ABSTRACT
In the majority of Austen's novels, however, the significance of maternal education is enacted on a level that goes beyond a representation of good and bad mother figures. This chapter discusses the two novels: Northanger Abbey and Emma present differing aspects of novelistic maternity in terms of plot and the education of their heroines. It focuses on however, is not representation of mothers but the fact that both novels illustrate the absorption of maternal educative authority into a feminine' narrative authorial voice in implicitly didactic novels by the early nineteenth century. The chapter explains that Jane Austen's narrative authority in the didactic novel was adapted from the discipline of maternal educative writing established by writers who engaged with women's maternal role in education more explicitly. Austen openly recognises the didactic narrative rationale behind both tropes; the heroine needs to be placed in a situation of unguided vulnerability to ensure she encounters the experiences.
