Styles and themes of Jane Austen In "Sense and Sensibility", Austen experiments extensively for the first time with this technique. For example, As Austen scholar Norman Page explains, "the first sentence is straight narrative, in the 'voice' of the [narrator]; the third sentence is normal indirect speech; but the second and fourth are what is usually described as free indirect speech." In these two sentences, Austen represents the inner thoughts of the character and creates the illusion that the reader is entering the character's mind. She often uses indirect speech for background characters. However, Page writes that "for Jane Austen ... the supreme virtue of free
Reception history of Jane Austen only the English could really appreciate Austen, writing "Foreigners, whether reading in translation or in the original, see little or nothing of her true brilliance...the "feel" of Jane Austen-so far as we can imagine it dissociated from her language is still...peculiarly English". Irvine wrote that Gard's book 1992 "Jane Austen's Novels: The Art of Clarity" is full of historical errors such as his claim that Austen was part of the movement towards "an evolving national democracy", when in fact the Great Reform Bill, which lowered the franchise requirements for men in a very limited way, was passed in 1832, 15