This analysis is an examination of the use of Jane Austen quotes on the social networking site Pinterest in order to explore the messages disseminated by the dismantling of Austen’s works. Austen’s novels contain subtle feminist ideals that empower women to find their own unique paths. Pinterest has a large female following and the messages created and shared by women hold importance because they highlight salient values and ideas. The quotes collected were analyzed using a feminist rhetorical method. Questions of whether women were empowered outside the private sphere and encouraged to engage in independent thought guided the analysis. Findings indicated that Austen’s words are removed from context in order to reinforce hegemonic ideas of beauty, love, and intelligence. Women can engage in independent thought and exist outside the home as long as they follow socially prescribed rules that create unattainable standards and contradictory dichotomies.

New forms of digital storytelling directly challenge conventional notions about adaptation by allowing for increased audience participation. Fans today exercise unprecedented levels of influence over how beloved stories are adapted. According to Thomas Leitch, fans have historically influenced certain adaptations by calling for increased fidelity. He refers to these adaptations, which resist the inevitability of infidelity to an unusual degree, as “exceptionally faithful.” Though rare, these efforts at fidelity are typically the result of fan demands. Ultimately, these seemingly faithful adaptations are more faithful to fan expectations than to their original texts. Scholarship is needed on the extensive influence of what I call “fan faithfulness,” particularly in new transmedia adaptations that directly empower fans. This paper seeks to shed light on the problem by first placing itself within the current scholarly conversation on fidelity and then exploring the historical relationship between fan demands and faithfulness. Traditional Jane Austen adaptations, which have so often been exceptionally faithful, will form the cornerstone of this analysis, as will The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, a 2012-2013 serialized YouTube adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. In direct and immediate response to audience demands, this series altered its characters and storylines to accord with fans' belief that Jane Austen was a feminist and that her books echoed that feminism. As The Lizzie Bennet Diaries' dedication to Austen's feminist themes powerfully shows, new transmedia storytelling allows fans unprecedented power in demanding fidelity and deciding what that faithfulness means.

The purpose of this thesis is to take a closer look at Jane Austen’s work and understand the importance of it in both the academic and cultural sphere. With a specific focus on Pride and Prejudice, this research starts with a focus on feminist readings of the novel. Primarily, this research looks at the novel with a feminist lens in order to better understand the female characters and their involvement in the marriage plot. Secondarily, the research goes on to look at the cultural impact of Pride and Prejudice and attempts to understand the ways in which this novel re-appears in different adaptations. Finally, the research suggests that there should be a new way of reading Austen that better fits contemporary society. Despite how far removed Jane Austen’s world may seem, her work remains important and worth studying. This thesis argues in favor of the appreciation of Jane Austen’s work both academically and culturally.

<p>A juxtaposition of Jane Austen's <em>Pride & Prejudice</em> and <em>Persuasion</em>. The two novels are analyzed from a Marxist theoretical perspective.</p>

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Jane Austen Her dialogues and the time in which she lived   This essay is about the dialogues in Jane Austen’s novels and what they say about the time she lived in. The interest for Austen comes from the “Austen movies” I’ve seen the latest year.   AIM AND FRAMING OF QUESTIONS My aim has been to compare the contents in the dialogues with the fact in the biographies. The questions are: What do the dialogues say about the convention, the behaviour, manners and the form of address? What does it say about young men and women and about the marriage? Are the dialogues supported by the content in the biographies? Did Jane Austen really write realistic?   METHOD AND MATERIAL The method was to read the novels and then the biographies. I divided the empiric material in different categories and based it on the fact in the biographies. I have read Sense and sensibility, Pride and prejudice, Mansfield Park and Persuasion. The biographies I have used are for example Valerie Grosvenor Myer’s Obstinate Heart Jane Austen A Biography, Carol Shield’s Jane Austen.   RESULTS I found that the text and the dialogues and contents in Austen’s novels are realistic. She has not made up own rules for convention and behaviour but lets her characters act in a normal way.

