Lessons of the Ordinary

Jane Austen. 

I know, you’re thinking ‘Woah, I’m here trying to make myself feel better about being ordinary, and you’re throwing one of the greatest female literary minds in my face.’ 

Jane Austen’s novels often revolve around the lives of ordinary individuals – primarily women – in the 19th-century English countryside. Despite their seemingly unremarkable lives, Austen’s characters are connected to universal challenges and desires that resonate with people across different times and cultures. 

From Elizabeth to Catherine to Emma to Anne, these characters seek happiness and fulfilment within the constraints of their ordinary lives. Their journeys teach us that the pursuit of happiness is not limited to grand adventures; it can be found in the small victories that come from navigating life, love, family, friendship, and money. 

They remind us that it’s OK and fulfilling to pursue love, to pursue comfort, and to pursue happiness. They remind us that that can all be done by being an intelligent, independent, and strong woman too. 

Historian and author of the biography ‘Jane Austen At Home’, Lucy Worsley encapsulates it as: ‘Only with Austen were women’s thoughts and feelings beautifully, accurately, and amazingly brought to life’. ‘Only with Austen did women begin to live as they still do today’. 

Jane didn’t live the life of her characters. With little comfort and constant financial struggle; she was always pursuing a more independent life, but it was always just out of reach. Jane was an ordinary woman with an extraordinary talent. Did anyone appreciate her extraordinary? No. Did that stop her? No. 

Once again, Lucy captures it so perfectly, reminding us that not all of us see the extraordinary in the ordinary, especially when it matters most. Jane Austen’s lost love, Tom Lefroy, survived ‘long enough to begin to realise what extraordinary power must have lurked within the rather ordinary-looking young woman with whom he had danced in Hampshire.’