Storytelling in Northanger Abbey

In this novel about reading, and writing, it is fitting that the first person narrator is in fact the author of the novel. While that first person voice comes through more frequently in the middle and the end of the text, we must be aware that she is the first person narrator throughout. When she allows this voice to come through, she is acting in two positions: an instructor to her reader's and a defender of the novel as an art form. While the commentary she provides in both areas are very interesting and a deserved focus of this text, I would like to trace the narrator's its effect on storytelling. This narrator is not a part of the story and her only relation to the characters of the story is that she is making them up and developing their stories.
Yet, throughout the bulk of the novel, Austen is acting as a third person narrator that can only know and see what Catherine learns and sees simultaneously. This gives us a picture into the interiority of Catherine (self-concious about her position in society and her position with Henry, yet also excited by adventures resembling the romances that she reads). However, when it comes to moving the plot quickly, Austen often abandons this close tie with her character of choice and moves all of the characters about like chess pieces. In particular, the last two chapters, Austen has completely abandoned Catherine in favor of a third person narrator that can see the actions of all characters, even if Catherine cannot. When she dives into the interiority, it is not Catherine, but a combined Catherine and Henry's interiority: "They felt and they depolored-- but they could not resent it." All throughout the text, Catherine would have died for an opportunity to know the sentiments of Henry, and now it seems that their sentiments are tied together and identical. I belive that this abandonment of Catherine is because in the interest of efficiency, staying close to the interiority of one character is not feasible.
Why follow Catherine as a narrator in this novel? For Nancy Armstrong, the true testament of the novel is to express the excesses of individualism and guage how such acts of individualism are received through the plot. Yet, I would argue that the characters that truly exhibit an excess of individuality are Henry (defying his father by marrying Catherine) and Isabella (actively attempting to engage in relationships that will alter her station in life). The plot effects vary, the one who acts out individuality for love is rewarded with happiness and the one who acts out individuality for greed is left in loneliness. Yet Catherine safely toes the line throughout the text and never acts out of incivility by her own doing. Even when she is outwardly scorned (John not stopping the carriage and General Tilney turning her out of the house) she does not retaliate at all or defend her position acively to those characters. So, why follow her, in this marriage of novel and individual?

The Form of the Novel and the Individual

"No other medium then availabe could have reconstituted the imagined relation between individual reader and national readership with the rhetorical dexterity of the novel" -Nancy Armstrong How Novels Think
As I had said in class today, I found this one of the most compelling quotes of her examination on the relationship between the rise of the novel and the rise of the individual. I was specifically interested in what about the form of the novel gave it the rhetorical dexterity to carry the responsibility of the individual all alone. In looking at a few of the texts we read over the semester, I want to try to make an addition, or perhaps an amendment to Armstrong's thorough argument.
I believe that the novel, more than any other form of literature prior to it, allowed a reader to have unique access to the whole interior of another human being over the course of a story. Yes other forms could illustrate aspects of the individual. The Odyssey shows a man defying not only the social contract, but the gods themselves, in his quest for greatness. Greece could not have wanted every citizen to play the part of Odysseus in their state. Soliloquoys in Shakespeare's plays allowed a viewer to see what a certain character was thinking while no other character in the play was aware of such insight. Sermons and religious writings could warn against excessive individualism as a sin against God and the community. Even the Bible itself follows individual after individual in their exhibitions of faith much to the dismay of dozens of communities over Judeo-Christian tradition. So what is it about the novel that can allow Nancy Armstrong to stake the two together so inseparably?
I have two theories that rely heavily on one another: privacy and the 1st person narrator. The novel was the first form of text that people would take into a room and read alone. The rise of readership truly allowed a body of text to have any power whatsoever, particularly the power to create the individual. All of the other forms of literature were stories shared in a community. The reader had to be separated from that community if they were to understand themselves as apart from that community in a personal way. Secondly, the 1st person narrator (in all of the facets that I've discussed in previous blogs) allowed a reader an intensive inside look into the workings of an individual acting in excess.
In my opinion, a third person narrator, no matter how close to the situation that narrator may be to a single character, could not act in this unique role that Armstrong is giving to the novel. Having an outside person tell a story that does not include them can only express the interiority of the individual in a limited way. That barrier presented by a narrator other than a character of the text is similar to the barrier of a community in the viewing of a play or the listening of an epic tale. And yes, a soliloquoy did allow insight into the interiority of a play, but it was limited in length and depth. The prose writing of fiction allowed a reader to become intimate with a character for the days or weeks it took to read their narrative.

