Jane Austen’s MBTI type has long fascinated fans of historical drama. In Becoming Jane, portrayed by Anne Hathaway, she shows clear traits of an INFP and aligns closely with Enneagram 1w2. Her fierce commitment to love, moral integrity, and personal ideals—combined with her imaginative wit and quiet emotional depth—make her a compelling example of an INFP navigating a restrictive society.
INFP 1w2 Characters
Why is Jane Austen from Becoming Jane an INFP? Continue reading! The headers for each section are clickable, so you can easily access more information about the dominant function and the Enneagram type, or discover more characters who share the type.
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Introverted Feeling
Jane initially refuses to marry a rich man, because she cannot marry “without love” and entirely rejects her mother’s insistence that love without financial stability is disastrous and would make her unhappy. Fi-doms often pursue their heart over other considerations, because logic or financial stability seems secondary to their intense feeling for another person. Then she falls in love with Tom and intends to run away with him, asking her sister if she would mind ruination and poverty if it meant she could be with the man she loved. But when she realizes doing so would ruin Tom’s family, and leave his siblings destitute, she cannot go through with it. Jane could not live with herself if she did that to them, even though it means sacrificing her own happiness in the process. Rather than reflecting the social mores of the time, it’s a deeply felt internal conviction that forces her to do what she feels is right.
She is different from her peers, and fine with being an “old maid” author. Jane quarrels with her mother over being able to live by her pen, because she sees that as a tangible prospect whereas Mrs. Austen doubts it is financially secure enough. Jane is also easily offended, which happens because IFPs have no buffer between their emotions and the events around them. The first time Tom meets her and makes a snide remark about her writing, she is upset about it, combs through what she wrote, tears it all up, and throws it into the fire, because she can’t block his opinions from her mind. She has internalized his criticisms, read her work through an emotional lens, and then gets rid of it.
Jane is sometimes wrapped up in her own feelings, and inconsiderate of social niceties (such as playing the piano first thing in the morning when she cannot write, disturbing the entire household because she is not thinking about who might be asleep, and playing cricket despite being the only woman to participate).
Extroverted Intuition
Jane explores new ideas through being witty, and asking “what if,” which causes her endless brainstorming early in the morning. Her letters are full of cut out spaces (her sister wonders what Jane is “trying to say”) because she changed her mind about a phrase or a word or a whole sentence. She often forms judgments based off her intuition (and she’s right about Tom, in that he’s a carefree rake).
Jane spends most of her time thinking about her stories, and coming up with ironies off other people’s statements. She sees the patterns in human behavior and turns them into ironies. She loves to mock society and its norms. She has an unusual, humorous and sarcastic view of the world, and can make fun of anything.
Her firm, strong negative impression of Tom when they first meet reverses as she comes to know him (showing a willingness to shift with the environment and change her mind, which is what Ne does best). She also idealistically believes in her dreams of making it as an author, even when others scoff at the notion.
Introverted Sensing
INFPs find it soothing to keep to routines and be out in nature, and Jane often goes for a walk with her notebook. She writes down pretty little turns of phrase or things people say to use them later in her novels. (At one point, leaving a group to sit on a bench and scribble about a “prettish sort of wilderness” off to the side of the house, which later turns into Catherine de Burgh.) Jane also loves outdoor activities such as cricket.
The film also lays out a sequence of experiences that make it into Pride and Prejudice, and some of the themes of heartsick loneliness turn up in Persuasion, her later works, to show Jane pulling from real life and turning these incidents (a bothersome suitor, a dance in which Tom snubs everyone, a first meeting of traded insults, love thwarted, an oppressive and condescending aunt) into book fodder.
She also accepts the constraints of her society and its limits even if she does not want to do so; she is aware that she needs to earn a living or find a stable husband, and that Tom’s family needs long-term security. This is Fi accepting the Si-realities of the world she lives in. She weighs her own romantic impulses against the realities of her situation and, for a time, tries to get engaged just to be secure (but ultimately does not go through with it).
Extroverted Thinking
Jane initially pushes back against logical reasoning with emotions; she wants to pay for her own life with her writing, and she won’t get married unless it’s for love. When neither of those things seem possible, she apologizes to her mother for being too dismissive of them in the first place. She agrees to try to find a husband for financial security, since she suspects she cannot earn a living off her books.
She Jane redefines the definition of “irony” at dinner, correcting someone of a higher station as to what it means (and earns his disapproval). When she decides to forsake Tom, she also lays out the practical problems of living without a stable income and the effect it will have on his younger siblings, in blunt terms (if we do this, this will happen, and then I cannot live with myself, which all leads back to her dominant Fi).
The Enneagram 1
Jane is mindful of appropriate behavior and morals from the start; when Tom insults her writing, she becomes angry and annoyed at him, but also does not want to be impolite in their interactions. He tells her to read Tom Jones, but she does so; she admits the characters are good, but also disliked it because the morals were lacking.
Her biggest moment of being a 1, however, comes with her deciding that she cannot elope with Tom, because of what it would do to his family. When the consequences were hers alone to bear (living poor), she was willing to do it, but when she sees that it will negatively affect everyone in his family and leave his mother and siblings without help… she can’t do it. 1s operate out of principles, and hers kick in to say “your happiness cannot come at the expense of others,” so she calls off the engagement.
The 2 Wing
When Jane’s mother doesn’t know where she is, she tells a visitor that Jane is out “helping people.” It’s true, Jane takes baskets of food around to the less fortunate. She spends hours talking with a deaf person using sign language, and reassures him they will always be friends. When her sister loses her future husband to illness, Jane hovers in her room, unsure of what to say, but wanting to be there for her with embraces. Her decision to give up her happiness is partly out of consideration for others and their needs, by telling herself that those needs are more important than her own. (2s feel that they are sacrificial, because sacrifice is what you do when you care about others.)
