Jane Austen’s power girls

Some of the ‘elegant females’ wield power. Some are downright dangerous.

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Hello friends,

As this post hits your inbox on a difficult day for headlines, we want to say: Be well. Take care of yourself and those close to you.

And on a day like today we’re with Fanny Price; Cry, cry, and cry some more. The world, as we’ve said before, can be a chamber of horrors. Crying is an appropriate response, and so is vexation, and rage. And powerlessness. 

Powerlessness is not terrible if you are awake to it and work to eradicate it. It can even, Austen seems to show through Fanny Price, be more worthy of us than misused and abused power.

And this brings us to today’s post - about power, powerlessness, our relationships, and society, all of which are also in the headlines on any given day. 

Young, powerful heroines are a rarity in Jane Austen and in the Regency - but worldly power is exhibited in Emma Woodhouse, portrayed by Anya Taylor-Joy in Autumn de Wilde’s 2020 film adaptation of ‘EMMA’, and in Miss Georgiana Lambe, portrayed by Crystal Clarke in the PBS series ‘Sanditon’. Top photo: Focus Features; bottom photo: PBS Masterpiece

There are many ways that the stories of Jane Austen celebrate inner power, as opposed to the arbitrary kind that comes with titles, money, and property that so many of her heroines and heroes have to navigate the world without.

But this post is about the rare instances where people identifying as female in Austen actually have those worldly sources of power. And it’s about what they do with it. By looking closely at this we get insights into not only power but the promise that can come from powerlessness.

Sometimes we hear that Regency women held no power. But as Dr. Octavia Cox points out on one of her (amazing!) YouTube lectures, not only did some Regency women have power, but powerful women can be found even within the novels of Jane Austen. 

The most fascinating examples are women whose wealth and property give them not only freedom from dependency on others, but also allows them to wield that power like a weapon over everyone else, with interesting consequences. And these power women bring some interesting insights about power and society - who has it, what they do with it, and what the impact is for family and country and culture. 

And! Not only this, but also there are some fascinating examples within the Regency era of women who are self-made, who turn powerlessness into power: Women like Dorothy Kirwan Thomas, the subject of Vanessa Riley’s historic romance Island Queen. And memoirist Harriette Wilson, name-checked in Adrian Lukis’s one-man performance “Being Mr. Wickham” and also by Robert Morrison in his book The Regency Years - to name just two.

But as far as we can see (and let us know if we’re missing something, friends!) the powerful women of Jane Austen’s world gain their power and wealth from either marriage or inheritance. 

Here’s our initial inventory of powerful women of Austen, and what it all means for us when it comes to agency, powerlessness, family, culture - it’s a lot, and it’s all here in Austen. Enjoy. 

Lady Catherine: extraordinary talents and miraculous virtue. Not. 

First up: Our favorite meme-queen Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and also coming in for a close second is your fave Mrs. Ferrars, the most horrifying mother-in-law in literary history.

Both are rich. Both are powerful. Both are seriously bad news. 

While these grand ladies are awe-inspiring and awful in their tone and actions, it’s fun to look at what Austen’s narration in the story actually says about them. When you look closely at these passages, it takes the sting out of their bites in ways that are easily overlooked - and also funny!

Austen’s narration in Pride and Prejudice actually puts Lady Catherine in her proper place before we even meet her.

As the Collins party with Lizzy approach Lady Catherine’s grand estate of Rosings, with Maria Lucas worried about her clothes and Mr. Collins making everyone feel even more tense by everything he says, Elizabeth actually decides she’s not that bothered. And she internally voices these sensible, meritocratic thoughts:

“She had heard nothing of Lady Catherine that spoke her awful from any extraordinary talents or miraculous virtue, and the mere stateliness of money and rank, she thought she could witness without trepidation.”

Rank Schmank, says Lizzy. Nothing to fear here, friends. 

Except that of course there is plenty to fear here. It is what makes the world go round, it is what empowers people to enact all kinds of Regency-special cruelties, and Elizabeth is going to get a big fill of it before this story is out, as we know. It is arbitrary power.

And when it comes right at her, as we also know, she’s going to give it right back. But that’s a story for another day. 

It is what makes the world go round, it is what empowers people to enact all kinds of Regency-special cruelties, and Elizabeth is going to get a big fill of it before this story is out, as we know. It is arbitrary power.