Translating the Rise of the Novel into Something More (or Less) Understandable

In thinking about the "Rise of the Novel," for my own sake, I've been trying to understand the concept in smaller schemas that one day may add up to a more wholesome understanding of this rise of the novel. For the sake of this blog entry, I want to put into words my understanding of the rise of the author as a part of the rise of the novel. I briefly jumbled my way through starting this thinking process in class yesterday, and I would like to somewhat more coherently jumble through it here.
I have noticed a trend as we read about Manley's proposed responsibility of a writer to provide a plausible plot and character, about the new responsibility Samuel Johnson was placing on writers to teach ideals in there writing rather than expose reality in its entirety, and about Wordsworth's proposed responsibility an author has to stay true to his genius even when readers disapprove. The author is growing from this person that is a small part of the "bookselling machine," equal to that of the horsecart driver, to the primary vehicle for art and human understanding in the culture. Wherease early on, the author needs to be instructed on how to create a "plausible" scenario, they ultimately reach a pinnacle where they are the primary means of instruction for the masses.
It seems to me that as the novel originated and developed, there were some hesitations about what exactly the purpose or the vehicle for such a form should be. For example, the author we opened this class with, Eliza Haywood, seemed to embrace this new form as simply a way to make money. With superficial characters that change rapidly and a plot that disjointedly jumps from one scene to the next seemingly just to test a slightly new love triangle out, Haywood illustrated that she was a prolific writer and could make a living doing so. Defoe would add to this legacy, emphasizing the economy of this new market and how to benefit financially from it. And yet, to me their writing is less polished and more prone to sloppy mistakes, not because they are not as talented writers as later "authors," but because the emphasis was not yet on the author of a novel being this vehicle for "veiled beauties." Of course, writers before this time (Shakespeare, Milton, Jonson, Chaucer) and even of this time (Alexander Pope, Johnation Swift) were seen as conduits of high art, but not within the context of this new form that focused so heavily on the imitation of real life and the interiority of humanity.
Because of this inferiority that the new form seems to have in the art world, and the increasing success that this new form begins to have in the marketplace, a merger between these two opposite worlds seems to collide. Not to say that many of those authors I listed in the past or present did not also enjoy financial success through their writing, but the creation of an entire print market did not coincide with the growth of their chosen form (satire, plays, poems, epic poems). Once the novel begins to be recognized as art, the only place for the author of that art is that of genius, for Johnson this is a person that knows better than the rest of people what is truly good for them and what they should be reading, and for Wordsworth this is a person that knows better than the rest of people what good art is and has the responsibility to keep producing high art for the sake of ungrateful recipients. Either way, as the author becomes more financially successful, and more artistically respected, they illustrate that the "rise of the novel" could really be rephrased as the "rise of the authors of the novel."

Narratology in Tristram Shandy

While I thought my examination on what it means to tell a story from a narratorial perspective could be put to rest after Fielding's Shamela, Tristram Shandy seems to be the apex for such a conversation to take place. Whereas other authors we've read seemed, to me, like their wheels were spinning in mud because of the new FORM of the novel (the necessity to be telling a story while also acknowledging that this story must be written down, and therefore told always in the past tense and the possibility of self-editing), Laurence Sterne brilliantly embraces the fact that the narrator, Tristram, is writing down this supposed autobiography and laughingly highlights the ridiculous questions posed by the literary and religious authorities about this new form.
To the question of purpose of writing a novel, Sterne points out that "from the first moment I sat down to write my life for the amusement of the world, and my opinions for its instruction, has a cloud insensibly been gathering over my father." The experience is to be laughed at, whereas his opinions should be taken in as moral and social instruction. How can we understand this, when it is through the experiences of Pamela and Robinson Crusoe that the reader was supposedly learning through novels? Wasn't it the experiences of D'Elmont that were seen to "soften" the readers and make them more vulnerable to sin? For Sterne, it is all of the outside digressions and opinions that he includes (that are also quite amusing) that we should be learning from, and not the experiences that all seem a product of bad luck.
To the question of plausibility, we saw Richardson dance through time and space with Pamela, who would be writing exhaustive letters with a few pages of paper and minutes between interruptions. Sterne plays with this notion several times, giving life to the characters of his story only when his pen is writing directly about them. On several occasions, he claims to leave characters for a specific duration of time so that he can tell a different stories or digressions. "To explain this, I must leave him upon the bed for half an hour-- and my good Uncle Toby in his old fringed chair sitting beside him." About a dozen pages later, Sterne finally returns to them, saying "I have left my father lying across his bed, and my uncle Toby in his old fringed chair, sitting beside him, and promised I would go back to them in half an hour, and five and thirty minutes are laps'd already." Sterne is showing how silly it is to try and make a written story plausible when the nature of writing such a story about a fiction is implausible by nature.
In as much conclusion as a short blog entry on the topic can reach, I think that it is only be showing how silly some of the conventions or expectations of this young genre were. By shedding these conventions through humor, Sterne has freed his writing to be easily the most modern piece of fiction we have read to date.

