Wait, do Mormons love Jane Austen? I grew up in Utah Valley, surrounded by lots of other Mormons, so it was sometimes hard for me to tell what cultural things were particular to Mormons versus common among Americans (or even larger groups). That being said, I did always feel like there was a particular love of all things Jane Austen among people around me. I didn’t participate much in it. I didn’t read any of her books, although I did watch some movie adaptations, with my favorite being the excellent 1995 Sense and Sensibility that Emma Thompson both wrote and starred in.
But getting back to the question, I was honestly a bit surprised when I looked Jane Austen up on Google Trends and found that not only did Utah rank high, it ranked number one! And Idaho was number two. So that seems like pretty good evidence that I was right that Mormons (at least American Mormons) might have a thing for Jane Austen.
So the question is why. I have a little bit more of a basis for some thoughts now, because although I didn’t read her as a teen or young adult, I’ve read a few of her books in middle age. My favorite is definitely Pride and Prejudice, which is just so crackling and smart and hilarious! I can see why it is so beloved.
Here are my guesses about why American Mormons might especially like Jane Austen:
- Her stories are romances, and not just any romances, but in particular romances that lead to marriage. Their norm of having marriage as a finish line seem to match up nicely with the Mormon norm of trying to get youths to marry up right quick once they reach adulthood, so they don’t have time to get up to no good with any kind of Mormon rumspringa or something.
- Sex may be lurking in the background in her books, but it’s not out in the open. And sex before marriage is totally off the table for nice women (and men, probably, but most decidedly for women). This is a Mormon norm that puts us decidedly out of the mainstream, in the US anyway.
- Many complications of 20th and 21st century life that might make many Mormons uncomfortable (and certainly make many GAs uncomfortable) are just not even considered. For example:
- There are no gay or trans people (or presumably, any such people are solidly closeted).
- There aren’t even really violations of rigid gender roles, other than a whole lot of women who are more willful than they’re expected to be.
- There aren’t any questions of race. Everyone is (presumably) white.
- There aren’t even questions of class, as all characters of any import are upper class and have enough money to be endlessly idle.
- There aren’t concerns about poverty. Sure, like in Sense and Sensibility, there are concerns about relative wealth, but the deprivation characters might experience is a reduction in their number of servants and an inability to afford to keep their carriage. Nobody is actually ever close to starving, or even hungry.
So that’s my list, but I’m a total Jane Austen noob, and I realize many other people know her works far, far better, and have made careers out of studying them. I’d love to hear your take on why American Mormons might especially enjoy Jane Austen.
In our podcast episode on Jane Austen and LDS culture, we made some interesting arguments about how the nature of agency in Jane Austen is similar to our experience as members. Hopefully worth a listen: https://www.popcultureapricottree.com/post/prideandprejudice
Awesome! Thanks for the pointer, Liz! It sounds like you’ve considered the question in a lot more depth than I have, so I look forward to hearing your commentary!
I think part of it has to do with Mormon’s love of Romance. Mormons seem starved for romance, even unhealthy romance like 50 shades and the Twilight series and Austin is certainly a step up from that.
Another reason might be that there are quite a few Austin fans that also write romance novels. I find so many more Covenant Books authors quoting, mimicking, or fanfictioning about Austin than I do reading other romance authors. So, they might be doing some googling of Austin in order to get details of book correct and their quotes correct. They would also tend to get their readers hooked on Austin. As an Austin hater, I notice Austin fans more than most people probably do because I found Austin nauseating. So the high percentage among Covenant Books authors is driving me away from that publisher.
My mother who taught literature at BYU for a short while included Austin in her category of “literatrasher” and she probably infected my thinking. I admit she was an intellectual snob. But unlike other “classic” literature, Austin has an appeal to average people, like escape literature readers, so in my opinion, it is great enough to span both “classical” literature and popular literature, and there is a timelessness to it. It has a broad enough appeal for those who want to escape into something more than two inches deep.