This, friends, is what we truly love about Lizzy, and what Austen continuously shows us: That it’s what’s inside you that brings your true power. Yes, an oversimplification; but that’s why we love stories.

And! Our favorite thing about this truly awful character of Austen is that she does not succeed: Her very trying to separate and threaten and abuse Lizzy out of her proposal from Darcy (which Lizzy has, remember, already received and rejected - my favorite fact from that scene) backfires and appears to drive them together. 

This, friends, is what we truly love about Lizzy, and what Austen continuously shows us: That it’s what’s inside you that brings your true power. Yes, an oversimplification; but that’s why we love stories.

What is Austen doing with this awfulness? As always, and as we’ve discussed, she’s showing that your best virtue, your best talents, your best intelligence, is what fuels your future, your love, and your life. And if it’s hard-earned rather than bestowed upon you, even better. Rank Schmank. 

Nice to meet you too, Mrs. Ferrars

The awful Mrs. Ferrars, from that parade of horrors otherwise known as Sense and Sensibility, comes in second place on this list but she also utterly fails to succeed in her awful designs, and not for a lack of trying.

And here again Austen foreshadows this awe-inspiring awfulness in pages and pages of fear and trepidation and reverence from others, only to gracefully remove this vector’s venom when it comes to the actual encounter. As with Lizzy, we with Elinor are allowed to observe, judge, size up, and find this awe-inspiring awfulness … not so scary.

Here’s the passage. And tell me if instead of fearing this woman, you almost feel sorry for her!

“Mrs. Ferrars was a little, thin woman, upright, even to formality, in her figure, and serious, even to sourness, in her aspect. Her complexion was sallow; and her features small, without beauty, and naturally without expression; but a lucky contraction of the brow had rescued her countenance from the disgrace of insipidity, by giving it the strong characters of pride and ill nature. She was not a woman of many words: for, unlike people in general, she proportioned them too the number of her ideas; and of the few syllables that did escape her, not one fell to the share of Miss Dashwood …”

Y’all, this is death in a drawing room, as we’ve mentioned before. 

But, look again! Is it Mrs. Ferrars who is, as predicted, the terror here? 

Not necessarily: It’s possible that the real terror is the person writing this description - our beloved narrator, taking a little dip (courtesy of Austen’s free indirect discourse) into Elinor’s consciousness.

I mean, when you really dissect this passage: This thin, little woman is “rescued” from flavorless “insipidity” only by a little wisp of an eyebrow that provides for her the stronger flavors of “pride and ill nature.” And not only that, she has nothing to say! Who could possibly be a match for the thinker wielding such thoughts?!

And, again, our favorite thing about Mrs. Ferrars? 

Spoiler alert, sorry: She fails! She gets royally duped, not by the son in her life who respects her for who she is (Edward); but by the other son (Robert) who only respects her money. It’s horrifically perfect. 

A powerful lady ‘well attacked’ - Lady Denham

As in Austen’s other two grand, dangerous ladies, Sanditon’s Lady Denham also has a reputation that very much precedes her. We know from her that in her very last fictional exploration, Jane Austen was not finished with her grand, powerful women. She had much more to say.

Because Austen passed away before completing Sanditon, we don’t get to see what Austen planned for Lady Denham but we do see the machinations that encircle her, and the misjudgments and misuses of her power that follow, and it certainly does not bode well for either Lady Denham or those who revere her for her “mere” rank and wealth. Here’s our introduction to Lady Denham:

“Lady Denham was indeed a great lady beyond the common wants of society — for she had many thousands a year to bequeath, and three distinct sets of people to be courted by; … — By all of these, or by branches of them, she had no doubt been long, and still continued to be, well attacked;” 

And well, what a drag. 

And in the novel fragment Sanditon, we get that foreshadowing that we get in Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility: We hear all about Lady Denham from the enterprising Tom Parker. And, as with Lady Catherine and Mrs. Ferrars, when we actually meet her we are overtaken with such an avalanche, again, of brutally precise judgment from our astute heroine that we almost want to feel sorry for her. 

