What Jane Austen can teach us about resilience
Unravel the timeless wisdom of Jane Austen as we delve into her narratives, extracting lessons on resilience. Discover how her characters' trials, tribulations, and triumphs provide a mirror to our own resilience in the face of life's adversities.
Jane Austen
Her novels may be mischaracterized as romantic escapism, but at their core, they have a lot to say about perseverance.
- Displacement and the fracturing of family life are reflected in much of her work, especially Sense and Sensibility, in which the Dashwood sisters are forced to leave their family home and are then stripped of their inheritance from their father by their half-brother and his manipulative wife
- Austen’s own life was a lesson in forbearance – she published her six celebrated novels in the space of seven years and died at the age of only 41
- She knew what financial insecurity was like, and how to deal with it
Back in the present day, Dow has been made alive to the therapeutic power of Austen through her teaching of a free online course Jane Austen: Myth and Reality on digital education platform Futurelearn.
Each reader has their own particular reasons to find Austen a tonic
- Kelly believes that the way that she writes has a slowing down effect which encourages slow reading
- Byrne uses Austen in her non-profit, ReLit, to promote the complementary treatment of stress, anxiety and other conditions through slow reading of great literature in schools, prisons, hospices and for healthcare workers suffering burnout
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