English Literature - Book Report/Review Example

She does not obtrude her opinion upon the readers; however, she never lets her characters out of the field of her view. Austen's novel is full of internal psychological motion. Elisabeth Bennett and Darcy in the course of time reject the first false, full of prejudice idea of life and gradually understand the true values. The character is represented in Jane Austen's novels in constant development. She is able to access the slightest complex psychological processes going on in the inner world of an identity.

Austen used a variety of narrative techniques to let us see this world. Let us consider the example Elizabeth's speech to herself after she reads the letter Darcy has written to her: - How despicably have I acted!" she cried. - I, who have prided myself on my discernment! - I, who have valued myself on my abilities! who have often disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified my vanity, in useless or blameable distrust.1 According to Wood 'Austen uses stage sociology style with ever greater sophistication, dispensing with quotation marks, and blending the heroine's soliloquy with her own third-person narration, so that she is able to move in and out of a character as she pleases. [. . .] In her later novels, Austen tends to alternate free indirect style with a first-person stream-of-consciousness2'.

The other example of focalization tells us of her Elizabeth's growing admiration for Darcy, 'she could do nothing but think, and think with wonder, of Mr. Darcy's civility3'. So here it is obvious, that the author is trying to give us an insight of the emotional change that is taking place within Elizabeth with regards to her feelings towards Darcy. Jane 'differentiates between free indirect discourse and focalization, citing free indirect discourse as - an instance of reported discourse, an utterance, whereas focalization is a representation of a character's perspective, of what that character sees'4.

Austen seems to get away from the narration, her own author's position is like evanesced, and her attitude towards going-on she hides behind the nice irony. The dialogue developed by Jane Austen became the basis of her poetics, the means of the expression of the point of view. In this dialogue the words do not compulsorily correspond to feelings and moods of characters, but herewith they transfer the internal emotional state of the character. Turgenev's novel 'Fathers and Sons' also presents us with a number of characters undergoing major changes in their perspective as outward events challenge their beliefs.

The narrative tone and method however seem different from that of Jane Austen. On reading Turgenev's novel 'Fathers and Sons', we constantly meet author's characteristics and descriptions of heroes, author's notes and different comments. Following the life of characters, we feel the presence of the author himself. However, his attitude towards events and characters behavior in the novel is ambiguous and not so clear, as it can seem at the first blush. The author's position in the novel is represented through characters' portrayals, the straight author's characteristics, comments given to the speech of heroes, in construction of dialogues, and