Jane Austen’s narration of ‘Sanditon’ did not mince words with the descriptions of the ‘thoroughly mean’ Lady Denham, portrayed by Anne Reid in the PBS adaptation, and her niece Esther Denham, portrayed by Charlotte Spencer. Photo: PBS Masterpiece

After Charlotte Heywood has had a chance to observe, she decides she must not listen to Mr. Tom Parker (Sidney’s brother) but instead thinks, “I must judge for myself,” and she puts that judgment to excellent use, delivering another brutally astute assessment not only on this character but on the corrupting influence of arbitrary power:

“She is thoroughly mean. I had not expected anything so bad. … And she makes everybody mean about her — This poor Sir Edward and his sister,  — how far nature meant them to be respectable I cannot tell. — but they are obliged to be mean in their servility to her. — And I am mean too, in giving her my attention, with appearance of co-inciding with her. — Thus it is, when rich people are sordid.” 

That nicely sums things up. Power is corrupting, and even if your nature is good, unmet need can lead to compromise and corruption.

Charlotte calls it! 

Chilly, tender, rich and powerful - in Sanditon, all roads lead to Miss Lambe

Sanditon’s Miss Georgiana Lambe is - like the other powerful women of Austen - preceded with a lot of descriptions, and a lot of speculation and gossip about her life, her situation, her wealth - all of which serve to elevate her importance in the reader’s mind.

But with a crucial difference - that Miss Lambe’s actual introduction does not take her down in our estimation and instead only serves to elevate her further by giving us a tantalizingly enigmatic description that rather amplifies, it seems, her intrigue, her elegance, her importance, and yes her power. 

Miss Lambe’s actual introduction does not take her down in our estimation and instead only serves to elevate her further by giving us a tantalizingly enigmatic description that rather amplifies, it seems, her intrigue, her elegance, her importance, and yes her power. 

First, we hear Diana Parker, Thomas and Sidney’s sister, go on and on about how she’s arranged for a wealthy West Indian heiress and a related family to spend time at Sanditon. Diana Parker rambles away name-dropping for passages (and it’s unclear what Austen is doing with this rambling and misinformation and confusion - if you have a theory, readers and scholars, please let us know!) and finally arrives at the point, which is where we hear about Miss Lambe, “a young lady (probably a niece) under her care … Miss Lambe had an immense fortune - richer than all the rest - and very delicate health.” 

Miss Lambe is not only wealthy, she is the stuff that Sanditon dreams are made of: wealthy and “delicate” and able to deliver Mr. Tom Parker of his grand schemes and designs. Her entourage is likely to take a large house - no house could be too large for this wealth, Diana Parker says.

And then Diana keeps going. She is following two rambling roads: One potential heiress through her friend Mrs. Griffith (a friend of Miss Capper, who is a particular friend of Fanny Noyce, etc), and another through her friend Mrs. Charles Dupuis. And after pages of rambling, it’s discovered that all roads actually lead to the same heiress: Miss Lambe. 

Miss Lambe is buried in all this meandering narrative perhaps because she is placed as a gem, and important one, a crucial one, at its center. 

And then here’s that introductory passage, where, after all the buildup, we meet Miss Lambe:

“She was about seventeen, half mulatto, chilly and tender, had a maid of her own, was to have the best room in the lodgings, and was also of the first consequence in every plan of Mrs. Griffiths.”

There are three traveling young women with Mrs. Griffiths, and Austen spells out clearly which one we are to pay attention to - Miss Lambe - as the other two are “very accomplished and very ignorant.”

What was in store for Miss Lambe? It’s a question Austen has not been able to answer, as she left this earth while writing Sanditon, but the story of course, and this character, lives on, through the various retellings of this novel and the PBS series that just finished its second season. And I imagine that will not be the last word on this fascinating Regency character that carries within her rarities like wealth, agency, and the power it all brings. 

Vexation-free Emma 

Talk about whiplash. Immediately following Austen’s narrative about a young woman named Fanny Price who has absolutely nothing but her inner resources - her intelligence, her goodness, her courage - and not a penny or a supportive relative to her name other than a doting military brother, Austen turns around and creates the exact opposite in a heroine. And she spells it out, in a passage we all love, right at the outset:

“Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.”

This, compared to Fanny - and her 400 pages of neglect, pining, her impoverishment of worldly goods and her impoverishment also of love, and her resulting disquiet, her rage, her vexation.

All that and then: Reader, please meet Emma Woodhouse. She’s a heroine who has everything. And whom “no one but myself will much like,” Austen wrote.

“I have none of the usual inducements of women to marry,” says Emma to Harriet Smith. “… Fortune I do not want; employment I do not want; consequence I do not want: I believe few married women are half as much mistress of their husband’s house, as I am of Hartfield; and never, never could I expect to be so truly beloved and important; so always first and always right in any man’s eyes as I am my father’s.”

