ABSTRACT
In this essay, Kathleen Anderson posits that Austen promulgates women‘s worth through their responsibility to engage in self-care of body, mind, and spirit and to assert truth to self in their relationships with especially men, providing guidelines on how to fulfil this prerogative. The author insists on her heroines’ earthly thriving--providing still-relevant strategies for its realization--and pays them the compliment of expecting more. Her protagonists must act upon their own conscience and conviction, doing what is right with no thought of a reward and even believing they will never obtain their heart's desire. Their prioritization of principle and other people over themselves reflects a radical assertion of the individual will in which self-approval takes precedence over men's approval. Thus, Austen accentuates her heroines' transcendence of merely personal gratifications in favour of a sacrificiality that exemplifies a distinctly feminine form of greatness--a heroinism that reflects the highest form of truth to self. They are not to be bought for love or money. This is the profoundly logical paradox that distinguishes Austen's feminist heroinism and its simultaneous foundation and manifestation in self-nurture.
