Female speech in Jane Austen's novels is heavily dictated by the whims of her male characters, and although "[f]emale speech is never entirely repressed in Austen's fiction, [it] is dictated so as to mirror or otherwise reassure masculine desire" (Johnson 37). However, there are times when women stray from the gendered rules of speech and, in expressing their opinions, threaten male control over discourse. In these situations men resort to either willful misinterpretation or forced …showed first 75 words of 1943 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1943 total…still killed her "by quelling her voice and vitality" (Johnson 40). Even in death the wife cannot escape General Tilney's control, for he has the power to shape her public memory. This is the ultimate submission of a woman to the male control of discourse<a chilling portrait of women's fate if men are successful in maintaining that control. Johnson, Claudia L. Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.