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How a 19th-century woman still teaches us to
laugh, to dream, and to resist with elegance and courage.
In a world still fighting for gender equity and
freedom of female expression, Jane Austen re-emerges as a current and powerful
voice. With subtle irony, bold female characters, and a critical eye on
patriarchal society, she invites us to reflect on the limits imposed on
women—and the need to reinvent them.
When we think of
revolutions, we often imagine grand speeches, popular uprisings, and historic
upheavals. But there are silent revolutions, carried out with carefully chosen
words, restrained gestures, and the indomitable force of the desire to exist.
Jane Austen, the English writer born in 1775, led one of these revolutions.
With her seemingly “drawing-room” novels, she subverted the social values of
her time and pioneered a new way of thinking about women, love, and freedom.
Her protagonists, like Elizabeth Bennet and Emma Woodhouse, are intelligent,
sarcastic women ahead of their time. It is precisely this refined irony, mixed
with a latent desire for autonomy, that makes Austen a unique writer.
Curiosity Box
Jane Austen did not use her name in her early publications. Her
books were signed “By a Lady.” This was due to the limitations imposed on
female writers, whose works were not taken seriously.
Austen’s irony—now
studied in many universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, and Harvard—is not just
a stylistic device. It is a weapon. She gently dismantles the values of the
English aristocracy, exposes the calculated nature of arranged marriages, and
reveals how women were reduced to social currency. With each exchanged glance
and every described ball, Austen magnifies human relationships, showing how appearances
deceive and how desire is an invisible battleground. A striking example is the
novel Sense and Sensibility, where two sisters symbolize the tension
between emotion and reason—both crushed by social norms.
Inspirational Quote
“I do not pretend to be anything other than what I am.” — Elizabeth
Bennet, in Pride and Prejudice
In an almost prophetic
way, Austen portrayed female profiles that today would be called empowered. She
spoke of desire when doing so was forbidden, but did so with the elegance of
someone who knows that subtlety can be the strongest form of resistance. And
that makes her incredibly relevant today. In the era of social media, where
superficiality reigns, Austen teaches us to read between the lines, to decipher
gestures, to understand that silence can also be a cry.
Inspiring Story
Emma Thompson, award-winning British actress, shared that writing
the screenplay for the film Sense and Sensibility was a turning point in her
life. She spent years immersed in Austen’s letters and diaries and said she
learned more about 19th-century womanhood than from any history book.
Recent research from
Yale and Stanford universities has shown how reading Austen activates brain
areas related to empathy, theory of mind, and social perception. Reading her
books not only enriches vocabulary, but also trains the brain to better
understand others. This aligns with the work of Brazilian educator and
playwright Antônio Carlos dos Santos, who proposes methodologies such as MAT
(Mindset, Action, and Theater), ThM (Theater Movement), and TBMB (Mané Beiçudo
Puppet Theater), aimed at integrating cognitive, emotional, and expressive
development.
Practical Tip:
Encourage teens and young adults to read Austen using the MAT
method: promote character role-play debates, develop short scene enactments
with ThM, and create puppet scripts to explore the moral dilemmas of the
characters using TBMB. Austen’s work is a treasure trove for developing critical
thinking and empathy.
In educational
settings, Jane Austen’s works can be more than mandatory reading—they can
become tools for personal and social transformation. When approached through
the lens of neuroeducation, her stories stimulate essential skills such as
critical thinking, interpretive ability, and emotional intelligence. This is
more urgent than ever in a society where fast content consumption has stunted
our capacity for reflection.
Jane Austen did not
set out to be a heroine. She wanted to write. And with her pen, she changed the
world. May we, like her, find in irony a form of wit, in desire a form of
courage, and in literature a form of resistance. Because, as the latest
neuroscience studies show, deep reading is a powerful way to bring about both
brain and social change. And Austen, with all her rebellious delicacy, has been
teaching us this for more than two centuries.
Access the books by Antônio Carlos dos Santos on amazon.com or amazon.com.br
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