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Response Questions for "Love and Freindship" and "Catherine"

Answer THREE of the SIX questions by this weekend, based on the two stories for this week: "Love and Freindship" and "Catherine." I'll post a blog video tomorrow for you to respond to as well, so be on the lookout! 

Q1: Based on these two works, what kind of woman was the young Austen?  If we can glean character and values from a literary work, what do these stories say about the woman behind them?  Additionally, how might these works contradict the portrait of Austen we typically get as a genteel writer of love and marriage?

Q2: In both works, Austen has great fun satirizing the way people in society act, whether in their fear of answering a door, of finding dead bodies from an overturned coach, or of toothaches and other sicknesses preventing them from attending balls. Though this is obviously still funny today, what do you think her

Q3: Many of Austen’s early works were epistolary in form (letters) because that was a popular genre of the day. However, it proved something of a dead-end for Austen after Lady Susan. What do you feel are the limitations of the epistolary novel?  What directions does it not allow Austen to move in?  Do we ever get the feeling that she’s metaphorically panting herself into a corner? 

Q4: Many of Austen’s mature novels are considered “novels of manners,” which means they satirize they way men and women act in public—and usually, the things they do wrong. Rather than being interested in etiquette, Austen cared more about moral behavior, and how fads and tastes often got in the way of being ‘good’ or honest. Where do we see this in both works? What characters seem to fail Austen’s moral test and why?

Q5: “Catherine” exhibits many of the same satirical impulses of “Love and Freindship,” though Austen is clearly trying something new in this work. What most separates one from the other? Why might we see more of the mature Austen in “Catherine” than “Love and Freindship”?

Q6: Though “Love and Freindship” says “Fins” at the end (meaning “the end”) it feels curiously incomplete, as if she just ran out of gas. “Catherine,” too, is unfinished, just at the point where it’s becoming most interesting. Almost all of her early works break off in the beginning or middle, even though she called most of them “novels.” Why do you think this is? Why might a teenage girl (in the 1790’s or today) not finish a single work, but simply abandon it and start a new one?

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