The Politics of Architecture and Landscape in Jane Austen’s Novels

Abstract

This study examines several of Jane Austen’s novels—with particular emphases on Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, and Pride and Prejudice—by focusing on Austen’s association of architecture and landscape aestheticism with specific sets of moral idealism. Sotherton Court in Mansfield Park expresses Austen’s distrust of modern methods of improvement; the Gothic Abbey in Northanger Abbey bespeaks nostalgia for bygone communal values; while Pemberley estate in Pride and Prejudice signifies the melding of clashing values. Architecture and landscape, as this thesis argues, function as mediums through which Austen voices her centrist value: an estate without improvement becomes moribund, whereas drastic improvement risks the collapse of the existing moral order. Neither set of values is absolute; yet, both are required to form the ideal of dynamic harmony. Architectural spaces represent Austen’s conservative stance towards the English gentry tradition; however, the rising importance of women, specifically Austen’s heroines, within these conservative settings simultaneously signifies her support for a new progressive definition of womanhood. Tradition is sacred, yet it must accommodate the changing needs of individuals, even as progressive individual energies must adhere to established norms. For Austen, neither conservative nor progressive values can achieve perfection; together they jointly form the ideal of perfection.