Continued Thoughts on Narration during "The Rise of the Novel"

On this journey of piecing together understandings about how the "novel" came to be, I am becoming more and more interested in how the way of transmitting a story is evolving at this time period, and how it has changed to what we recognize as an acceptable "novel" today. Having now read some of Fielding's work, I am even more interested in the awareness authors of this time have of themselves, this new genre, and the gravity of having a first-person narrator tell a story.
The term "unreliable narrator" is used when, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the person telling the story cannot be trusted or who's point-of-view is compromised. This phenomenon may occur for dozens of reasons, Poe often has his stories told from insane, jealous, or vengeful narrators, Lolita is told by a pedophile, and The Sound and the Fury's most reliable narrator is arguably a mentally challenged man-child. But in all of these stories, we can tell that the author employs these narrators as unreliable to achieve a specific response for their readers. Yet, I believe, as my last blog suggests, that the nature of telling a story from a first-person for Defoe and Richardson create unreliable narrators because of their hyper-awareness of a reader response to this new genre. As I was pointing out last week, Crusoe, Moll Flanders, and Pamela must somehow tell their stories, while also justifying that the words are written down, not by an author but by the title character, creates an unreliable narrator because the story is inevitably told after it has happened. Richardson actually achieves the most accurate possible type of narration under these circumstances by having the story told in increments immediately after the action has taken place, rather than years later. But even in this clever form, the narrator can never overcome the form and create a believable story.
Henry Fielding, in Shamela, humorously shows just how unreliable a narrator Pamela was, partly because of the form of writing that Richardson employs. He points out that in order to get closer to the action of the story, interestingly in this truer version of events, Shamela writies in a tense that does not reflect her writing situation. "Odsbobs! I hear him coming in at the door. You see I write in the present Tense as Parson Williams, says." Throughout this entire story, Fielding shows the humour and unreliability of the genre of novel, or form of first-person narrator in that genre. And yet, Fielding's perceptiveness of form does not absolve him of his own hyper-awareness of writing and desire to show people how to read his work in this new genre. He spends the entire preface of his major work Joseph Andrews distilling the differences between comedy and burlesque, defending its validity with antiquity, and explaining what people should and should not find funny. The emergence of this form of writing is so clear in the writing itself. Once the reader and writer were able to accept that a story could be told by a character, without having to justify the words being printed on a page, more or less reliable narrators could be created by the author's design rather than by the genre's design.

