Apart from Shakespeare , Austen also introduced heroines in her novels.
Heroines who are credible , with minds and capacities to think for themselves , with ambition and wit , with interior lives independent of men and the will to challenge them emotionally and intellectually.
In Austen's time a woman's predicament is to be born into a world which values them for their marriageability
The culmination of womanhood is to be wife and mother and living a life regulated by ideals of polite femininity.
Each of the heroines has to understand herself and her relationships with others.
She has to practice the morality of compromise and discover her own way of accepting society's demands while preserving the integrity of her own values and beliefs.
Each Heroine travels the path of self -discovery and growth; they struggle with self-determination and fulfillment .
A woman's role in society was to be passive and submissive.
Her function was decorative in society , a comfort at home and an appendage to the man.
Jane Austen enables us to understand the heroines in their struggle for individuality and fulfillment at a time of social revolution in England followed by revolutions in France and America.
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