STYLES
Parody and burlesque
In Northanger Abbey, Austen parodies theGothic literary style that was popular during the
1790s.
Austen's juvenile writings are parodies and burlesques of popular 18th-century genres, such as
the sentimental novel. She humorously demonstrates that the reversals of social convention
common in sentimental novels, such as contempt for parental guidance, are ridiculously
impractical; her characters "are dead to all common sense".[2] Her interest in these comedic
styles, influenced in part by the writings of novelist Frances Burney and playwrights Richard
Sheridan and David Garrick,[3] continued less overtly throughout her professional career.[4]
Austen's burlesque is characterised by its mocking imitation and its exaggerated, displaced
emphasis.[5] For example, in Northanger Abbey, she ridicules the plot improbabilities and rigid
conventions of the Gothic novel.[6] However, Austen does not categorically reject the Gothic. As
Austen scholar Claudia Johnson argues, Austen pokes fun at the "stock gothic machinery
storms, cabinets, curtains, manuscriptswith blithe amusement", but she takes the threat of the
tyrannical father seriously.[7] Austen uses parody and burlesque not only for comedic effect, but
also, according to feminist critics, to reveal how both sentimental and Gothic novels warped the
lives of women who attempted to live out the roles depicted in them.[8] As Susan
Gubar and Sandra Gilbert explain in their seminal work The Madwoman in the Attic (1979),
Austen makes fun of "such novelistic clichs as love at first sight, the primacy of passion over all
other emotions and/or duties, the chivalric exploits of the hero, the vulnerable sensitivity of the
heroine, the lovers' proclaimed indifference to financial considerations, and the cruel crudity of
parents".[9]
Irony
"She [Mrs. Bertram] was a woman who spent her days in sitting, nicely dressed, on a sofa, doing
some long piece of needlework, of little use and no beauty, thinking more of her pug than her
children, but very indulgent to the latter when it did not put herself to inconvenience..."[10]
Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (1814)
Irony is one of Austen's most characteristic and most discussed literary techniques.[11] She
contrasts the plain meaning of a statement with the comic, undermining the meaning of the
original to create ironic disjunctions. In her juvenile works, she relies upon satire, parody, and
irony based on incongruity. Her mature novels employ irony to foreground social
hypocrisy.[12] In particular, Austen uses irony to critique the marriage market.[13] Perhaps the
most famous example of irony in Austen is the opening line of Pride and Prejudice: "It is a truth
universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of
a wife." At first glance, the sentence is straightforward and plausible, but the plot of the novel
contradicts it: it is women without fortunes who need husbands and seek them out. By the end of
the novel, the truth of the statement is acknowledged only by a single character, Mrs. Bennet, a
mother seeking husbands for her daughters, rather than the entire world. [14] Austen's irony goes
beyond the sentence level. As Austen scholar Jan Fergus explains, "the major structural device
in Pride and Prejudice is the creation of ironies within the novel's action which, like parallels and
contrasts, challenge the reader's attention and judgment throughout, and in the end also engage
his feelings."[15] Austen's irony illuminates the foibles of individual characters and her society. In
her later novels, in particular, she turns her irony "against the errors of law, manners and
customs, in failing to recognize women as the accountable beings they are, or ought to be".[16]
Free indirect speech
Austen is most renowned for her development of free indirect speech, a technique pioneered by
18th-century novelists Henry Fielding and Frances Burney.[17] In free indirect speech, the
thoughts and speech of the characters mix with the voice of the narrator. Austen uses it to
provide summaries of conversations or to compress, dramatically or ironically, a character's
speech and thoughts.[18] In Sense and Sensibility, Austen experiments extensively for the first
time with this technique.[19] For example,
Mrs John Dashwood did not at all approve of what her husband intended to do for his sisters. To
take three thousand pounds from the fortune of their dear little boy, would be impoverishing him
to the most dreadful degree. She begged him to think again on the subject. How could he answer
it to himself to rob his child, and his only child too, of so large a sum?[20]
As Austen scholar Norman Page explains, "the first sentence is straight narrative, in the 'voice' of
the [narrator]; the third sentence is normal indirect speech; but the second and fourth are what is
usually described as free indirect speech."[21] In these two sentences, Austen represents the inner
thoughts of the character and creates the illusion that the reader is entering the character's
mind.[22] She often uses indirect speech for background characters. However, Page writes that
"for Jane Austen...the supreme virtue of free indirect speech...[is] that it offers the possibility of
achieving something of the vividness of speech without the appearance for a moment of a total
silencing of the authorial voice."[23]
Conversation and language
"Then," observed Elizabeth, "you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished
woman."
"Yes,
do
comprehend
great
deal
in
it."
"Oh! certainly," cried his [Darcy's] faithful assistant [Miss Bingley], "no one can be really
esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must
have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to
deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and
manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but
half-deserved."
"All this she must possess," added Darcy, "and to all this she must yet add something more
substantial,
in
the
improvement
of
her
mind
by
extensive
reading."
"I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at
your knowing any."[24]
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Compared to other early 19th-century novels, Austen's have little narrative or scenic
descriptionthey contain much more dialogue, whether spoken between characters, written
as free indirect speech, or represented through letters.[25] For example, in Pride and Prejudice,
which began as an epistolary novel, letters play a decisive role in the protagonist's
education[26] and the opening chapters are theatrical in tone.[27] Austen's conversations contain
many short sentences, question and answer pairs, and rapid exchanges between characters, most
memorable perhaps in the witty reparteebetween Elizabeth and Darcy.[28]
Austen grants each of her characters a distinctive and subtlety-constructed voice: they are
carefully distinguished by their speech. For example, Admiral Croft is marked by his naval slang
in Persuasion and Mr. Woodhouse is marked by his hypochondriacal language
in Emma.[29] However, it is the misuse of language that most distinguishes Austen's characters.
As Page explains, in Sense and Sensibility, for example, the inability of characters such as Lucy
Steele to use language properly is a mark of their "moral confusion".[30][n 1] In Catherine, or the
Bower, Camilla can only speak in fashionable stock phrases which convey no meaning. She is
unable to express real feeling, since all of her emotions are mediated through empty
hyperbole.[31] Austen uses conversations about literature in particular to establish an implicit
moral frame of reference. In Catherine, or the Bower, for example, Catherine makes moral
judgments about Camilla based on her superficial and conventional comments about literature.[32]
