In her lifetime, Jane Austen wrote six complete novels that scholars and students still study and read to this day. In Fall 2023, I was one of the students that read all six books as part of Coe College's Gender and Literature: Jane Austen class with Melissa Sodeman. Since Jane Austen herself was an avid reader and writer, she would give her characters personality traits based on the books the characters read themselves.
As a writing consultant who took this Jane Austen class, it made me wonder which Jane Austen protagonists would be good or bad writing consultants. Based on the character's own beliefs about books, the genre of books they read, and their personality traits, I have decided to rank each protagonist on how good they would be as a writing consultant. The rankings will go from least qualified to most qualified.
Ranking:
7. Catherine Morland
Catherine Morland is from Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey. The book is a satirical take on gothic literature, which was very popular during Jane Austen's time. In Northanger Abbey, Catherine is the unlikely protagonist to a gothic mystery that is unfolding at Northanger Abbey, which is an old, grand castle. Catherine herself is honest, honorable, clumsy, curious, and has an overactive imagination.
Her character archetype is called the "quixotic," named after the character Don Quixote, who was a middle-aged man with an overactive imagination who believed he could become a knight. Catherine's active imagination, and her love for reading gothic literature, causes her to believe she is in a situation like her gothic novels.
Considering these factors, Catherine would be a very good writing center consultant. She would be very nice to writers, but her honesty and "quixote" personality might scare off writers from returning. Furthermore, she easily gets swept away in her own imagination and is likely to jump to conclusions about how things are, which may not be good when in a conference.
6. Fanny Price
Fanny Price is from Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. Fanny is the unhealthiest Jane Austen protagonists, which is used to demonstrate how dependent and meek she is. She is also demure, modest, quiet, an outsider, a rule follower, and a just person.
Fanny has strong moral convictions and never challenges the rules of an authority figure. In fact, she wholly supports the patriarchal authority structure of her time and is fearful of behaving wrongly in the eyes of her uncle, who is her father-figure. She has a close relationship with her cousin, Edmund, who shares a common interest in Fanny's love of reading Shakespearean plays, poems, and written essays about social life in England and France.
Although Fanny is well-versed in different types of literature, her shy and quiet personality would be a great obstacle in giving conferences in the writing center. Her tendency to follow rules would make her a great worker, but she would be too scared to be assertive in conferences, which would be detrimental to her nerves and to the writer's paper. In short, her love of literature would be great for working with writers, but the job would not fit her personality.
5. Marianne Dashwood
Marianne Dashwood is one of the deuteragonists of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. I imagine she is the woman on the right in the book cover. Marianne is the one with "sensibility" between her and her sister.
Sensibility had a different connotation in eighteenth-century Britian compared to its meaning right now. In Jane Austen's life, sensibility meant a person with great emotional awareness and sensitivity to the world and other people's emotions.
As a result, Marianne is open with her thoughts and emotions, dramatic, expressive, authentic, opinionated, passionate, and does not care what other people think of her. The few books that she reads consists of romance novels, which contributes to her romantic outlook on life.
Marianne's sensibility of other's emotions would allow her to give writers blunt honesty on their work while ensuring their feelings are not hurt. Her sensibility would also grant her an openness and friendliness to any writers who come in and to her fellow coworkers. However, her limited knowledge on literature would make it difficult to help writers with technical and grammatical aspects of their work. As such, she would be a comforting presence in the writing center, but she would not be very effective at helping writers with their work.
4. Emma Woodhouse
Emma Woodhouse is from Jane Austen's Emma. Emma is handsome, clever, rich, spoiled, charming, nosey, a loner, a matchmaker, and a huge gossiper. She is willing to be sociable with others because of her love of gossip and matchmaking. She also has the charm and charisma to influence others to tell her secrets and their honest feelings.
Despite Emma's social capabilities allowing her to be great in conversations, her knowledge on literature is lacking, which is disadvantageous for a writing center consultant. She has little literature knowledge because she specifically detests reading; however, she loves untangling word puzzles and riddles as a way to sharpen her mind and improve her problem-solving skills.
Due to her love of gossip and word puzzles, I believe she would be a great conversationalist with writers who come to the writing center looking for brainstorming ideas. She would be able to persuade writers to be comfortable enough to reveal their honest thoughts and opinions on their work. However, her detest for reading and her love for matchmaking may make it hard for her to read essays and instead get involved in the writer's love life.
3. Elizabeth Bennet
Elizabeth Bennet is from Jane Austen's most famous novel, Pride and Prejudice. Lizzy is witty, observant, strong-willed, unfiltered, judgmental, prejudiced, knowledgeable, and assertive. She is willing to stand up for herself to authority figures for her own beliefs, even to her own parents and people who have a higher social and economic standing in society.
She is an avid reader. It is one of her preferable hobbies to do compared to playing cards, playing the piano, or singing. She reads modern literature of her time, along with academic books about English society.
Lizzy's love of reading means she is well-versed in different types of literature, which would make her very knowledgeable on grammar and sentence structure in essays. Furthermore, she is observant and assertive, which means she would not be afraid to inform a writer on both the good and bad qualities of their writing.
On the other hand, she can be judgmental and prejudiced on her first impressions of a person. If a writer comes into the writing center and is rude to her or anyone else, it will take a while for her to change her opinion on the writer's character. This can put a damp on her having any returning writers come back to her after the first conference.
2. Elinor Dashwood
Elinor Dashwood is the other deuteragonist of Sense and Sensibility, she is the woman on the left of the book cover. Elinor is the sister who has "sense," which means she is very logical and methodically in her reasonings.
She is intellectual, reserved, socially aware, honorable, responsible, and knows how to keep her feelings in check to remain impersonal in conversations and work. She is a great listener and many characters from the book come to her for her opinion. However, Elinor is not a reader; she prefers to draw instead.
Therefore, she would be reliable in giving great conferences with her natural ability to be a good listener and persuasive speaker, however, her lack of knowledge on literature would make it hard for to help with grammatical writing. Although Marianne and Elinor both lack vast knowledge of literature, Elinor is ranked high on this list because she is a great conversationalist.
Marianne is ranked lower than Elinor for the same limited knowledge because Marianne is very opinionated in her beliefs, which could cause her to give wrong advice to a writer. Elinor would be more willing to listen to a writer so she can give the best advice that she can give.
1. Anne Elliot
Anne Elliot is from Jane Austen's Persuasion, one of the last novels she published. Out of all the Jane Austen protagonists, Anne is the oldest and most mature woman at the age of twenty-seven while the other protagonists are in their late teens and early twenties. Anne is independent, sensitive to others' feelings, intelligent, self-confident, loyal, and a person who highly values her friends' opinions to the point she can be persuaded to change her mind.
Her matureness grants her wisdom to see the benefit of listening to others and coming to her own conclusions. She is also an avid reader of poems, mythologies, and moralist essays about English society. She has a wide array of knowledge on different types of literature.
Thus, Anne's intelligence, matureness, and knowledge on poems, mythologies, and essays grants her the ability to be an excellent conversationalist and informed consultant on writing concepts. She has the grace to be gentle with a writer's feelings while also being confident in voicing constructive criticisms to the writer on their work.
Furthermore, she is a great listener who values others' thoughts and opinions, which means she would listen to the writer's concerns and questions and respond to them. Additionally, her extensive literature education would grant her the ability to help writers with more than just essays, she would be able to help writers with their own written narratives and poems. As a result, this makes her the best possible writing consultant out of all the Jane Austen protagonists.
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