Jane Austen's novels abound with readers "reading" not only texts but also speech, gestures, looks, scenery, events, each other, themselves. Readers in the novels illuminate her assumptions about readers of the novels; unlike eighteenth-century novelists who judged fiction by readers' responses and who tried to manipulate those responses, she accepted that not all readers read alike. / Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice explore different styles of reading and suggest some ways are more successful than others. A good reader observes accurately, reflects carefully, and judges candidly, disciplining subjective feelings with "objective" truths of religion and morality; above all, good readers trust their own educated judgments rather than rely upon external monitors. / Readers of the novels share the reading experiences of heroines. In Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion, readers are invited to judge without monitor or narrator to direct them. Readers, like heroines, discover and reveal themselves in the act of reading.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.68535 |
| Date | January 1980 |
| Creators | Bander, Elaine. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of English) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 000111821, proquestno: AAINK51861, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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