Austen’s Twisted Tropes: Gender-Bending and Role-Reversal in Pride and Prejudice and Emma

The turn of the nineteenth century brought immense change for all of Western society, with the advent of capitalism and wage work in the years following the First Industrial Revolution, women’s entrance into the labor force as living became dependent on a double income, and the rise of activism in support of economic and social change that ensued as second-class citizens—the raced, the poor, and the women—felt their oppression severely, and finally gained some social power with which to protest against it. The strict gender roles of eighteenth-century England began to loosen as working-class women were leaving the domestic sphere and taking on men’s roles in the public sphere, causing working-class men to begin to lose their traditionally “masculine” roles as providers, educators, and masters. It was exactly this period in which Jane Austen set pen to paper, and began to write some of the most globally (though posthumously) acclaimed feminist novels in existence today. Drawing from her own experience as a dependent to her middle-class father—then to her brothers after his death—Austen recognized the debilitating domesticity in her mother’s life and the lack of autonomy in her own and “criticized the English social hierarchy and economic system, which left women no choice but to marry for their survival” (“Feminism in Nineteenth-Century Literature”). One of the more subtle ways Austen condemns the gender climate is through a “gender-reversed mirroring” of certain tropes, “to disturb and examine paradigms” of gender expectations (Overmann), creating a commentary on the instability, and thus mutability, of the gender roles prevalent in her culture. As evidenced by two of her most famous works, Pride and Prejudice (1813) and Emma (1815), Austen uses and reuses tropes throughout her repertoire to draw parallels between her characters within and across her novels—parallels which would be glaring, if not obscured by her whimsical gender-bending and role-defying—that result in a subversive critique of her culture’s stifling gender roles.

To illustrate this point, perhaps the most well-loved and oft-replicated trope in romance novel history originates most famously in Pride and Prejudice’s Mr. Darcy: a handsome man with a prideful, calculating, austere exterior to hide his sensitive, compassionate, emotional interior—to hide “how ardently [he admires] and [loves]” (P&P 132). If one imagines Mr. Darcy’s character as a woman who is “handsome, clever, and rich,” “mistress of [her] house,” who has “too much her own way,” and thinks “too well of herself” (E 3), one may find an exact description of Emma. In presenting undeniable similarities between the two, and demonstrating the way a woman can fulfill the stereotypically masculine trope, Austen protests against such gender stereotypes. Though a woman, Emma enjoys independence from men—except for her father who, in reality, acts as a dependent to her—to a much more substantial degree than other Austen heroines; this masculine independence is both derived from and enhanced by her wealth and social rank, two more facets of hegemonic masculinity. Like Mr. Darcy, Emma has the power—and feels the moral duty—to meddle in the lives of others, especially when that person is inferior in class and, therefore, perceived as inferior in the ability to make the “right” choices for themselves—though neither choice, between Mr. Darcy’s for Mr. Bingley and Emma’s for Harriet, end up being the right choice. The two are often the most wealthy and connected people in their respective rooms, and are thus doted on by everyone around them; as such, it comes as no surprise that they both have healthy egos and narcissistic tendencies. They are both prone to impertinent behavior and are appalled when they are chastised for it. While there are such similarities between Mr. Darcy and Emma, these similarities act mainly to masculinize Emma, rather than feminize Mr. Darcy (Austen does so instead with Mr Woodhouse). In this instance, Austen demonstrates that women have the ability and the opportunity to take on masculine attributes and occupy male spaces, rather than the idea that a man can engage feminine characteristics while continuing to deserve masculine power and respect.

In further applying this idea, nearly every Austenian heroine struggles with the trope of the incapable parent (in many cases the eviler of Austen’s two parent tropes, alongside that of the absent parent); in Pride and Prejudice, it is the excitable Mrs. Bennet, who means well, but often falls short of doing her daughter very much good, publicly humiliating Elizabeth as she does so. In Emma, it is the gender-reversed Mr. Woodhouse who fulfills this role, with his valetudinarian anxieties acting as the primary inhibitor of his daughter’s romantic life, and his reputation for his idiosyncratic behavior (to put it nicely) being inextricably tied with Emma’s reputation and quality of life. The two are often perturbing others in the name of avoiding vexation and calming “their poor nerves” (P&P 2). The two are public figures, if only for their unconventional behavior; while he proposes to Elizabeth, Mr. Darcy laments the “family obstacles which had always opposed to inclination” (P&P 132), the embarrassing, often uncivilized behaviors of the Bennet family—most of which are committed by Mrs. Bennet herself. Emma is nearly neglected invitation to the Coles’ party—nearly caused public humiliation—because Mr. Woodhouse is well-known for his complaints of dreadful draughts and fear of “catching cold” (E 196). Austen even characterizes their shared anxieties by giving them a similar rambling, quick-paced, dynamic manner of speaking; Mrs. Bennet’s and Mr. Woodhouse’s lines of dialogue enclose perhaps the most exclamation points in each book. By gender-swapping her incapable parent trope from one novel to the other, Austen conveys the idea that Mrs. Bennet’s frivolity, anxiety, and general inefficacy as a parent are not traits limited to the mother, as nineteenth-century gender stereotypes might suggest. She illustrates that Mr. Woodhouse, the most wealthy and most powerful man in Highbury, can display stereotypically feminine (hysterical) behaviors and simultaneously command respect and reverence, that femininity does not preclude respectability.

