden on their families. In addition to emphasizing the importance of marriage in her novel Pride and Prejudice, Austen made her book's protagonist, Elizabeth Bennet, rebel against the standard laws of marriage and courtship. Elizabeth's family was not very wealthy, so when a male suitor showed up and proposed to her and Elizabeth bluntly rejected him, her mother was mortified and angry. He tried to force marriage on Elizabeth, but she would not comply with her mother's wishes. Elizabeth wouldn't have married for anything other than love, which in Austen's time, frankly, wouldn't have worked. Austen also made a bold move by mocking Elizabeth Bennet's cousin, Mr. Collins, who was a clergyman. Mr. Collins was a very awkward, annoying, and conceited character who treated women as if they were objects. Mr. Collins didn't understand women and took the rejection as a sign that he had to work harder to win them over. As you might imagine, some readers of the novel didn't like the portrayal of this particular character, while other readers really liked it. Jane Austen took a chance and her courage paid off. The Critical Review published a review in March 1813 congratulating Austen's novel. “Elizabeth's common sense and conduct are of a higher order than those of the ordinary heroines of romance. For his independence of character, kept within the right line of decorum, and his timely cheerfulness, he teaches the man of Family-Pride to know himself”. Compared to other authors, Jane Austen was considered quite high. The Regency era lasted only ten years, yet many works emerged in this short period of time. Authors during the Regency era focused primarily on romance and social class. Authors and poets such as Percy Bysshe Shelley and William Blake focused on the ideals of love and loss, while Austen focused on social position and parody. The general public seemed to be intrigued by Austen's refreshing new writing style. He brought satire, parody and gender equality to his readers. Jane Austen, however, was not the only woman to express her opinion on gender equality. About twenty years before Austen wrote her first novel, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. “It is commonly believed that Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was greeted with shock, horror and derision when it appeared in early 1792, that the forces of reaction rallied against this courageous attempt to assert the equality of woman and they soaked public opinion. Amazon with its pens”. Thanks to Mary's work, Austen must have had a much easier time publishing her novel,..