The technique of comedy in the novels of Jane Austen

Abstract

This study of the comic technique of Jane Austen emphasises the social and moral basis of her comedy and begins with a chapter on an analysis of her values. It then proceeds to look at various aspects of her comic technique, namely, her comic characters, her comic situations and her comic voice. The second chapter distinguishes two main categories of comic characters: the 'comic fools,' usually the minor characters, unaware, undiscerning and often consistently comic, and the major comic characters, intelligent, perceptive and only comic at some points when they make mistakes of judgment and perception. The chapter concentrates on both the content and form of these characters, drawing illustrations from as many of the novels as possible. The third chapter traces the author's progress from the farcical and often unsubtle comic situations of the early works to the complex comic situations of the mature novels in which character and incident are much better co-ordinated. The chapter on the author's comic voice discusses the various devices by which Jane Austen makes her comic presence felt in her novels, and the final chapter examines the unfinished work Sanditon, pointing out new comic tendencies and tentatively suggesting that it might have been a different kind of comic novel.