Read the passage below from Pride and Prejudice (volume III, chapter 13)

carefully several times.

Then in a continuous essay of not more than 1,000 words, analyse the passage,

discussing how narrative voice and dialogue are important elements in the

creation of meaning in the passage.

This passage from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice utilises a range of narrative

techniques to both inform and engage the reader, giving the third person

narration a fluidity that allows it to change tone and viewpoint almost

seamlessly.

The first paragraph begins with a block of dialogue from Mrs. Bennet that

highlights the characteristics of her personality. The character discourse shows

Mrs. Bennet as a woman who is heavily influenced by social status and physical

appearance. ‘Oh! he is the handsomest young man that ever was seen!’ This is

one of the benefits of direct speech, in that it is adept at showing the reader,

directly, the nature and personality of characters within a novel. In the

paragraph the reader is compelled by the dialogue to view Mrs. Bennet as a

vacuous and shallow lady, whose motivations are influenced by surface level

qualities such as wealth or beauty. The dialogue shows that she is delighted at

the prospect of the marriage because it is something that she desires, rather than

a shared happiness with Jane. ‘Oh! My dear, dear Jane, I am so Happy!’ All of this

leads the reader to form a negative opinion of Mrs. Bennet and little empathy

with her character.

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There is frequent use of dialogue by Jane Austen, throughout the passage to

create believable characters, and promote further understanding of their

natures. Through the exchange of dialogue with Elizabeth we see Jane as

someone who is unassuming and very understanding of others. ‘They were

certainly no friends to his acquaintance with me, which I cannot wonder at, since

he might have chosen so much more advantageously […]’.

In contrast we see Elizabeth, the character through which much of the passage is

focalised, as someone strongly convinced of her own opinion. ‘It would vex me,

indeed, to see you again the dupe of Miss Bingley’s pretended regard.’ This all

serves the purpose of creating a prose full of meaning that can enhance the

reader’s experience of the story.

Direct speech, however, cannot always be taken to be the truth absolute. The

reliability of what is being said is always in question because the reader realises

that people do not always speak their true thoughts and feelings out loud. This is

where another narrative technique, called focalisation, is very useful.

Focalisation occurs when the narrative zooms in upon a character and the reader

has access to their thoughts and feelings, allowing them to see the world through

the character’s eyes. It provides a form of narration that lends reliability to the

events or thoughts being relayed because our viewpoint is internalised on the

character in question. It has the effect of increasing empathy and giving us an

insight into the inner workings of the character. An example of this in the

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passage is presented to us with the paragraph that begins ‘Elizabeth was pleased

to find […]’. The start of this sentence tells us that the thoughts that follow are

those of the character and as such we can be sure that they are reliable and

sincere. Through access to her thoughts we can see Elizabeth as being kindly

towards Jane ‘[…]Jane had the most generous and forgiving heart in the world

[…] and as such this provides the reader with motivation to find her likeable.

On the opposite side of this technique of focalised narration is a method called

direct narrative. This is prose that is directed entirely at the reader and in the

majority of novels (where the narrator is honest and reliable) it lends an

authoritative tone to the prose and an assurance of the truth within the words.

There is an example of this form in the penultimate paragraph from the passage,

where a short statement of fact gives us the necessary information to move the

story along, without having to delve deeply into characters or events. It is this

interspersion of ‘telling’ and ‘showing’ that allows the passage to progress the

story whilst also maintaining the readers interest and providing sufficient

impetus for further reading. It is Jane Austen’s use of showing in her work that

gives it such apparent realism and in particular her use of the ‘free indirect

speech’ method of narration.

Free indirect speech can be used to develop all kinds of effects within the prose,

as demonstrated in the last paragraph of the passage. The line that begins, ‘ The

Bennets were speedily pronounced […]’, can be assumed to come from the

narrator, expressing the view of the neighbourhood community. However,

further on, the words ‘luckiest family in the world[…]’and at the end ‘[…] marked

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for misfortune […]’ appear to take on the voice of someone else. The reader can

imagine many of the neighbourhood characters to be capable of these words,

making this a subtle use of free indirect speech. The effect produced is that of a

faint awareness of a community that places great emphasis on the social values

of its collective members.

Jane Austen uses free indirect speech in this paragraph to highlight how the

social dogmas of the community can influence the standing of families within the

neighbourhood. There is almost a distanced mocking as the narrator, in a few

short sentences, lays bare the apparent hypocrisy at the heart of the

neighbourhood. The paragraph shows how on the turn of a few events the

Bennet family’s standing within the neighbourhood can take such a dramatic

turn, and in doing so the reader can see how fickle and absurd a notion it really

is.

This passage from Pride and Prejudice is an excellent example of Jane Austen’s

ability to blend various narrative techniques to produce prose full of meaning.

The use of both dialogue and focalised narration enables her to create lifelike

and empathetic characters, while her use of free indirect speech brings further

depth to her work in the form of irony and double meaning. From this passage it

is clear that the use of narrative voice and dialogue are very important elements

in producing meaningful and realistic prose.

Word Count: 1005

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Bibliography

A210 (2006) CD1, The Language of Realism I, OU, CDA5746

Morris, P. (2010, [1995]) ‘Reading Pride and Prejudice’, in Walder, D. (ed.) The
Realist Novel, Abingdon, Routledge, pp. 31-60

Padley, S. (2006, [2001]) Approaching Prose Fiction, Milton Keynes, The Open
University