The Counterfactual Austen

The Watsons, which Jane Austen gave up writing in 1804, was far-reaching in focalizing a single consciousness. However, it differs from a work like Persuasion in its thoroughgoing "despondence" over the uneven stations to which "the Watsons"—a family of both sisters and brothers—are assigned as a condition of their gender. Hewing to a point of view in which despair over these conditions is growing, the narrative founders by alignment with Emma Watson, who demands better—but not before yielding both a character and an author thoroughly fed up with things as they are.