Her novels ignore the industrial masses and agricultural labourers. They reside in a world of their own and don't cast a look outside the boundaries of this self-constructed world. They are not interested in the outside affairs. They are, apparently, indifferent to death, sex, hunger, war, guilt and even God.
A careful review of the works of Austen clearly indicates that she has deliberately imposed this restriction of materials and themes upon her. She herself referred to her work as “two inches of ivory”. In a letter to her niece, she wrote, “three or four families in a country village is the very thing to work on.”
If Austen shows the aristocracy only to satirize it as Lady de Bourgh. The Bennets, the Lucases, the Bingleys and Darcy all belong to the class of landed country gentry with the Bennets and the Lucases at the lower end of it and the Bingleys and Darcy with their persona fortunes at the higher end of it. People like Gardiner (in trade) have been shown very rarely, as in "Pride and Prejudice".
Narrow Physical Setting
'Pride and Prejudice' like other novels of Austen have narrow physical setting. The story revolves round Netherfield Park, Longbourn, Hunsford Parsonage, Meryton and Pemberley. In an era when the English Romantic writers like Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats and others were in love with external nature, Jane manages to restrict her characters indoors. A trip to the Lake District is canceled in "Pride and Prejudice" and the only description of nature in Pemberley is generalized.
She adhered to the settings of ballrooms, drawing rooms, parks and gardens and allows nothing terrible to happen. The greatest villainy in her novels is elopement (as in the case of Lydia and Wikham) or social faux pus as Darcy's snubbing of Elizabeth.
In the era of American War of Independence, French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, Austen's theme was so limited that it revolved round the orbit of love and marriage. All her heroines had no other business than waiting for an eligible bachelor to get married to.
The only relevance of the militia in a Jane Austen novel is its ability to provide girls with handsome military officers to flirt with and if possible to marry __ Wikham and the other military officers in Meryton in Pride and Prejudice serve a subjects for flirtation for Lydia and Kitty the younger Benner girls, Similarly there is no discussion of spiritual or metaphysical issue and Mr. Collins the vicar is only an absurd, comic figure satirized by Jane Austen.
Feminization of Her Novel
Another limitation is feminization of her novels. There are no report men's affairs. Darcy does not appear to be a wholly credible character. He is seen in the company of Elizabeth. The reader is looking him at from Elizabeth's point of view.
Due to this limitation, Austen has earned a lot of criticism and depreciation as well. H. W Garrod complains of the monotonous uniformity of her materials,” A drab scenery, the worse for use, a thin plot unfashionably cut and by turning, relining and trimming made to do duty for five of six novels, a dozen or so stock characters__these are Miss Austen's materials”. Charlotte Bronte her most famous critic, feels a want of “passion” in her works and believes her to be an author of the surface only: “She ruffles her readers by nothing vehement, disturbs him by nothing profound, ….Her business is not half so much with the human heart as with the human eye, mouth, hands and feet”. Wordsworth admitted that her novels were an admirable copy of life, but since the pervading light of imagination was totally absent in them, they could hardly interest him. Since, her women are eminently pre-occupied with economic security a number of critics think that her text is just money. And since she looks at things from and ironic point of view, it being assumed the tan ironist is only a detached and disinterested observer of life, Leonie Vallard and Marvin Mudrick conclude that she does not have any moral concern.
Perfection within the limited world
Her world is limited but within this limited world she deals every aspect perfectly. The narrow world does never create an image of narrow art. Nor do art or skill depend on the range and boundaries. Real talent always goes ahead whatever may be the range or theme.
The works of Jane Austen despite its restricted field, is perfect.
Purely local issues lend a sense of discipline to her art and enhance accuracy and precision of portrayal in her writings. Her old-intimacy with her characters makes them life-like and realistic. Elizabeth Bennet is the most delightful of creature that ever appeared in print. She is not the simpering and holier-than-thou heroine of a romantic novel but appeal by her next-door girl image with wit, humour as well as human flaws of pride and prejudice.