Style in Crusoe and Pamela

In Robinson Crusoe and Pamela, it is particularly interesting to track how conscious the authors are of engaging in this new form. Since other forms of literature had their roots well established in classical tradition, they did not have to defend their style in-text. However, when something different arises in the field of literature, it seems that they cannot have value in and of themselves, without first defending that value tooth and nail.
The physical act of writing, and the awareness thereof, is so heavy in both of these iconic novels that some unintended consequences arise. The author must make their first-person narrator show that they are writing down these words, or else the words must have happened out of midair. In most contemporary novels with a first person narrator, the story is told without any mention of the fact that it is being written down, let alone the experience of writing it down being critical to the plot of the story. It becomes too problematic, as one can see in both Robinson Crusoe and Pamela, that it can interfere with the progression of the story (which most likely accounts for the fact that most authors now ignore it entirely). In Robinson Crusoe he runs out of ink and cannot journal day by day, which in terms of the plot of the story shifts from extremely specific copying to broad summaries of years or even an entire decade. In Pamela, she must depend entirely on opportunities to write in order to tell her story at all. She cannot orally tell the story to us, because Richardson has to account for the fact a reader is reading words printed on a page. For almost every single letter, Pamela must justify the time lapsed between letters, the reason for writing, and the emotions felt towards the specific reader (mother, father, Mr. B, or Mrs. Jervis). As she becomes unable to write letters to her parents, she turns to writing letters that will not be sent, or a diary style. Even the act of writing it down is a question of validity or plausibility for the novel at this time.
The unintended consequence of this style is that a story MUST be written in the past tense, and told AFTER the storyteller has had time to see the whole consequences, alter the memory in their mind, or justify their own actions. Why can we depend so willingly on the memory or truthfullness of Crusoe or Pamela as distanced story tellers? Even the act of writing down a memory will in some way alter the true experience. In Defoe's other blockbuster novel, Moll Flanders, the author must show that Moll is writing down her story at the end of the life. But with fifty years of distance from the onset of the story, just as with Crusoe, how reliable of a narrator can they be? It would be like listening to the crazy ramblings of a grandparent about "when I was your age," knowing full well that a majority of the story is exaggerated, fabricated, or about someone else entirely. I'm not saying that is what is going on in these novels, but the necessity for an author to show that the story is being written down, and making that experience plausible, in fact makes it fantastic and less believable because the narrator is always telling the story after it happened and they had time to think about it. It makes a character like Moll Flanders less sincere about her moral rehabilitation, Crusoe less credible about his intense work ethic, and Pamela less righteous in comarison to every other character. I mean, if a sixteen year old girl was ranting to you about a highschool senior who had a crush on her or a fight she had with her caddy friend, wouldn't she always make herself out to be the angel and the opponent into the devil? But if you witnessed the events, you might see that Pamela was making herself out to be different then she truly was. Perhaps Pamela was leading Mr. B on from the start, and Mr. B was the one resisting for the duration of the plot. Perhaps Pamela was the one who laid traps for Mr. B and hid in the closet until he fell asleep and then molested him. All I'm saying is that the style of always needing to tell a story retroactively, as a defense for the validity and plausibility of encountering a story in print, in fact undermines the credibility of the storyteller.

"Religion" in Robinson Crusoe

I have delayed writing an entry on this subject because I have had difficulty wrapping my head around exactly what Defoe was doing with religion in his first book. I imagine an 18th century England that is very senstive towards religion, not only values of the religion but also which group one associates with. As we have also learned, the idea of reading or writing a novel also presented a sensitive, precarious issue for those involved, not to soften the readers too much and present a "religious," moral message that makes reading worthwhile or meaningful. These summative statements really do a disservice to the many layers of the precarious situation of novel reading or writing at this early stage, but I imagine Defoe was in an exceedingly difficult position in trying to write a fantastic, yet plausible book that had a message (and that message of course should coincide with the maximum number fo readers). For this reason, I see Robinson Crusoe's religious overtone forced by Defoe, and transparent enough for any reader to feel connected to it tangentially. The true focus, to me, is in the industrious nature of Protestantism and how it fuels capitalism.

In Kim's report yesterday in class, she talked about Weber's thesis on Protestantism as the center of Capitalism. The rise of the individual in Prostentantism is exhibited in the personal diaries, the personal charting of good deeds, the self-realizations for callings in life, some are even called to "make money" (oh how things have changed since then). The development of this sense of self and the self's role in attaining salvation (or attaining knowledge if one will be saved or not) actually has a secular effect. The actually tenents of religion are almost completely irrelevant. Robinson Crusoe's enlightenment on the island comes from RANDOMLY opening the Bible to any page and reading a singular line and adopting that line as his temporary slogan. The same effect could come from randomly opening the Koran, the Torah, or even a non-religious text such as an anthology of William Shakespeare or Benjamin Franklin's almanac.

By using religion to fit the prototype of what a "Novel" should look like (interesting that a something considered "novel" had a prototype), Defoe actually shows how little associating with a specific Religion matters. The truly important task for religion to accomplish is sustainability and adaptability. We can see this idea today, where conversations across Religions about Religion are tenuous, awkward, and generally pointless (I would compare it to a political debate about abortion between two opposing sides, the conversation will almost never end with someone changing their view). And yet, as fiercely as people attach themselves to a specific Religion, the principles of all faiths seems to adapt to the economic system that we, in the United States, live in: Capitalism. The forced, awkward presentation of Religion in Robinson Crusoe previews the environment that we live in today, where it is not variations of Christianity that create sensitive issues, but total differences in religion. And yet, for as much as religion matters to the individual, Defoe shows that deep down it is as grounded and meaningful as flipping open a book, reading a sentence, and using that sentence for whatever purposes one wants.

