Was Jane Austen interested in her contemporary political
environment? If she was interested in her contemporary
political environment, does this interest emerge directly
or indirectly in her writing? What are the issues of Jane
Austen's contemporary political environment? If political
issues were not discussed by Jane Austen, why were they
not discussed? What were some of the major political issues
of this turbulent time? Three questions will emerge by this
quick study.
We will find that Jane Austen was quite familiar with the
issue of the Abolition of chattel slavery.
We will have excessive work looking for any concern by
Jane Austen about the violence of British Colonialism.
We will have excessive work looking for any concern by
Jane Austen about Women and children exploited in Coal
Mines, textile mill slavery, or other forms of industrial
slavery in nearby Yorkshire. Was Yorshire and Manchester
textile mills to far for Jane Austen to take a "peek"?
Recall that while there was a scandal about naked women
working in Coal Mine pits in 1842, women and children
were working in the Coal Mine pits in the mid 17th
century, and centuries before.
Jane Austen wrote in a beautiful version of English of the
educated, but could she understand the English dialects such
as cockney Flash (slang)? Could Jane Austen identify with the
English poor (had she ever visited places such as "Tom and Jerry
'Masquerading it'", depicted by George Cruikshank)?
Jane Austen loved her muslins and the Balls she attended.
Is it possible that Jane Austen couldn't see issues of poverty
because she really wasn't very concerned?
Click to see.
Maybe Jane Austen wasn't wealthy enough to take a look at the
new factories in Yorkshire (click to see)?
Continual warfare: England vs Dutch, England vs French, England vs Denmark/Norway, etc.
Wardroper, John; "The Caricatures of George Cruikshank"
White, Gabrielle D. V.; "Jane Austen in the Context of Abolition: 'a fling at the slave trade'"
Williams, Eric; "Capitalism and Slavery"
Wright, Thomas; Evans, R.H.; "Historical and Descriptive Account of the Caricatures of James Gillray:
Comprising A Political and Humerous History of the Later Part of the Reign of George the Third"