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Jane Austen has attracted a great deal of critical attention in recent years. Many have spoken out about the strengths and weaknesses of her characters, particularly her heroines. Austen has been cast as both a friend and foe to the rights of women. According to ....

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.... her heroines. Watt says that Austen’s characters cannot be seen “clearly until we make allowances for the social order in which they were rooted” (41). Austen lived in a society where women were expected to be “accomplished,” as Darcy states in Pride and Prejudice, but not well educated (“Notes”). Women of the late eighteenth-century could not attend educational institutions like Oxford or Cambridge. It was not considered necessary for a woman to have knowledge of either Greek or Latin. If a woman received training, it was usually religious or domestically practical. The expected accomplishments of a ....