Styles and themes of Jane Austen plain meaning of a statement with the comic, undermining the meaning of the original to create ironic disjunctions. In her juvenile works, she relies upon satire, parody and irony based on incongruity. Her mature novels employ irony to foreground social hypocrisy. In particular Austen uses irony to critique the marriage market. Perhaps the most famous example of irony in Austen is the opening line of "Pride and Prejudice": "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." At first glance, the sentence is straightforward and plausible,
A Single Man thrill of life, they seem new anyway" Bob Mondello of NPR commented “An exquisite, almost sensual grief suffuses every frame of A Single Man.” Marc Savlov of "The Austin Chronicle" wrote “Everything fits perfectly, from titles to fin, but most of all Colin Firth, who dons the role of George like a fine bespoke suit.” Critics who liked the film include "The A.V. Club" film critic Nathan Rabin, who gave the film an A- score, arguing that ""A Single Man" is a film of tremendous style wedded to real substance, and rooted in "Firth's affecting lead performance as a man