The Ironic Characteristics Of Jane Austen’s Novels

As one the greatest writers among those of the19th century English literary field, Jane Austen is considered to be one who shares the same fame with Shakespeare. Though she called her works mainly portrait the daily life and characters on the ivory of two inches modestly, she has made great contribution in depicting those common subjects, such as balls, playing cards, clothes and daily life. Her unique writing technique in portraying the commonness of daily life through the glamorous sensibility, vivid characterization and wise irony has brought her secret of success in the contemporary Victorian literary field. The subtle relations between the neighborhood and the value of the morality have been revealed through the depiction of those vivid characters.Jane Austen’s inherent gift of using irony has made her novels perfectly attractive to readers and critics. Irony exists in every level of Austen’s fiction varying from language, characters, scenes to inner conception. Her application of irony is much helpful for the characterization, structure and comic effect of the fiction. In this thesis, Austen’s six novels will be taken as subjects to illustrate the utility of irony in her works.The thesis consists of six chapters:Chapter One is an introduction, consisting of a general survey of Jane Austen’s life, main works and the evaluations of her irony, which argues about the value of its study.Chapter Two looks back to the development of the concept of irony and the major types of irony, and the classification and function of irony in Austen’s fiction is analyzed briefly.The following three chapters, which are the emphases of the thesis, attempt to make a study of Austen’s application of irony from the perspectives of verbal irony, dramatic irony and situational irony, which are three basic types of irony.The application of verbal irony exists in the portrait of various characters through two main aspects:the static figures and the evolutive figure. In the two different categories, it is clear for us to understand that Austen’s irony not only lies in the static figures, for instance, the unqualified fathers and brothers, the middle-aged women who have no thoughts, figures who are fond of feasting and entertaining or those characters who always want to preach others; her irony also can be felt in those evolutive figures who may have an advantage in learning and getting better themselves.Dramatic irony also plays an important role in exposing the absurdity and defects of the characters. The difference between dramatic irony and verbal irony is that the latter focuses on the rhetorical level of words while the former put an emphasis on the structure of the plot. Through the application of those comic characters’ self-betrayal irony, their absurdity and defects are revealed vividly in their self-exhibition:speeches, letters and actions.Situational irony is a term which is broader than verbal irony and dramatic irony, which helps the writer pursue the tension and effect which is based on the portrait of theme, plot and narration. Through situational irony, Jane Austen tries to subtly reveal her disapproval upon the depreciation towards novels of her time through the attitudes and words of her heroines, which is in collision with the contemporary values and accepted moralities.Chapter Six concludes that the application of the three kinds of irony---verbal irony, dramatic irony and situational irony contribute greatly to the characterization and structure of the artistry of Jane Austen’s novels.