Jane Austen in popular culture
Austen went out of favour in Japan during the militarist period in the early Showa era (1931-1945) when a xenophobic, ultra-nationalist mood prevailed, and the government discouraged people from reading foreign books. But during the period of the American occupation (1945–52), almost every Austen book was translated into Japanese except "Mansfield Park" (which was not translated until 1978), and Austen started to be widely taught in Japanese high schools. The translation of "Sense and Sensibility" in 1947, followed by a translation of "Pride and Prejudice" in 1950 were published by the prestigious publishing house Iwanami Shoten, and both books sold very well. The success of the Iwanami versions of "Sense and Sensibility" and "Pride and Prejudice" was the moment that Austen became respectable in Japan. In 1963, the critic Yamamoto Kenkichi, in his essay “The Smile of "Pride and Prejudice"” that proved to be influential, criticized Japanese literature for being overtly solemn and praised Austen for her “natural ease”, which led him to conclude: “Collins, Wickham, Mrs. Bennet, Lady Catherine, how she turns her laughter on these minor characters. They are observed with some malice, certainly, but in a pleasant, mischievous, irreverent manner which ultimately accords salvation to even these fools”. Austen has been regarded as a major writer in Japan since the 1950s, and in 2007, the Jane Austen Society of Japan was founded to provide a space for Japanese Janeites. In 2015-2016, "manga" versions of "Pride and Prejudice", "Emma", and "Sense and Sensibility" were published in Japan.
Styles and themes of Jane Austen
Austen's novels raise and explore a variety of issues relating to money and property and the power they convey. For example, in "Pride and Prejudice", the plot revolves around the problems caused by primogeniture, as the Bennet property is entailed away from the Bennet daughters, and "Sense and Sensibility" questions the arbitrariness of property inheritance when the elderly Mr. Dashwood disinherits one side of his nephew's family because of his affection for a baby on the other. As Copeland explains, "[f]rom the focus of "Sense and Sensibility", "Pride and Prejudice", and "Northanger Abbey", where the single most significant economic problem for women is the lack of a fortune, Austen's works steadily engage women in more and more complex relationships to the economy. "Mansfield Park", "Emma", and "Persuasion", each in turn, move through an examination of the economy as measure of social morality, as agent of social disruption, [and] as source of national identity".
The novels discuss social status and social position in terms of "rank", "station" and "degree", and not in terms of "class" in the modern sense. Where the more modern concept of "class" is determined principally by productivity and income, and connotes conflict, the term "rank" focused on lineage and connoted harmony, stability and order. Austen generally portrays characters in the professional classes, such as the clergy and armed forces, most positively. For example, in "Mansfield Park", the heroine marries a clergyman, while in "Persuasion", the model marriage is that of Admiral and Mrs. Croft. Although Austen's novels suggest that characters should be judged by moral standards and not simply by social status, she always specifies their social positions, often (as with the Gardiners in "Pride and Prejudice") making it part of the earliest descriptions of a character. Austen outlines characters' social connections in detail. In "Emma" the reader is exposed to a wide spectrum of hierarchical society: the gentry, the near-gentry, professionals, artisans, servants and the undeserving poor. While social contact between these groups is frequent in a small village, transition between groups was uncommon. For example, Emma, a member of the gentry, dines with the Coles, "rising" members of the near-gentry, but she marries Knightley, a member of the gentry, who feels free to dine with Robert Martin, one of his tenant farmers.