Happy 250th to Jane Austen! What more delightful opportunity than this, to return to one of the most masterful novels ever written: Pride and Prejudice.

☞ This article contains SPOILERS.

In a previous article I discussed the Call to Adventure in Pride and Prejudice. This week, I’d like to draw attention to a few dialogue techniques that serve story structure, and that we can imitate in our own writing.

01 | DECLARATIONS
Dialogue is a useful tool for making character arcs clear to a reader. If you want to show a character’s transformation, simply have them make a statement about their initial (Stasis) state:

“I believe, ma’am, I may safely promise you never to dance with him.”

The more certain a character is in their statement, the more obvious will be their contradiction (or accomplishment) of it. You can emphasise this pattern by:

1. Giving the character an audience for their declaration.
2. Giving the character the same audience for the seeing through or contradicting of their declaration.
3. Having the character themselves mull over the declaration, or discuss it with a friend.
4. Having other characters react to both the declaration and its resolution.

So, having declared to her mother (and anyone else within earshot) that she dislikes Mr. Darcy and would never dance with him, Elizabeth soon after does just that:

When those dances were over, she returned to Charlotte Lucas, and was in conversation with her, when she found herself suddenly addressed by Mr. Darcy, who took her so much by surprise in his application for her hand, that, without knowing what she did, she accepted him.

Nor does this incident deter Elizabeth from making further declarations of this kind. For example, this sentence she directs at Mr. Darcy:

“I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.”

And we all know how well she kept to that resolution…

02 | PARALLELS
Of course, while Elizabeth’s dialogue creates an amusing trajectory of transformation, Darcy parallels this pattern himself, as he, too, sets aside his pride and prejudice. No one can forget his fateful words on first seeing Elizabeth at the Merryton ball:

… turning round, he looked for a moment at Elizabeth, till, catching her eye, he withdrew his own, and coldly said, “She is tolerable: but not handsome enough to tempt me…”

If you have two characters who are at the centre of your narrative, and whose storylines are intertwined, you can parallel their story arc in this way.

1. Take the declaration made by the first character, and have the other say something similar about them — whether in reaction, or independently.
2. Again, give this second character an audience, or even have the two characters overhear each others’ statements.
3. Show how the characters are involved in the contradiction (or accomplishment) of each others’ declarations.

Austen relates the gradual process by which Darcy’s ideas transform, first through an expository paragraph:

Mr. Darcy had at first scarcely allowed her to be pretty: he had looked at her without admiration at the ball; and when they next met, he looked at her only to criticise. But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she had hardly a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes.

… and then again through dialogue (with Miss Bingley):

“I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow.”
Miss Bingley immediately fixed her eyes on his face, and desired he would tell her what lady had the credit of inspiring such reflections. Mr. Darcy replied, with great intrepidity,—
“Miss Elizabeth Bennet.”
“Miss Elizabeth Bennet!” repeated Miss Bingley. “I am all astonishment. How long has she been such a favourite? and pray when am I to wish you joy?”

04 | RELAY, REPETITION & REACTION
This repetition of Mr. Darcy’s thought process is an example of a technique that Austen employs to perfection: showing characters’ reactions to events, often layered through different points of view, and through information relays that heighten suspense.

This pattern of event – reaction is established from the very first exchange, and becomes integral to shaping the story world, both in terms of its values — proving the importance of social information — and in terms of influencing the reader’s response — to mimic the characters’ diligence in repeating and evaluating.

For example, Mr. Darcy’s remarks on Elizabeth’s appearance are repeated…

First by Elizabeth:

She told the story, however, with great spirit among her friends; for she had a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in anything ridiculous.

Then by Mrs. Bennet:

She … related, with much bitterness of spirit, and some exaggeration, the shocking rudeness of Mr. Darcy.
“But I can assure you,” she added, “that Lizzy does not lose much by not suiting his fancy; for he is a most disagreeable, horrid man, not at all worth pleasing. So high and so conceited, that there was no enduring him! He walked here, and he walked there, fancying himself so very great! Not handsome enough to dance with! I wish you had been there, my dear, to have given him one of your set-downs. I quite detest the man.”

Then by Charlotte Lucas:

“Mr. Darcy is not so well worth listening to as his friend, is he? Poor Eliza! to be only just tolerable.”

To imitate this technique:

1. Have characters relate conversations or events.
2. Have characters discuss previous conversations, especially as a way to establish the importance of speech in general, or of certain remarks.
3. Have character repeat snippets of conversation as a judgement on the speaker.

Furthermore, you can create a delay in the relay of information to increase narrative tension. For example, when Elizabeth has to wait (to overcome her fears and to have an opportunity of private conversation) in order to tell her sister about Mr. Darcy’s proposal and subsequent letter:

It was not without an effort, meanwhile, that she could wait even for Longbourn, before she told her sister of Mr. Darcy’s proposals. To know that she had the power of revealing what would so exceedingly astonish Jane, and must, at the same time, so highly gratify whatever of her own vanity she had not yet been able to reason away, was such a temptation to openness as nothing could have conquered, but the state of indecision in which she remained as to the extent of what she should communicate, and her fear, if she once entered on the subject, of being hurried into repeating something of Bingley, which might only grieve her sister further.

… or when an important letter arrives from their uncle, regarding Lydia:

“Dear madam,” cried Mrs. Hill, in great astonishment, “don’t you know there is an express come for master from Mr. Gardiner? He has been here this half hour, and master has had a letter.”
Away ran the girls, too eager to get in to have time for speech. They ran through the vestibule into the breakfast-room; from thence to the library;—their father was in neither; and they were on the point of seeking him upstairs with their mother, when they were met by the butler, who said,—
“If you are looking for my master, ma’am, he is walking towards the little copse.”
Upon this information, they instantly passed through the hall once more, and ran across the lawn after their father, who was deliberately pursuing his way towards a small wood on one side of the paddock.

04 | RHETORICAL DEVICES
Finally, I wanted to discuss a couple of rhetorical devices that encapsulate Austen’s light, stylistic touch.

Antithesis is a rhetorical device used for contrasting opposing ideas through juxtaposition, as in this exchange between Maria and Elizabeth:

“… How much I shall have to tell!”
Elizabeth privately added, “And how much I shall have to conceal!”

This beautifully sums up the two characters’ differing viewpoints of the same visit, while giving the reader the satisfaction of acting the confidant.

Chiasmus has a similar contrasting effect to antithesis, but it uses a grammatical reversal. In this example, Elizabeth is comparing Mr. Darcy with Mr. Wickham, both of whom, despite having been brought up together, have grown up to be very different in character:

“… One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it.”

This single sentence is like the novel in miniature!

1. Consider how you might write an antithetical exchange to sum up two different viewpoints of a situation. What secret might the character need to speak in an aside?
2. Craft a sentence using chiasmus to draw attention to an important reversal or paralleling of roles in your story.

Don’t forget to pick up your accompanying handout in the Coterie.