Ex-mormon English Major (who still loves Jane Austen!). I think that Jane Austen has kept a prolonged prominence in pop culture at large in part because her writing is fairly accessible (even if you miss her underlying satire/critiques, it’s a really comprehensible story) and that she writes such big “types” (e.g., everyone knows a Mr. Collins).
Within Mormon culture specifically – I think that you’ve named several parts of why her writing has maintained a particular prominence. I also think that another portion of it is that the protagonists of Jane Austen are good “types” for what Mormon parents want their daughters to be. At least in my experience as a teen in the 00s-10s, I was told to be an independent thinker… and use that independent thought to embrace the traditional Mormon lifestyle (marry young, have children early). I think that Austen women, particularly those in P&P, often “follow” that type really well. Lizzie is clever, well-spoken, and well-read and has strong social skills. Jane (the character) is such a nice human being that it works to her detriment in the story. I can see both Lizzie and Jane being the type of daughters that Mormon parents want, down to the clean courtship, high standards, and ultimate happy endings.
I also think that Austen’s writings may resonate because although she satirizes the status quo repeatedly in her writing, her endings end up enforcing the ‘quo’. Everyone ends up in the ending they deserve. The good characters get good endings, the bad characters get bad ones.
I’d suspect that there is a level of subconscious relatability as well, such as the inane social games, the expectation for women to not wholly speak their minds, the separation of spheres, the emotionally uninvolved, ‘wise’ father and the marriage-obsessed mother, and the pressure to marry a wealthy man in order to ensure your own economic well-being. (And in Austen’s time, women couldn’t inherit – when Mr Bennet dies, Mr Collins would inherent and the entire family would be left to Collins’ whims. So when Elizabeth and Jane marry well, they are ensuring that their entire family is taken care of in a way that is appropriate for their sex.)
This is probably more than you wanted, ha!
A good few years ago now we had a US member in our UK ward with her family, who was just getting started on writing modern teen romance retellings of Jane Austen novels. She had me proof-read a couple of them, and managed to get a US agent before they returned to the US. I remember finding some American terms difficult. What were bleachers, I wondered. Also we did not agree on the term to describe the sound of a doorbell. Here, they ring or chime. She insisted on peel, which in the UK is reserved for particular patterns rung by church bells.
She did in fact get published: https://www.goodreads.com/series/list/2937053.Jenni_James.html
Thanks for your comments! Short Girl, definitely not more than I wanted! Thanks for lending your expertise! Anna, that makes sense that Mormons are into romance. Hedgehog, that’s fascinating about the different usages in the UK and US!
Interesting, Hedgehog. I wonder where she got the notion. I’ve lived all over the US and never heard the word “peal” associated with a doorbell.
1995 was a particularly good year for fans of Jane Austen film/TV adaptations as we had the Emma Thompson Sense & Sensibility, the BBC Pride & Prejudice with Colin Firth, and the Roger Michell-directed Persuasion with Ciáran Hinds. All three came out in the same year and they all happen to be excellent. If you were a Mormon Gen X or millennial in 1995, you probably saw at least one of those.
Fun post, too bad I did not see it till now!
I’d argue that Austen isn’t much of a romance writer at all. Yes, the novels end in marriages, but that’s really just the scaffolding. Beneath the carriages and ball gowns you find satire, proto-feminism, and sharp critiques of money, class, power, and patriarchy.
Maybe Mormon women don’t love Austen because she’s “wholesome romance” — I think they may love her because she looks safe while smuggling in wit, feminism, and quiet rebellion. Austen offers a kind of socially acceptable package, but inside are strong-willed heroines pushing against rigid systems.
It’s subversion in a bonnet. As a Mormon woman who can’t always say things out loud, I get her world and she gets mine.
Thanks for your more knowledgeable take, Austen fanatic! I love the idea of Mormon women sneaking in quiet rebellion with her!