What about the other sterling quality of P&P?
Posted by gkb on December 12, 1997 at 20:13:58:
In response to Is P&P a love novel?, written by Mark on December 12, 1997 at 10:52:29
Pounds sterling, that is. Green gold--Hampshire hash--aka cah. After all, JA said her books were about love *and* money, right? So if you mix those two social disturbers in the same pint glass you get a double wallop. Since JA was in some sense responding/reacting to the love stories of the authors she read, I would say she was striving for an effect of realism in the portrayal of her social environment. There is a clue to this idea in Northanger, when Catherine's crisis reveals to her how exaggerated her ideas of General Tilney's cruelty have become. It is kind of a Don Quixote revelation to her--that murder in the southern wilds of Europe is unlikely to take place in civilized England. So, perhaps the literary form 'satire' is closer than the form parody (a very good distinction made in a prior post!) but I think that Austen's satiric eye and her realistic eye joined forces to create a stereoscopic vision of her times. She is a kind of View Master of society. You know how the Grand Canyon looks dull and flat in 2-D photos, but in a View Master you can actually feel the dizzying depth? That my idea of why Austen's work is so breathtaking. You see society from two viewpoints at once, blended seamlessly.
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