What Can Jane Austen Teach Us About Life and Love?

Posted on Apr 04, 2019 Topic : Fiction, Women's Christian Living
Posted by : Terry Glaspey

Jane Austen published her first novel over 200 years ago, but for her fans (and there are many of them) these stories seem as relevant and entertaining as ever. Though many things have changed in the intervening decades, the human heart still is motivated by love and romance and desire.

The 19^th century was a time for epic, sweeping novels dealing with the big events unfolding on the stage of history. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Dickens, and others chronicled both national catastrophes and the dramatic existential crises of their characters. But Jane Austen was a little different than the others.

All the drama she desired to portray in her novels could be found in an ordinary drawing room on an ordinary day. For Austen was a keen observer of how human beings interact with one another. The games we play, the postures we take, the small cruelties we inflict on each other—these were subjects of her penetrating stories. She understood what makes people tick.

Though she remained single throughout her life, it is hard to think of a novelist who had a better understanding of how human relationships work, most especially in the sphere of love and romance. She captured the deceptions of charm, the pettiness of comparison, the malice of gossip, and the damage done by jumping to conclusions about others.

As the daughter of an Anglican vicar, she understood the nature of sin, including her own. And she tried, in response, to be kind and just, and to be a faithful friend. She understood that love could look past faults, act with forgiveness, and bring joy and meaning to our lives.

Jane Austen offers up a number of examples of truly exemplary people in her novels; people that you wish could be part of your own personal circle of friends. Maybe that is why so many of us regularly revisit her wonderful books—it’s like visiting again with an old and cherished friend.

Jane Austen’s books are as revealing about human nature as any ever written, which is certainly one of the key reasons why they remain so popular even today. Though, at the same time, one cannot overstate the sheer pleasure of her cleverness, her humor, and her way with words.

In Jane Austen’s Little Book About Life I have gathered some of my favorite passages from her novels, her letters, her poetry, and her prayers. For she has taught me a great deal about life and relationships, and she is one of those rare authors who fully deserves the sometimes-over-used description: wise. She often causes me to smile in recognition (“yes, unfortunately that’s just like me!”) and be challenged about the way I treat others. She makes me laugh with her cleverness and her spot-on observations, and she provides wonderful insights about what it means to be a better person. That’s why it was a joy to assemble this little sampling of Austen’s wisdom about life.