La tesi ha per oggetto il romanzo epistolare in Inghilterra nella seconda metà del XVIII secolo, con particolare enfasi sulle opere scritte da donne. Scopo dello studio è dimostrare come Jane Austen, con le sue opere adolescenziali e il suo “Lady Susan”, rappresenti insieme un momento di sintesi e un punto di arrivo del “novel in letters” settecentesco. In particolare due filoni d’analisi convergeranno verso l’opera austeniana: la prima parte, divisa in tre capitoli, affronta brevemente la storia del romanzo epistolare e della figura della “woman novelist”, analizzando l’importanza dell’opera di Samuel Richardson a metà secolo (cap. 1) e di alcune scrittrici settecentesche quali Sarah Fielding, Charlotte Smith e Frances Burney (cap. 2), per concludersi con l’analisi del “periodo d’oro” del romanzo epistolare inglese, che coincide con gli anni ’80 e ’90 del secolo (cap. 3). La seconda parte della dissertazione, divisa in quattro capitoli, affronta in modo più specifico la figura di Jane Austen e il modo in cui essa si inserisce all’interno dello sviluppo dello stile e della fortuna del romanzo epistolare. Dopo una breve autobiografia dell’autrice e uno studio dell’epistolario fra lei e la sorella Cassandra (rispettivamente capp. 4 e 5), allo scopo di dare conto dell’importanza che le lettere ricoprirono nella formazione di Jane Austen, il cap. 6 è dedicato agli Juvenilia, vale a dire alle opere scritte fra i 15 e i 20 anni, mentre il cap. 7 affronta in modo più approfondito l’analisi di “Lady Susan”, romanzo che decreta l’abbandono dello stile epistolare da parte della scrittrice di Steventon. / The dissertation focuses on the epistolary novel in England in the second half of the eighteenth century, particularly on works written by women. The purpose of this study is to understand how Jane Austen (with her early writings and “Lady Susan”) represents both a synthesis of and a turning point in eighteenth-century novels in letters. In particular, two fields of study will converge into the works by Jane Austen: the first part, divided into three chapters, focuses on the importance of Samuel Richardson at the middle of the century (chapter 1) and of some woman writers such as Sarah Fielding, Charlotte Smith and Frances Burney (chapter 2), whereas chapter 3 is dedicated to the “golden period” of the English epistolary novel during the ‘80s and ‘90s. The second part of the dissertation is divided into four chapters and focuses more specifically on Jane Austen’s role within the development of the style and the fortune of the novel in letters. After a short autobiography of the author and an analysis of the correspondence between her and her sister Cassandra (chapters 4 and 5) in order to underline the importance of letters in Jane Austen’s upbringing, chapter 6 is dedicated to the Juvenilia, that is to say the works written between 15 to 20 years of age, while chapter 7 focuses on “Lady Susan”, a novel which represents the renunciation of the epistolary style by the author.

Behandlar den rådande klasstrukturen i Jane Austens Emma och hur de personliga egenskaperna hos ett urval av karaktärerna i romanen ställs mot varandra i en sådan kontext. Argumentet är att trots det faktum att Jane Austen respekterar och bevarar ramarna för klass i detta verk så finns det möjlighet att frångå dessa om det finns tillräckligt med goda personliga egenskaper som väger upp avsaknad av en viss klassbakgrund.

Jane Austens <i>Mansfield Park</i> has earned a reputation as a difficult text for its politically-charged negotiations of ethics and unsatisfactory heroine. Since Edward Said presented the novel as an example of British literature that contributed to an expanding imperialist venture (95), scholarly attention has shifted to focus on the extent to which the novel critically engages with macrocosmic power structures and hegemonic discourse. That is, how does Mansfield Parks description of power dynamics at home reflect slave-related issues in the foreign atmosphere? Austens interest in and familial connections to slave-related issues, contemporary cultural awareness of abolitionist sentiment, and textual allusions to the slave trade all contribute to the novels counterpoint between domestic and foreign spaces: the Bertram family is economically dependent on a slave plantation in Antigua. A microcosm of plantation life, Mansfield Park represents the dilemmas of marginalized women who are presented with choices to rebel against or submit to patriarchal authority. In order to preserve her own physical, emotional, and psychological safety, Fanny Price bids for patriarchal favour. While others are punished severely for their rebellion, Fanny is rewarded for her submissive choices and enjoys an elevated social status. However, she inspires no reformation and remains an unsatisfactory heroine. Like the grateful Negro of contemporary plantation tales, Fanny functions to stabilize the status quo through her gratitude and loyalty, reinforcing societys tightly-controlled boundaries of acceptable behaviour. Mansfield Parks revelatory strength is that it exposes the mechanisms by which power is produced and maintained in domestic and imperial spaces.

Jane Austens <i>Mansfield Park</i> has earned a reputation as a difficult text for its politically-charged negotiations of ethics and unsatisfactory heroine. Since Edward Said presented the novel as an example of British literature that contributed to an expanding imperialist venture (95), scholarly attention has shifted to focus on the extent to which the novel critically engages with macrocosmic power structures and hegemonic discourse. That is, how does Mansfield Parks description of power dynamics at home reflect slave-related issues in the foreign atmosphere? Austens interest in and familial connections to slave-related issues, contemporary cultural awareness of abolitionist sentiment, and textual allusions to the slave trade all contribute to the novels counterpoint between domestic and foreign spaces: the Bertram family is economically dependent on a slave plantation in Antigua. A microcosm of plantation life, Mansfield Park represents the dilemmas of marginalized women who are presented with choices to rebel against or submit to patriarchal authority. In order to preserve her own physical, emotional, and psychological safety, Fanny Price bids for patriarchal favour. While others are punished severely for their rebellion, Fanny is rewarded for her submissive choices and enjoys an elevated social status. However, she inspires no reformation and remains an unsatisfactory heroine. Like the grateful Negro of contemporary plantation tales, Fanny functions to stabilize the status quo through her gratitude and loyalty, reinforcing societys tightly-controlled boundaries of acceptable behaviour. Mansfield Parks revelatory strength is that it exposes the mechanisms by which power is produced and maintained in domestic and imperial spaces.