https://doi.org/10.67147/literariness.v1i3.099
Beyond Sensibility: Shame, Affect, and Emotional Regulation in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
DR. REKHA KARIM
Associate Professor of English
Maharaja’s College, Ernakulam
Affiliated to Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam
rekhakarimcj@gmail.com
LIYAN FAREEN FIROZ
I M.A. English Language and Literature
Department of English
Maharaja’s College, Ernakulam
liyanfareen05@gmail.com
Abstract: While eighteenth-century sensibility culture celebrated strong emotional responses as signs of virtue, Jane Austen, through her novel Pride and Prejudice, shows how shame functions as a social control that moves between bodies and spaces, particularly affecting women. The paper examines concepts of affect, emotion, and sensibility in the aforementioned novel, drawing on Sara Ahmed’s affect theory to illustrate that shame is a central, coherent, and organising force in the novel’s emotional world. Using Ahmed’s concepts of emotional circulation, sticky objects, and emotional labour, the study analyses how shame spreads through the novel’s social world, attaching itself to certain bodies and families while others remain protected by class privilege. Through in-depth reading of the Bennet sisters, Fitzwilliam Darcy, and Charlotte Lucas, the paper substantiates how shame appears both as a bodily experience and as a social force that requires defensive strategies shaped by gender and class. The paper revisits Austen’s sensibility by exploring how social vulnerability requires emotional regulation rather than emotional openness. Elizabeth’s wit works as what Ahmed calls ‘feminist killjoy’, an emotion that disrupts false happiness; Charlotte’s practical choices confirm her survival through emotional management; Jane’s excessive sweetness reveals the exhausting work of absorbing negative emotions from others. The novel supports composed emotions, while distinguishing that the balance is limited by gender inequality and the social movement of shame.
Keywords: Affect, Shame, Sensibility, Emotional Labour, Feminist Killjoy, Sticky Affects
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