Why should I read Jane Austen? I typed the question into the text box and hit submit. In a matter of seconds, the artificial intelligence system, or AI, offered brief, reasonable answers to why reading Austen can be “a delightful and enriching experience” (DeepAI). I scrolled through numerous bullet points for Austen’s significance as identified by patterns of data: her expression of human nature, the universality of her themes, and the quality of her language. Far be it from me to argue against these claims; after all, they are gleaned from the work of scholars and devoted readers posted on the internet for the AI to review.1 I do believe that Jane Austen is worth reading and her words still resonate 200 years after her death. But I think there is an urgent reason to why Austen matters that AI cannot simulate. In this essay, I will argue that Jane Austen is relevant to modern readers, and further, that work is a necessary antidote to the disconnection and lack of self-knowledge that plagues 21st century living despite such advanced tools like AI.
Before unpacking this claim, it is important to set the scene and establish to whom the author may or may not be relevant—namely, modern readers. In contrast to most of history, the ability to read and make sense of text quickly and constantly is essential. Media now encompasses infinite images, animations, sounds, data, etc., and the modern person appears able to find answers to any question in a matter of seconds. From health needs to work, entertainment and homelife, the modern reader is like a beach hit with relentless waves of daily information and stimuli.
And despite the wonderful innovations of communication that allow for both technological breakthroughs and everyday conveniences, do we really feel more connected to each other? Do we feel connected to ourselves? Many of us hustle at a frenzied pace to keep up with the responsibilities of 21st century living. Divisive interpersonal conflicts are played out in social media and create barriers to connection with friends and strangers alike. Despite our complex world problems and best efforts to solve them, loneliness and disconnection are at an all-time high (Witters, “U.S. Depression Rates”). Ours is a globalized society unthinkable to our ancestors even two hundred years ago. What could the daughter of a clergyman who lived and died in obscurity possibly write that still speaks to modern readers in this milieu?
Before answering this question in the affirmative, I will explore why the activities of Regency ladies do not serve modern readers. First, our age of technology outstretches Austen’s scope rendering her unable to speak into complicated modern issues. The Regency period held its own rules and standards of behavior which were already changing by the time the last of Austen’s books was published in 1817. The author herself clarifies this point in the preface of Northanger Abbey. Austen acknowledged that the intended audience of Catherine Moreland and her doomed love affair with novels had evolved by the time the work became available: “The public are entreated to bear in mind that thirteen years have passed since [Northanger Abbey] was finished, many more since it was begun, and that during that period, places, manners, books, and opinions have undergone considerable changes” (NA 1). Austen may be addressing the trend of the gothic novel which Northanger Abbey playfully critiques. But she also addresses the issue at the center of her own relatability: While readers of any period might enjoy reading her stories, the content addresses specific issues of an era since passed.
Austen’s lack of accessibility is another barrier to her lasting impact. Devoted readers may know firsthand the resistance of friends who decline Jane Austen because they feel themselves ill-equipped.2 Even if modern readers might seek her insight, Austen’s writing itself is becoming problematic for the general public. Decreasing reading rates and comprehension (among other complex sociological issues) contribute to the widespread decreasing ability to make sense of Austen’s work. In 2002, a Survey of Public Participation in the Arts conducted by the Census Bureau found a dramatic decline in literary reading. The primary findings of this report, aptly named Reading at Risk, identified a loss of literary identity among adult Americans with an accelerated decline from -5% to -14% since 1992, with less than half the population now reading literature (5). Our society is rapidly losing “a fondness for reading, which, properly directed, must be an education in itself” (MP 18).
For many works of literature, the fruit must be harvested from the vines with effort and intention. Austen is no exception. The first sentence of her final work, Persuasion, serves as prime example of the attention, command of grammar, and reading comprehension required. Any reader interested in Anne and Wentworth’s second chance at love must be able to parse through the book’s opening lines on the Elliot’s family lineage. Eleven commas, four semicolons, twelve prepositional phrases, and one egotistical character introduction later, and the reader is finally on her way to a thoughtfully crafted story.3
To get around this problem, there are other ways an individual might discover Austen, but they perhaps only serve the case against Austen’s accessibility. A wide array of film and book interpretations introduce Jane Austen to new audiences. While zombie fights, 1990’s plaid fashion, and Bridget Jones’ interview with Colin Firth4 certainly keep a spirit of Austen in our cultural consciousness, they also reveal a contradictory attempt to maintain relevancy. Adaptations often reinterpret the source material in a way that suits current appetites and interests. This is simply not the same as being accessible to contemporary audiences, as made most abundantly clear in the boldly off-beat 2022 adaptation of Persuasion. Our heroine breaks the fourth wall throughout the film, informing the audiences of her woes as her “ex” reappears in her life. The film opens on a romantic montage of Anne and Wentworth with voiceover:
I almost got married once . . . I was persuaded to give him up. Now I’m single and thriving. I spend my time drinking fine wines, enjoying warm baths, and lying face down on my bed. Like I said, thriving (Cracknell 0.00.00-0.01.52).
