| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 英語學系 === 93 === Jane Austen famously described her works as a “little bit of ivory,” featuring “three or four families in a country village.” Yet beneath the simple appearance of her novels lie the complicated power struggles between the self and the society. Austen’s characters are oftentimes “others” disturbing the peace and stability of a place, whereas her settings are in fact symbolic structures trying either to include or exclude these “others.” In this thesis, I attempt to reveal the politics of “otherness” inside Austen’s seemingly small and coherent fictional worlds.
In my first chapter, I review previous scholarship on the issue of self and society in Austen’s works, and employ Luce Irigaray’s argument of women as “others” in patriarchal society and Jacques Lacan’s other/Other dynamics so as to explore the multifaceted “others” in Austen’s Mansfield Park and Emma. Chapter two aims to untangle the ambivalent relationships between the “others” and the symbolic order in Mansfield Park. Cast as either inferior “others” or objects of fantasy, “outsiders” to Mansfield Park nevertheless help satisfy the discontents of the Bertram family. And despite being a place of strict order and discipline, Mansfield Park is in fact in need of “others” to maintain a surface stability. In chapter three, I move on to the issue of marriage and its role in the conflicts between “others” and the symbolic. Although marriage appears to be the only way for female “others” to settle into the society, in Emma we see cases of women wanting something beyond marriage. The marriage institute fails to tame all women; instead, women’s “otherness” could survive marriage and continue to challenge the symbolic authority. In the concluding chapter, while summarizing the politics of “others” in Mansfield Park and Emma, I point to the gender performativity of Austen’s female characters in their battle against the symbolic. The performative nature of female desire leads to the everlasting struggles between women and the society, allowing us to see the uncertainties and changing possibilities underneath the fairytale appearance of Austen’s novels.
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