Reception history of Jane Austen their class, instead of their moral failures being presented as a product of the social system. Writing about the work of Johnson, Irvine wrote that for her, Austen was a radical because it is women like Emma Woodhouse, Mrs. Elton and Mrs. Churchill who really run Highbury society, undercutting traditional gender roles, but Irvine questioned whether this really made Austen into radical, noting it was the wealth and status of the gentry women of Highbury that gave them their power. Irvine argued it was just as possible to see "Emma" as a conservative novel that upholds the superiority of the
Styles and themes of Jane Austen such as Duckworth, contend that Austen's heroines "support and maintain an inherited structure of values and behavior", displaying a version of Christian stoicism. He emphasizes that Austen's novels highlight the dangers of individualism; her heroines emerge from isolation and despair to be reinstated into society. In "Mansfield Park", in particular, the morally suspect characters—the Crawfords, Rushworth and the Bertram daughters—represent individualism. The heroine of "Emma" embodies the dangers of individualism as her position of power allows her to affect everyone in Highbury. In "Sense and Sensibility", Austen juxtaposes Elinor, who regulates the expression of her feelings according to social conventions,