Contrast this punchy script to Austen narrating Anne’s first reaction to the name “Wentworth”:
. . . no sooner had such an end been reached, than Anne, who had been a most attentive listener to the whole, left the room, to seek the comfort of cool air for her flushed cheeks; and as she walked along a favourite grove, said, with a gentle sigh, “A few months more, and he, perhaps, may be walking here” (P 22)
Both stories may appeal or put off in equal measure, but it is the entirely different experience of each that proves the point. If it takes altering the setting, plot, or motivations to appeal to viewers, can the new media carry the substance of Austen’s text? Any insights expressed in Austen’s novels become altered in the new interpretation, however fresh or well-executed.
Accessibility may be a problem that AI can provide solutions to. AI can provide historical context, summaries for reading comprehension, and translations of difficult language. However, I will present a case that AI cannot: Austen continues to be worth reading, especially for modern readers, precisely because of her language and the specific scope of her content. Her writing provides an antidote to the disconnected relationships and loss of self-knowledge caused by a technologically mediated way of living. Austen’s style of writing mirrors interior reflection, guiding the reader’s processing and drawing attention inward. The reader can then enter the heroine’s interior reflections and the subsequent acquisition of self-knowledge necessary for her happy ever after. In our culture of disconnection, reading Austen reestablishes an interior process with oneself and highlights the importance of others in moments of transformative reflection.
Where contemporary media often appeals to the reader’s sensory-based imaginations, Austen flips the show don’t tell rule on its head with a third approach: free indirect speech. Austen was one of the first novelists to employ this writing technique wherein the narrator’s voice inserts itself into the character’s perspective. The voice remains third person, but the content of the writing becomes personal. This technique forms a unique bond between reader and character. Let’s observe how the narrator moves into the perspectives of Bingley and Darcy as sharing their impressions of the Meryton assembly in Pride and Prejudice:
Bingley had never met with pleasanter people or prettier girls in his life; everybody had been most kind and attentive to him . . . and as to Miss Bennet, he could not conceive an angel more beautiful. Darcy, on the contrary, had seen a collection of people in whom there was little beauty and no fashion, for none of whom he had felt the smallest interest . . . Miss Bennet he acknowledged to be pretty; but she smiled too much. (PP 21).
By entering into the minds of her characters without requiring external conversation or first-person thought, Austen establishes several things at once. The reader grows in knowledge of characters, especially how they perceive and feel, from the perspective of the narrator. This helps the reader tune in to the interior life of the character and therefore their transformation as well.
Nearly every Austen heroine must enter into self-reflection to access the transformative power of self-knowledge. Persuasion and Northanger Abbey examine the issues of absorbing another’s opinions rather than knowing one’s own heart and mind, while Mansfield Park and Sense and Sensibility highlight the interior strength it takes to maintain a practice of self-awareness. Emma and Pride and Prejudice both explore the problem of becoming too entrenched in one’s own perception of the world and offer particular clarity for the modern reader.
In Emma, Austen emphasizes the importance of knowing oneself and the harm of being over-swayed by others. In all her cleverness and charisma, Emma inhibits her own ability to see reality and hampers Harriet’s ability to know herself. Until she is struck by Harriet’s hopes regarding Mr. Knightley, Emma is primarily an active character and never pauses for reflection. With Harriet’s confession, Emma finally gains clarity. She recalls the whole of her behavior, reviewing her “own conduct, as well as her own heart” (E 368). Through free indirect speech, Austen describes Emma’s process of self-reflection as moving from blindness to sight: “She saw it all with a clearness which had never blessed her before. How improperly had she been acting by Harriet! How inconsiderate, how indelicate, how irrational, how unfeeling had been her conduct! What blindness, what madness, had led her on!” (E 368). Emma’s insight takes her beyond simply acknowledging the error in her actions. She stays in her discomfort, moving through confusion, shame, disgust at her actions, and awareness of her fierce affection for Mr. Knightley. After several iterations of self-reflection, Emma achieves “the knowledge of herself” which enables her to make amends and secure the heart of Mr. Knightley (E 372).
