The part of Book 2 Chapters 5 to 9 is unlike anything else in the book and it isn't at all clear what they have to do with the rest of it. The temptation is to say it's simply a burlesque of Radcliffe but the rest of the book doesn't do much burlesquing of Radcliffe: only these four chapters do. What is Jane Austen up to here?
The question, "What is she trying to do?" is so tempting but I think wrong. I had a English professor years ago who started our class by saying that anyone who wrote a sentence along the lines of "Shakespeare [or other famous] writer is trying to ..." in an essay or answer to an exam question would be summarily failed. It's a good rule of thumb. It does not matter, and in any case we cannot know, what Austen was trying to do. What matters is what she achieves.
So, here is what I think. There is a burlesque of Radcliffe in this novel. It is forehadowed. When it arrives, it is exactly four chapters long. It does not connect with anything else in the story. So, what Austen achieves is a non-connection.
Huh? I'll explain in another post.
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