The aforementioned are but two examples of a great many gender-swapped character tropes in the Austen repertoire—to name a few honorable mentions, the argumentative love interest with a superiority complex whose scolding facilitates the maturation of their partner is seen in Elizabeth and Mr. Knightley; the devoted best friend whose love life is toyed with by their more powerful companion is seen in Mr. Bingley and Harriet. As shown, Austen uses the similarities of such characters to highlight the successes that may come with rebelling against nineteenth-century gender roles. In a parallel way, she also emphasizes the differences in the treatment of these gender-swapped characters—by other characters, by the narrator, and by the reader herself—to further condemn gender disparities and the mistreatment of women. For example, nearly every similarity between Mr. Darcy and Emma is derived from their comparable positions in class hierarchy, yet each is treated with stark difference to the other—Emma, of course, being treated worse—on the basis of their singular difference: gender. Mr. Darcy’s power of influence over others—as well as the narcissistic and prideful behavior that results—is, perhaps, disapproved of, but tolerated; because he is a “great [man],” he is allowed to be “whimsical in his civilities” (P&P 178), even if those whimsicalities manifest themselves as simply insolent behavior, like calling Elizabeth “tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt [him]” in her earshot, or like picking his friends and family up and moving them to London because his friend is dating a girl of lower rank. When Emma employs her own “whimsical civilities''—for which her father’s own whimsicalities might be at fault—she is berated, punished like one would punish a dog: “badly done, indeed!” (E 293) though of similar power of influence, of similar “greatness” to Mr. Darcy. Along the same vein, that Mr. Bingley is seen as an affable and loyal friend in trusting Mr. Darcy to distance him from the woman he loves while Harriet is implied as being gullible and naive in trusting Emma’s similar concerns about class and connection regarding Mr. Martin.

Further, where Mr. Woodhouse’s idiosyncrasies are appeased—even fawned over—without question, Mrs. Bennet’s anxious, nosey, and unashamed behaviors are gasped at as shockingly humiliating, as unladylike. The disparity in the way the two are treated becomes even more unfair when one realizes that, while Mr. Woodhouse is a negligent father who actively prevents Emma from having a life independent of him, Mrs. Bennet’s choices, though perhaps inadvisable, are all in the effort of finding her least-favorite daughter a good, wealthy husband and thus ensuring her fulfillment and happiness—or, at least, contentment—in her married life. While Mr. Woodhouse raises Emma to be his mother-daughter-wife, to enslave her to his oddities and particularities to the point that she does not believe she will be able to marry as long as he is alive—unless to have a “partner in all those duties and cares,” those “periods of anxiety and cheerlessness” (E 358) she must endure as Mr. Woodhouse’s daughter—Mrs. Bennet raises a daughter who knows what she wants and how to get it; she teaches her daughter the valuable lesson that life as a woman requires some amount of strategy and technique if it is not to be lived as a miserable housewife to a poor man. Mrs. Bennet is undeniably the better parent between the two, yet she is ridiculed with much more intensity and hostility by her own daughter, many readers, and Jane Austen herself. In telling and retelling stories, in using and reusing character tropes, Austen urges the reader to examine the way actions that are lauded for men are condemned for women.

In sum, Austen’s playful toying with gender stereotypes and character tropes is her understated way of protesting against the gender inequality she faced, of ushering in the new age of respect and independence for women at the turn of the nineteenth century. Today, centuries after that new age began, Austen’s modern audience tends to read the treatment of Austen’s woman characters—even those who were treated relatively well—as antiquated and misogynistic; modern readers are so discomposed to the idea that women could absolutely not take on the roles of men—and vice-versa—that they are more likely to read these role-reversed, gender-swapped characters (with very close friends of the same gender) as homosexual than as breaking gender roles, as evidenced by modern literature classes at liberal arts colleges and various online forums dedicated to fanfiction of Austen’s most beloved characters. Austen’s first readers, however, read characters who could rebel against society’s standards, yet still have the chance for a successful married life—she taught those first readers that women can be “unwomanly” and still be loved by a man (or by a woman, but that’s another essay). She teaches her modern readers that, somehow, we still have gender norms to break and mistreatments to protest—and she teaches us that, through writing, we can.

Works Cited

Austen, Jane. Emma. Project Gutenberg, 1815, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/158/158-h/158-h.htm. Accessed 12 Apr. 2024.

---. Pride and Prejudice. Project Gutenberg, 1813, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1342/old/pandp12p.pdf. Accessed 12 Apr. 2024.

“Feminism in Nineteenth-Century Literature.” Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, edited by Kathy D. Darrow, vol. 236, Gale, 2011. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.gale.com/apps/doc/TJOWVI249135314/GLS?u=nysl_me_pace&sid=bookmark-GLS&xid=8e001dd1. Accessed 12 Apr. 2024.

Kelly, Gary. “Jane Austen.” British Romantic Novelists, 1789-1832, edited by Bradford Keyes Mudge, Gale, 1992. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 116. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.gale.com/apps/doc/H1200002367/LitRC?u=nysl_me_pace&sid=bookmark-LitRC&xid=7020366e. Accessed 12 Apr. 2024.

Overmann, Leee. “Darcy and Emma: Austen's ironic meditation on gender.” Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal, vol. 31, annual 2009, pp. 222+. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A227364160/GLS?u=nysl_me_pace&sid=bookmark-GLS&xid=77aea383. Accessed 11 Apr. 2024.