Thursday, December 31, 2009

Okay smart guy

What is wrong with Isabella then?

I think the question is trickier than we might think because it isn't a matter of identifying her vices but in figuring out what is missing. Everybody has weaknesses and vices—how well we respond or not is determined by how well we have built our character.

Huh?

I think the problem is the missing virtue. In the moral tradition that Austen follows, the primary moral goal is to be a certain sort of person; the goal is to build a certain sort of character. It's not enough to be prudent or amiable or constant. The good person uses these things to build a complete woman or man.

As a later writer put it, Isabella's failing is that she is only part of a person pretending to be whole.

Furthermore, I would argue that the thing she is missing is hidden right on the surface. What Isabella is missing is the thing she is always pretending to have.

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