Compared to other early 19th-century novels, Austen's have little narrative or scenic description—they contain much more dialogue, whether spoken between characters, written as free indirect speech, or represented through letters.[25] For example, in Pride and Prejudice, which began as an epistolary novel, letters play a decisive role in the protagonist's education[26] and the opening chapters are theatrical in tone.[27]Austen's conversations contain many short sentences, question and answer pairs, and rapid exchanges between characters, most memorable perhaps in the witty repartee between Elizabeth and Darcy.[28]
Austen grants each of her characters a distinctive and subtlety-constructed voice: they are carefully distinguished by their speech. For example, Admiral Croft is marked by his naval slang in Persuasion and Mr. Woodhouse is marked by his hypochondriacal language in Emma. [29] However, it is the misuse of language that most distinguishes Austen's characters. As Page explains, in Sense and Sensibility, for example, the inability of characters such as Lucy Steele to use language properly is a mark of their "moral confusion".[30][n 1] In Catherine, or the Bower, Camilla can only speak in fashionable stock phrases which convey no meaning. She is unable to express real feeling, since all of her emotions are mediated through empty hyperbole.[31] Austen uses conversations about literature in particular to establish an implicit moral frame of reference. In Catherine, or the Bower, for example, Catherine makes moral judgments about Camilla based on her superficial and conventional comments about literature.[32]
