Thursday, January 21, 2010

Pivotal events (2)

Next we have the arrival of Captain Tilney and his obvious interest in Isabella and her encouragement of his attentions.

This is accompanied by Henry noting that Catherine does not wonder much, or worry much, about other people's motives. This is not a pivotal event but it is worth noting how unusual this makes her for an Austen heroine. Some have compared Emma to a mystery novel but, it seems to me as I write this (and I'll have to check this going forward), that all the great Austen heroines behave like detectives trying to work out people's motives.

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