Austen, Jane,--1775-1817--Characters--Mothers

The character of Elinor Tilney in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey states, "A mother could have been always present. A mother would have been a constant friend; her influence would have been beyond all others" (180). Ironically, however, Jane Austen's portrayal of the protagonists' mothers is inevitably less than the paragon that Tilney describes. Mrs. Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, Mrs. Morland in Northanger Abbey, and Mrs. Price in Mansfield Park all fail their daughters. Mrs. Dashwood, like her daughter Marianne, falls into the excesses of emotion that mimic the Romantic era. Mrs. Bennet errs because of defects in her character and her failure to understand the elements necessary for a successful marriage. Mrs. Morland neglects her daughter, and Mrs. Price virtually abandons hers. Seen against the standards of motherhood from the eighteenth-century philosophers, the eighteenth-century courtesy literature, and letters from the author, the heroines' mothers present a portrait of bad mothering of the period.