Stuff About Books and Literature

Hysterical was one of the most common descriptions given to middle-class women and above in the nineteenth century. Throughout classic literature, you will notice that panic-stricken and over excited type female characters appear frequently.  Elizabeth Bennet, Jane Austen’s protagonist, in Pride and Prejudice behaves rationally, in contrast to women like her frantic mother and her flighty younger sister Lydia. Despite her childhood experiences, Charlotte Bronte’s governess, Jane Eyre,  is a level-headed young woman  in contrast to Bertha Antoinetta Mason - the hysterical first wife of Mr. Rochester who has been incarcerated in the attic.  Hysterical women - image by vassiliki If you can’t shut women up – lock them up, it seems. Hysteria was viewed as a women’s disease and possessing an immature personality was partly to blame. American culture defined hysteria as a neurosis or a character disorder, since it was thought that women, fearful of their own sex...

Jane Austen collection - photo by Thalita Carvalho Jane Austen (1775 -1817) was born into a large, well-educated family of eight children and lived in Steventon, Hampshire, where her father was a clergyman. Austen was schooled at home like most girls of that time. Her first draft of   Pride and Prejudice , then entitled,   First Impressions , was not accepted for publication. However, refusing to be discouraged, she continued to write and her novel   Pride and Prejudice   was finally published in 1813. Jane Austen chose to use her own experiences throughout her novels, using the point of view of a woman living amongst the high-society but coming from a non-affluent family. Therefore, her novels tend to revolve around the lives of the English upper class society, consequently,   Pride and Prejudice   is classed as a realistic novel. However, through   Pride and Prejudice , Austen not only emphasises and criticises her knowledge of the imp...