Mothers, Substitute Mothers, and Daughters in the Novels of Jane Austen

"Even a cursory examination of the novels of Jane Austen reveals an abundance of absent or otherwise ineffectual mothers...Yet these inadequate maternal figures do not set motherhood itself in a negative light. While all the novels begin with heroines in unbalanced family situations, and with dead or bad mothers, they all end with the heroines – and their future mates – on the verge of creating balanced families. All the heroines will be better mothers than their own."

This article by Mary Margaret Benson was the first source I found and it helped me further develop my topic. It focuses on the various inadequacies of the mothers and mother figures in Austen's novels. Benson goes through each of Austen's novels and discussing the mothers and daughters within them and talks about their unconventionalities. Her main point is that even though the heroines of her novels are almost unanimously lacking in the mother department, they all go on to be successful. Even though they have mothers who didn't meet society's standards, they still ended up getting married and presumably going onto motherhood, where they will be better mothers than their own. It also defends that she values some of the societal norms such as education and marriage and this is shown through her characters.

"Austen’s representations of mother/daughter relationships also reflect her views of marriage and the family as a whole. The existing families in the novels are, in general, inadequate, and thus we have the plots, which work towards ideal family situations in the ultimate marriages of the heroines. Unlike their parents, the heroines and their husbands are joined in companionate marriages – and, in many cases, marriages of true equals – and will in turn create loving, moral families."

"Austen follows in the tradition of other eighteenth-century writers, from Locke to Richardson, in placing a high value on the development of morality, though for her, of course, the presence or absence of morality becomes a source of comedy. That she sees moral education as important, and defines it in terms of the mother/daughter relationship, is demonstrated in such characters as Emma and Catherine, whose early education is neglected, and who, before reaching maturity, must rectify their mothers’ lacks. The Austen heroine must, to he a heroine, have her own personal sense of morality well established – even if it is separate from that of her family – before she can grow up and become a mother herself."

"All the heroines have the makings of being better mothers than their own; with the self-knowledge they have achieved in the course of the novels, it is quite likely that they will succeed. However, even as happily-married women, they will remain isolated from their eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sisters, at least intellectually. For Austen, the ideals of happy marriage and successful motherhood exist – but they are rare, and require intelligence and emotional maturity."

http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/printed/number11/benson.htm

Benson, Mary Margaret. “Mothers, Substitute Mothers, and Daughters in the Novels of Jane Austen.” Persuasions 1989. The Jane Austen Society of North America. Web. 1 March 2015.

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