Property and Providence in "Robinson Crusoe"

WARNING, this is long but I couldn't help getting carried away.

The idea of property in "Robinson Crusoe" is very compelling to me when one considers the social and political environment of the imperial powers during the production and distribution of this book. A short time before, John Locke elucidated his ideas on property as a natural right and his derived from one's own labor (or by the extension of one's property's labor, i.e. one has a natural right to the property and labor of one's slaves). Daniel Defoe develops these ideas with the unique circumstances, and yet conventional views of Robinson Crusoe. It is with references to slavery that highlight the self-contradictory understanding of property and ownership.
The first encounter with "slavery" is in fact the slavery of Crusoe. Upon his escape, he claims his aide, Xury, as a servant. When they are happened upon by a Portugese ship. He ultimately sells Xury to the captain, with some minor qualms in his heart that are quieted by this view on property: "he offered my 60 pieces of eight for my boy Xury, which I was loath to take, not that I was unwilling to let the Captain have him, but I was very loath to sell the Boy's Liberty , who had assisted me so faithfully in procuring me own." Interesting that the qualms he has do not come from the fact that the Boy's Liberty should not be Crusoe's property to sell. And yet, Xury's work to procure Robinson's liberty instead counted as the labor of Crusoe himself, since he claimed a natural right to own Xury.
Of course, later Crusoe falls victim of a shipwreck and is deserted on an island. The object of his trip was to lead a voyage to procure slaves from the coast of Guniea for their plantation colony in Brasil. Yet, during all of Crusoe's self-examination, during his constant repentances for his lust for adventure and wealth, for his disobedience to his father, he never considers the possibility that the object of his trip was the origin of evil, and the "Just and Omnipotent Providence" that he prays to was really thwarting this false notion of property built into the psyche of Old World imperialism.
If this sounds confusing, it should, because the web of self-justifcation was woven quite intricately. Later, once Robinson establishes himself quite thoroughly on the island through hard work and labor, he claims to himself that "I was King and Lord of all this Country indefeasibly, and had a Right of Posession." Although he gives Providence all of the control and credit for his life and gratitude, he establishes himself as the highest entity of the island because he worked hard for it. He also later refers to all of the animals in his command with rhetoric used in slavery: "there was my Majesty the Prince and Lord of the whole Island; I had the Lives of all my Subjects at my absolute Command. I could hang, draw, give Liberty, and take it away, and no Rebels among all my Subjects." This arrogance towards having a natural right to determine the fate of others speaks volumes for the assumptions made under Locke's umbrella of property.
His only human companion, Friday, not suprisingly, cannot avoid the shadow of this umbrella and his swallowed up in Crusoe's conceptions of property. Although he willingly becomes a loyal aide fo Crusoe (even places Crusoe's foot on his head), it does not dawn on Crusoe that he is committing a wrong by merely viewing the work and labor of Friday as his own property and not treating him as an equal, making Crusoe marginally more moral than the cannibals that Friday had escaped from in the first place.

