“Netherfield Park is let at last”: representations of the English country house in Jane Austen’s fiction

Abstract

Ever since its emergence in the Middle Ages to its revival in the twenty-first century, the English country house has been associated with a sense of nationhood. Indeed, it has been considered a quintessential symbol of English tradition, for it is the space in which part of the most intrinsic of English customs originated, were developed and perpetuated. As we analyse Jane Austen’s works, we observe that the stately home lies at the core of her narratives, for it is possible to notice that landed property itselfplays a key role in her stories. Therefore, the general aim of this thesis is to investigate the role of the grand rural mansion in the writer’s six complete novels: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1815), Northanger Abbey (1817) and Persuasion (1817). It is well known that around this power residence, Austen mobilises the plight of the women of her time as well as the issues of class that are characteristic of her writings. In light of that, it is also important to analyse how characters interact, and are “constructed” and “deconstructed” through the house. Furthermore, it is necessary to examine how this baronial mansion does not so much function as the basis of the lifestyle of the landed gentry portrayed by Austen as it works as an expression of cultural, socio-economic and political power in her oeuvre.