A thought
Posted by Helen on March 30, 1998 at 13:48:06:
In response to the ending..., written by Kate on March 24, 1998 at 22:21:31
It has always struck me that there is a vast difference of tone between the novels and the Juvenilia. The juvenilia experiment (experiments?) with the conventions of the novel and parody them in a mocking way, with the characters mere ciphers whom the author moves around for her own amusement. Northanger Abbey seems to be a transition between this form of fiction-as-parody and fiction-as-real-characters. And perhaps Sense and Sensibility started off as a similar parody, in which the romantic Marianne would end up married to the most staid and stolid man imaginable... but somewhere along the line, the characters sprang to life and broke out of the world of parody... But the plot still honours the original story, so she has to marry Col. Brandon - and JA couldn't quite reduce the rounded Marianne to the square hole of the plot, as it were...
Helen
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