Abstract
Jane Austen, as a master of the courtship novel, uses locations and settings to enhance the logistics of her characters’ courtships. The interior (drawing rooms, dinners, and balls) and exterior (countryside, gardens, and towns and cities) settings enrich and complement each courting couple’s individual and collective personalities and foreshadows the location and success of the marriage proposal. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Persuasion demonstrate the relevance of location to the personalities, compatibility, courtships, and marriage proposals of four couples: Jane Bennet and Charles Bingley, Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy, Emma Woodhouse and George Knightley, and Anne Elliot and Frederick Wentworth. This article explores the courtships of these four characters, demonstrating that each courtship is based in an interior, exterior, or combined location; examining the correlation between personality and location; and analyzing the significance of location in the marriage proposal. Ultimately, the marriage proposal hinges on location—location draws couples together and determines the success of the encounter.