Q1: In Chapter 6 of Culler, he writes that "[t]he story may be focalized through a microscope, as it were, or through a telescope, proceeding slowly with great detail or quickly telling us what happened" (89). Why, after the slow lead-up to Darcy's final proposal, does Austen suddenly race through the subsequent marriages and get everyone settled in a single chapter, stopping only to include a brief letter from Lydia? In other words, why does she end with a telescope where many people would have preferred a microscopic approach?
Q2: One of the qualities that makes Pride and Prejudice such a great novel is how Austen cultivates a sense of mystery, or what Culler calls "epistemophilia, a desire to know: we want to discover secrets, to know the end, to find the truth" (91). How does Austen particularly excite the reader's sense of epitemophilia in this final section of the novel? What makes it hard to put the book down, even if we can guess the eventual outcome?
Q3:One of the greatest 'scenes' in the book is the verbal duel between Elizabeth and Lady Catherine in Chapter XIV. In many ways, this scene illustrates something Culler says in Chapter 7: "the performative breaks the link between meaning and the intention of the speaker, for what act I perform with my words is not determined by my intention but by social and linguistic conventions" (97). Based on this, why do Darcy and Lady Catherine interpret her words so differently? How can these utterances be 'read' as different performances?
Q4: Once you finish the book, do you have a sense that the book polices Austen's society into accepting the age-old prejudices of marriage, female servitude, and male infallibility? Does Austen question these aspects of her society merely to affirm them? After all, the two main sisters are ultimately married off to very eligible bachelors just as Mrs. Bennet wished, so to her, this is a completely happy ending. Should we desire the same happy ending as Mrs. Bennet?
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