TY - BOOK ID - 15327738 TI - Women and ‘Value’ in Jane Austen’s Novels : Settling, Speculating and Superfluity PY - 2017 SN - 3319507362 3319507354 PB - Cham : Springer International Publishing : Imprint: Palgrave Macmillan, DB - UniCat KW - Literature. KW - Literature, Modern KW - British literature. KW - Eighteenth-Century Literature. KW - Nineteenth-Century Literature. KW - British and Irish Literature. KW - 18th century. KW - 19th century. KW - Women. KW - Women KW - Social conditions. KW - Human females KW - Wimmin KW - Woman KW - Womon KW - Womyn KW - Feminism KW - Females KW - Human beings KW - Femininity KW - Literature, Modern-18th century. KW - Literature, Modern-19th century. KW - Literature, Modern—18th century. KW - Literature, Modern—19th century. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:15327738 AB - Jane Austen’s minor female characters expose the economic and social realties of British women in the long eighteenth century and reflect the conflict between intrinsic and expressed value within the evolving marketplace, where fluctuations and fictions inherent in the economic and moral value structures are exposed. Just as the newly-minted paper money was struggling to express its value, so do Austen’s minor female characters struggle to assert their intrinsic value within a marketplace that expresses their worth as bearers of dowries. Austen’s minor female characters expose the plight of women who settle for transactional marriages, become speculators and predators, or become superfluous women who have left the marriage market and battle for personal significance and existence. These characters illustrate the ambiguity of value within the marriage market economy, exposing women’s limited choices. This book employs a socio-historical framework, considering the rise of a competitive consumer economy juxtaposed with affective individualism. ER -