In Defense of D'Elmont

After class today, I was thinking about how readers may be inclined to dislike or be unsympathetic towards the character of D'Elmont as he bumbles through his life leaving a trail of romantic wreckage behind him. While I honestly had similar feelings towards him during my reading, I feel the need to defend D'Elmont from excessive badgering in light of some of the things I learned in Manley's preface to "The Secret History of Queen Zarah" and Ballaster's "Seductive Forms."
First, Manley's directions on how writing, and even reading, should be done show that as a new type of genre, and a new type of author, were being heralded into the literary market, so too was a desire for a "realistic"character. Manley states that "The Heroes in Ancient Romances have nothing in them that is Natural; all is unlimited in their Character; all their Advantages have Something Prodigious, and all their Actions Something that's Marvelous; in short, they are not Men." While I think we can all agree the plot of "Love in Excess" is exceedingly unbelievable and fantastic, here Manley is saying that it is the "character" that is becoming more realistic or more "Natural." So if we try and distill what qualities of men are Natural from Haywood's depiction of D'Elmont, we can see that he is loyal (he has many interal conflicts when he has to compromise male friendships for that overpowering outside force of love), persuasive (even when does not mean to be), and glaringly naive (oblivious to signals the women lay before him, and easily manipulated, i.e. the Baron convincing him that "no means yes"). So the question is, why demarcate these qualities for the lead male of "Love in Excess"? To educate, of course.
Haywood is writing in a time when a reason needed to exist to read, beyond that of pure entertainment. Even Manley concedes that while everything should exist to be believable and recent for an audience, "the chief End of History is to instruct and inspire into Men the Love of Vertue, and Abhorrence of Vice by the Examples propos'd to them; therefore the Conclusion of a Story ought to have some Tract of Morality which may engage Virtue." This novel is clearly Haywood's class on true love and how to attain true love. D'Elmont, with his flaws and with his attributes, is the prize for throngs of women throughout the story. Yet the only one that can capture the heart, rather than just the body, of D'Elmont is the one who puts up the most resistence (albeit D'Elmont had all but conquered this resistence if not for some clever moves by the author) to his advances. In my last entry, I referred to a theme that is consistent throughout the novel that women, according to the times, should not profess their love unless the man has done so first. When Ballaster is elucidating on letter-writing, she says that "the woman's letter/body is then more erotic because more concealed than that of the man [Since they can't outright say what they want in order to save their virtue]. Like clothing, the letter's cloaking devices serve to enhance the appeal of the body by the very act of concealment." It is this concealment of her true feelings throughout the book that is like a trace blood in the water for D'Elmont to hunt down and conquer.
Our "realistic" and Natural man in the book is a ploy for Haywood to show us how to win a man's heart. His characteristics are those of a "prototypical" man, holding true even today. In this timeless peice about love, restrict yourself from blaming D'Elmont (naive and stupid in the web of guile laid by the women) for the romantic wreckage.

"Love in Excess" by Eliza Haywood

Perhaps due to the rants of my parents constantly alluding to a purer time before our heathen generation came along, I imagined the eighteenth century as an exponentially simpler and more chaste time in history. After reading "Love in Excess" by Eliza Haywood, my mental images of a holier world have been destroyed completely. However, the characters of this early novel seem to also be battling against the moral expectations placed on them by an older society.
Being one of the first writers to experiment with the literary form of "the novel," Haywood seems aware of her audience. Although not much is known of her life, much is known of the society she lived in. Haywood lived in an English society that put high esteem in their Protestant-Christian values. Included in this moral code, and a particular focus of Haywood, is the virtue and chastity of women. Throughout the novel, women constantly struggle against the expectation that they should not openly profess their love unless the man has already done so. Yet, some "coquetish" women and even some virtuous women break this rule throughout the story. Ciamara and Anaret go so far as masking their identity to the object of their affection, D'Elmont, in order to acquire his physical body only and little interest in acquiring his heart.
This bold representation of women in society, partciuarly in a new literary form that garnered a lot of attention from the literate realms of society, possibly created a hazardous environment for the author. In thinking about this possible issue that Haywood faced, I created a hypothesis that I have little proof to back up (but what the hey, this is a blog and lends itself to some speculation!). I think that it is no accident the characters and setting of this novel are France and Italy (two Catholic countries that were seen as sinful and licentious). Therefore, while Haywood explores the real passions of women, seen as wrong but in truth were equal to the more acceptable passions of men, she places it in the context of a societies seen as despicable in their own right. In fact, she plays on these societal prejudices when her characters are in Italy. A threat comes to the life of Frankville because of his love for Camilla, and he is warned of the "Italian art of poysoning by the smell" (231). The footnote explains that this fits with the English stereotype of Italian witchcraft. I think that the sexually ambitious young men and women throughout this story, meant by Haywood to show a certain truth about love (a quality of novels present even early on), is subverted by the author's attempts to remain respected in her own soceity and tell a fantastical story about the sexual libertines in France that break all English moral codes. Again, this is speculation on my part and I wonder if any of you agree with this as a possibility?
On a side note, I'd like to remark on the tendency for hyperbole in the rhetoric of both men and women in coversation and letter-writing in this story. I wondered if this is actually how people communicated or if it was an intentional device used by the author to emphasize that love was experienced and though of in excess by the characters in the story. Any thoughts?