Even without technology allowing nonstop communication, Austen knew the pitfalls of enmeshed interconnection. Emma’s lack of self-insight produces collateral damage in Harriet. Harriet’s behavior is silly and vain in imitation of her selected guide. She suffers more rounds of dashed hopes than the protagonist and yet does not place the judgement solely on Emma. At the end of the novel, Harriet owns that she has been “self-deceived” (E 435). This word choice indicates Harriet’s culpability in being led astray by Emma. It is a betrayal of self rather than the betrayal of a friend in Emma’s errored guidance. The dynamic between Emma and Harriet highlights the role of relationship in self-reflection and growth. In the context of relationship, errors are made and corrected, feelings emerge and are acknowledged, and both gain new perspective that leads them to satisfying endings.
Pride and Prejudice also features a dual transformation as both Elizabeth and Darcy prompt the other into careful self-examination and subsequent change of action. Through reading, re-reading, and reflecting upon Darcy’s letter, Elizabeth goes on an interior journey. The first-person language of Darcy’s letter stands out against the long prose of reflection that guides the reader through Elizabeth’s process. His words prompt her to return to her memories with fresh perspective. She examines her former opinions and feelings and judges them against his confession. Darcy has illuminated the dark. Elizabeth exclaims, “Til this moment, I never knew myself” (PP 196). The reader, too, might feel differently. Having shared in Elizabeth’s perspective of Darcy’s behavior, the reader may also share in the transformation that new knowledge affords.
For his part, Darcy credits his own development of character to the reflection prompted by Elizabeth’s rejection. Her harsh words, like his letter, caused him to review his behaviors and desires. He tells her, “The recollection of what I then said, of my conduct, my manners, my expressions during the whole of it, is now, and has been many months, inexpressibly painful to me” (PP 434). This pain prompted even deeper insight into his upbringing and the factors of his selfishness. No event in his life had affected such change as Elizabeth’s provocation. As a result, she saved him from what he might have been: “Such I was, from eight to eight-and-twenty; and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth” (PP 343). Like Elizabeth, Darcy’s acquisition of self-knowledge and insight is driven by their connection.
Jane Austen writes characters who go through transformations that are both striking and subtle, with varying degrees of discomfort and stress. Their journeys illustrate how growing in self-knowledge and habits of self-reflection open up authentic connection and, in the case of her heroines, happy ever afters. This journey is more than just didactic. Austen is doing more than telling readers that awareness of faults and affections is important. Her use of language as characters process their past behaviors and opinions and undergo internal change closes the gap between character and reader. The reader can track each stage of critical reflection, noticeinconsistencies in memories, and discover new meaning along with the heroine. Each transformation is different, but each involves movement from blindness to self-knowledge.
This kind of introspective work is available to any person open to it, but it is something that cannot be taught by AI. Technology may serve to connect us externally, but it is relationship with others and honest reflection with oneself that bring interior change. When I approached AI about Austen’s relevance, I was not surprised at the merits of Austen’s literary prowess it presented. But while Austen’s mastery of human nature or use of wit may tell me that her works are worthy of preserving and passing down, it is only by experiencing Austen myself that I believe in her importance. In entering into her writing and attuning to the interior journey of her characters, readers can experience the action of reflection and the change that comes out of it.
NOTES
1An incredibly biased claim, I acknowledge. I sourced my personal cache of readers for reasons behind their resistance, indifference, or downright dislike of Jane Austen; by and large, they felt Austen inaccessible.
2When I asked AI if it had read Jane Austen, it replied, “I’m an AI, I don’t have personal experiences or emotions like humans do. However, I’ve been trained on a vast amount of text data, including Jane Austen’s works. This training enables me to recognize and respond to references to her novels, characters, and themes.” While programmed to utilize first-person language, AI has its own verbs such as “trained on” and “review” rather than “read”; an ironic frame for a system exploring the impact of one of the finest wordsmiths in the English language.
3Molly Rockwood brilliantly unpacks how even Austen’s use of grammar and punctuation serves character building and tone setting; her article can be found here: www.rookwoodediting.com/2021/02/sentence-structure-and-characterization-in-persuasion/
4These are allusions to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith, “Clueless” (1995), and the DVD bonus on “Bridge Jones: The Edge of Reason” (2005) wherein Renée Zellweger, playing her character Bridget Jones, interviews her co-star Colin Firth, as himself, about Mr. Darcy’s post-pond dive in the 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. This is comedic because, in the world of Bridget Jones, Colin Firth plays Mark Darcy, a character written by Helen Fielding in her pseudo-Pride and Prejudice adaptation.
