ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Jane Austen is known for six novels: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1815), and Persuasion and Northanger Abbey (both 1817).

Detailed explanation-2: -Jane Austen also made extensive use of a style known as “free indirect discourse” or “free indirect style” – a literary technique in which the narrator’s voice appears to take on properties of the character’s voice to the extent that as a reader you are not quite sure who owns the words or thoughts (see below).

Detailed explanation-3: -Austen’s plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage in the pursuit of favourable social standing and economic security. Her works critique the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century literary realism.

Detailed explanation-4: -Yet, even in this tradition, Austen stands out. These “realistic” novelists tend to pick sensationalistic subjects and larger-than-life characters. Austen described ordinary people in everyday situations: dances, walks in the country, dinners, polite conversation. One critic calls this approach “social realism.”