Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Jane Austen's Style
Austen has an interesting style that broke away from many of her peers' writing techniques. Using dialogue, satire, irony, free indirect speech, and humor, Austen is able to develop story and characters without a huge amount of detail and description. Do you find Austen's style to be effective? How are her characters developed--and are they believable? Is her use of satire and humor still relevant today?
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Concerning the topic of Austen's style, I find it to be effective in developing her story and her characters in Pride and Prejudice. It is effective because it, rather than focusing on the details of a person, it focuses on the characteristics of a person, which is what makes the novel worth reading.
ReplyDeleteAn example of this focusing on character arises when concerning the topic of Austen's style I find it to be effective in developing her story and her characters in Pride and Prejudice. It is effective because it, rather than focusing on the details of a person, it focuses on the characteristics of a person, which is what makes the novel worth reading.
An example of this focusing on character arises when Darcy confesses his love for Elizabeth in Volume II. Austen writes of how Darcy enters Elizabeth's room and states "In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you," to Elizabeth to which she reacts with shock and scorns Darcy afterwards (185). Darcy's speech reflects character in a manner of ways with the first being that the first line of his speech reflects his prejudice against Elizabeth. By stating that he has struggled against himself to confess his love shows that he still views her as a person of a lower class as he did at the beginning of the novel. Austen's characters are quite developed using this style but the development is still holding on to some of the characteristics that they had at the beginning as the novel progresses. I find Darcy to be the best example of this as seen from how he treats Elizabeth at the beginning of the novel and then again in his confession. the first time that Darcy sees Elizabeth, he states that "She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me; and I am in no humour to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men," essentially stating that she is not beautiful nor does he wish to be with her (13). This does show effective character development in how this is quite believable that a person could be cold and callous but has he or she develops, he or she still holds onto the characteristics that he or she had at first. Consider for a moment a real world like scenario in which someone meets a person for the first person and he or she has a strong dislike for the person based upon a trait of him or her. Later on he or she meets again with said person and notices that he or she has developed and grown in traits but still holds onto those certain traits. Such is human nature to cling to what was and Austen reflects it in her style making her characterizations and developments believable.
During Austen's lifetime and prior to it, satire was largely political and social, on a subversive level, which is what Austen does. She is satirizing the human condition of relationships and the traits of people as seen is the turmoil that her characters endure. As far as humor, Austen's humor is a little behind times in terms of modern humor. Austen uses her humor to laugh at the human condition as she satirizes and to laugh at the complexities of human courtships rituals and relationships, a rather delicate subject in modern times. In modern times, relationships are something that is taken to be quite serious, as it was in Austen's time, but now people are mostly married out of love, rather than money and family as it was in her time, and love is taken seriously by some in the modern age. Therefore, the subjects of her humor are outdated and have little application to day since she was satirizing the reasons for marriage and the humor surrounding the pursuits by families only for wealth and status whereas as the ideals of Elizabeth believing in a marriage of love are embraced and practiced by the majority in the modern age.
In respone to Zach's comment:
ReplyDeleteI agree that Austen's describing the characters' characterizations is effective in making this a good novel bceause you know more about the characters. But at times, it was rather tedious reading pages and pages of their "charactrizations" when nothing was happening. For example, in volume 1, there is about five chapters dedicated to Jane becoming ill at the Bingley's and Lizzy going to take care of her. We do learn a lot about the personality of the characters, but nothing in consideration to the plot, happens. Also, this novel is divided in three volumes, or almost 370 pages, but only describes a year in the characters lives. Most people could write an autobiography in about half of those pages.
Jane Austen's style was very original to her era because she wrote about the life a woman in a novel. She gave a lot of detial which took the development of the characters several chapters. However, this was important to the book because it gave important details and facts that would lead up to other situations in the book. Her writing stlye was believable in the way that she gave each of her characters a personality and a voice. Austen's style is effective today becuase it gives history and it's reinterpreted.
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