“… the really accomplished young woman, which she wanted to be thought herself;” Jane Austen, the chick lit genre, self-help culture, and 18th-century conduct books

Abstract

This article will focus on the impact the novelist Jane Austen has had on the modern chick lit genre more than two hundred years after her death and further raise the question of whether the characteristics of the genre can provide insights into the role of self-improvement in Austen’s work, taking Pride and Prejudice and Emma as an example, with a special emphasis on her flawed heroines. Austen’s heroines generally do not fit the perfect image of femininity depicted in the conduct books that were popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, just as the modern chick lit heroines do not represent the ideas of desirable femininity. Austen engages purposeful dialogue with contemporary conduct books in her novels, just like modern chick lit authors converse with glossy magazines. In addition, many heroines are devoted readers of various self-help books. It is argued that both Austen’s novels and the chick lit genre draw out the tension between private and public spheres, the stories predicting limited egress for their female heroines since the public sphere is a reality they have minimal access to. Because of that, the heroines ward off boredom through their fantastic tales or find an outlet through lies, spin-offs, and laughter to survive in a patriarchal society.