Literary Theory: Weekly Response 3

"Abuses, curses, profanities, and improprieties are the unofficial elements...such speech forms, liberated from norms, hierarchies, and prohibitions of established idiom, become themselves, a peculiar argot, and create a special collectivity, a group of people initiated in familiar intercourse who are frank and free in expressing themselves verbally."
- Stallybrass and White, The Politics and Poetics of Transgression, page 28

"'That is all very proper and civil I am sure'," said Mrs. Bennet, "'and I dare say she is a very agreeable woman. It is a pity that great ladies in general are not more like her. Does she live near you, sir?'"
- Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 14

Because Pride and Prejudice exemplifies the importance of propriety as opposed to the liberated speech forms mentioned by Stallybrass and White, is its overall meaning, like the writing itself, restrained?

When the dialogue in a story is more "liberated", as Stallybrass and White discuss, the story itself is more lax and easy to read, for the most part. For many people, the easier a story is to read, the more consumed they become and the deeper the connection they ultimately make with the story is. In a story such as Pride and Prejudice, where propriety and norms are greatly emphasized, limiting the free reign of the text, readers have to strain a little harder in order to comprehend what the author is trying to convey. While curses, profanities, and improprieties liberate the text and help the reader connect to the way the story is being written, I'm not so sure an impact is really made from one extreme to the other as far as understanding the point of the story goes. For me, though the prose of Pride and Prejudice is restrained, the meaning of the story is still very clear. Despite the conviction of the composition, it is still possible (and not even extremely difficultly so) to analyze the text and form an understanding of what Jane Austen is trying to express in her story. I think that the biggest difference between writing with improprieties present and writing with a lack of them is simply the way the reader connects to the story, not the way the reader understands it.