In his critical response to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice titled "Limitations and Definitions," Stuart Tave discusses Jane Austen's style of writing and the method behind her seemingly slow and long-winded tales that reach an inevitable conclusion, exampled by Pride and Prejudice. Tave takes the common viewpoint shared by many of Jane Austen's writing - that overall it tends to be slow and boring - and states that Jane Austen likes to use seemingly small spaces to capture big ideas, using his own small example of Jane Austen's fondness of dancing to describe this as well. Tave goes on to make the point that Austen may drag a little with her stories, but she packs a punch often in just a few sentences, for example the first sentence of the book says everything we need to know about the intentions of the Bennet family and what is to be a major plot piece and theme for the rest of the book. He follows this up with a praise of Austen's ability to do this, and how she "knows the absurdity of an art that thinks it is strong and full and large because it tries to run in a large world."This transitions to his next major point; that of the simplicity of Austen's stories, not in thematic value but as stories, which is reflected in Pride and Prejudice with the predictability and the sometimes boring occurances in the plot. Tave sums up Jane Austen with the assertion that behind her dragging style are well thought out and incredibly meaningful themes that are reflected subtly in the reader, sometimes without the reader's knowledge.
Do I agree with Tave's assertions? I think to some extent I agree with him. I think however that the points Austen wants to make could be made in an easier, less boring or more exciting manner that would still invoke the same themes upon the reader. That being said, I think Austen does have interesting points that she makes under the radar, which at least makes the novel interesting to debunk and discuss.
