ABSTRACT
Through Katherine Austen's allusion to The Odyssey’s Penelope, this wealthy widow signals to a persistent suitor that his efforts are hopeless. Being Penelope, it seems, makes suitors impatient. Austen’s invocation of this mythic model of the faithful wife not only served her immediate purpose of discouraging an unwanted prospective second husband; it also reveals much about her self-representation--the complicated and strategic nature of which is the focus of this chapter. Part of Austen’s self-figuration as a gentle widow relies on her implied wish for patriarchal protection against her male aggressors. That Austen’s self-comparisons to all biblical figures had weight for her is evident in her concern about suggesting too strong a comparison between herself and Christ. Austen’s self-representation with respect to her husband is complicated, as is evident in the discussion of her self-figuration as a “gentle” widow who wishes for his ghostly surveillance.
