Women in the novels of Miss Fanny Burney, Mrs Charlotte Smith, Mrs Ann Radcliffe and Miss Maria Edgeworth

Abstract

The object of the first chapter is to furnish brief biographies of the four novelists: Fanny Burney, Charlotte Smith, Ann Radcliffe and Maria Edgeworth. It also compares the various influences which went into the creation of their works. They all lived in times when vital social as well as political changes were taking place and these changed were bound to influence their thoughts and consequently their writings. The second chapter deals with the Heroines of these four novelists. An investigation of their characters has been thoroughly dealt with to show how the four authors have projected their ideal of womanhood in them and in doing so how they were governed by the existing conventions and ideas of their times. The third chapter deals with the minor female characters found in their works and in these characters the novelists have openly satirised some aspects of society or some human foible which conflicted with their own sense of propriety and decorum. This chapter extends the range of female characters and through their realistic or idealistic portrayals the novelists have put forth their personal views regarding important social problems of their times. The fourth and last chapter surveys and evaluates this presentation of all the female characters by these four novelists, and shows how these novelists presented a purely feminine point of view in the presentation of their feminine characters. Fanney Burney initiated the novel of manners and presented the life and manners of her society through a purely feminine point of view, Charlotte Smith and Mrs Radcliffe followed suit and the former found the medium of the social novel the right one to air her views regarding certain social conventions which inhibited the women of the eighteenth century society and hindered their progress. Ann Radcliffe under the mantle of mystery and romance nevertheless finds time to satirise some aspects of human behaviour which conflicted with her sense of morality. Maria Edgeworth emancipated her social novel' by completely cutting it off from the sentimental domestic novel. Her purpose was to put forth her didactic views about the role of a truly cultured, refined lady in a dissipated society. Her women are authentic representations of women of her times except for the fact that they don the mantle of morality and have a precise role allotted to them in the novels. Nevertheless she extended the range of feminine characters and pointed a way to Jane Austen towards the creation of young, uninhibited, emancipated women.