Jane Austen is Vexed

Beneath the romantic stories of love and longing surges an undercurrent of frustration and anger over the many ways in which women were dismissed and discarded by society during Jane Austen’s life.  The loss of patriarchal protection and looming poverty was a shadow hiding in the corner waiting to emerge in her own life and her vexation springs forth through the plights of her characters.  As Jane wrote in a letter to Fanny Knight, “Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor –...