English Literature / Unit 13 ENL 1244 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Austen's Narrator at Work
The idea
An Austen passage asks you to separate voices. First, find whose perspective the sentence follows; often it is the heroine's, rendered in free indirect discourse. Second, look for irony: a sentence such as "It is a truth universally acknowledged" says one thing on its surface and implies another, here that the families want the rich man, not that he wants a wife. Third, notice where the heroine's judgment is mistaken; Emma's confidence in her matchmaking is presented in her own terms, and the reader is invited to doubt it. Fourth, find the social facts underneath: money, rank, marriage and inheritance shape every choice. Fifth, name the narrator's attitude, amused, critical or sympathetic. Then answer whether the passage endorses or ironizes the view it presents.
In practice
Perspective, irony, error, social fact, attitude.
Where people slip
The narrator and the heroine are not the same voice. A question on tone often turns on the gap between them.
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