Men, Women, and the Willful Misinterpretation of Female Speech

Female speech in Jane Austen's novels is heavily dictated by the whims of her male characters, and although "[f]emale speech is never entirely repressed in Austen's fiction, [it] is dictated so as to mirror or otherwise reassure masculine desire" (Johnson 37). However, there are times when women stray from the gendered rules of speech and, in expressing their opinions, threaten male control over discourse. In these situations men resort to either willful misinterpretation or forced silence in order to draw women back into their verbal control. Mary Crawford and Elizabeth Bennet are two of…