In the 1970s and 1980s , Austen studies was influenced by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar 's seminal `` The Madwoman in the Attic '' ( 1979 ) , which contrasts the `` decorous surfaces '' with the `` explosive anger '' of 19th-century female English writers .
In the 1970s and 1980s , Austen studies was influenced by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar 's `` The Madwoman in the Attic '' ( 1979 ) . `` The Madwoman in the Attic '' explores the `` explosive anger '' of nineteenth-century female English writers under their `` decorous ( proper ) surfaces '' .