And she’s right: She’s the opposite of her predecessor Fanny Price. She has wealth and status both within her home and outside of it.

So what then is this whiplash-of-a-story about?

This story is, as we have said before, about Power. It’s about power and what you do with it. 

It’s, as always in Austen, about how to be a good person, a good family member, a good citizen, in ways that create that kind of positive, supportive community and family relationships that might actually provide a foundation for a stable society.

Marriage, explains Emma Woodhouse to her friend Harriet Smith, could never bring her the wealth, status, and ‘consequence’ she already enjoys. ‘Dear me! — It is so odd to hear a woman talk so!’ is Harriet’s reply. The characters are portrayed by actors Mia Goth (left) and Anya Taylor-Joy in Autumn de Wilde’s 2020 adaptation of ‘EMMA.’ Photo: Focus Features

Is this stretching it too far, friends? As our podcast guest Professor George Justice pointed out, the traditional scholarship saw the story of Emma as being about a young woman being bad who then through the mentorship of an older man becomes good. Is this going too far, to say that it’s not at all about this but instead it’s Austen providing a vision for relationships that could actually be a basis for societal structures at a time when all of those structures were being challenged by wars and revolutions - political, moral, and artistic?  

We think not! We think it is not stretching. And that once you see it it’s impossible to un-see what Austen is doing in these pages,

Emma is a rare young woman wielding her power in this novel, and her story is a metaphor for how our imaginings, our misinformation, and the means we have to deploy these can lead us astray, and how those misleading pathways can tread on others in harmful ways if we happen to have the means to do it. 

The entire novel, culminating in that Box Hill scene, is about an awakening - to one’s personal and public responsibility; to practicing kindness in small ways that will resonate in big ways; to the power and privilege one holds (yes, Austen was urging Emma, through Knightley: Check your privilege!) and to the large and small ways one can abuse power or use power. 

The entire novel, culminating in that Box Hill scene, is about an awakening - to one’s personal and public responsibility; to practicing kindness in small ways that will resonate in big ways; to the power and privilege one holds (yes, Austen was urging Emma, through Knightley: Check your privilege!) and to the large and small ways one can abuse power or use power. 

And it’s a joyous novel, because in this happy ending, in this awakening, it happens with a young person who has their life ahead of them and we are left with the promise and the potential for figuring things out in a way that is truly exemplary, and hopeful. 

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So, there it is friends: Our parade of power girls and a little bit of thought on what Jane Austen is doing with these Regency rarities of humans identifying as female while wielding wealth, independence, power, and making decisions bad and good on what to do with it all.

Please share, friends: Who are we missing here? 

There are loads of female heiresses in the background of Austen’s stories, many of them waiting to wreck a love match. Share your favorite examples, and any thoughts on what Austen is doing with these powerful Regency women.

Do you have a favorite Regency bad-ass from history? Let us know that too - and check out the resources below for more to engage with.

Whatever state you are in these days, friends, please use all the power you have to look after yourself, and please know we’re here for each other in this community. Please reach out any time, by simply replying to this email and/or commenting on this post, and stay in touch, 

Wishing you love, power, and hope,

Plain Jane 

Cool links and Community

• Bea Koch is the author of Mad and Bad: Real Heroines of the Regency, and is the co-owner (with sister Leah Koch) of The Ripped Bodice romance bookstore in the Los Angeles area. You can also check out our podcast episodes with Bea and Leah. 

• Dr. Octavia Cox’s YouTube channel is superb, and here’s her lecture on the power and wealth of Mrs. Ferrars in Sense and Sensibility.

• Here’s Vanessa Riley’s historical fiction novel Island Queen, and here’s our podcast conversation about it when she spoke with the Austen Connection.

• Robert Morrison’s Regency Years: During Which Jane Austen Writes, Napoleon Fights, Byron Makes Love, and Britain Becomes Modern is a great resource - and its our #currentreading, so stay tuned for future conversations, and let us know if you’ve devoured this book the way we are here at the Austen Connection.

• Here’s a lecture by UCL English professor John Mullan on money in Sense and Sensibility. We didn’t realize there was such a thing as Jane Austen Stand-Up, but that appears to be what is happening with just about any of John Mullan’s lectures on YouTube: Dare you to watch this one without laughing. 

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