I was talking to my boss about this, actually, and she made this same point, that novels were often written as letters in this time period, and perhaps Austen was writing in a transitional phase between that and modern dialogue.
Everything you say about Mrs. Bennett being a product of her time makes sense, although I wonder she was even extreme for that culture -- there's the bit in Darcy's letter about how her behavior was an embarrassment to the Bennett family and part of the reason he interviened between Bingley and Jane. So I wonder if contemporary audiences would have agreed with Darcy there.
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I was talking to my boss about this, actually, and she made this same point, that novels were often written as letters in this time period, and perhaps Austen was writing in a transitional phase between that and modern dialogue.
Everything you say about Mrs. Bennett being a product of her time makes sense, although I wonder she was even extreme for that culture -- there's the bit in Darcy's letter about how her behavior was an embarrassment to the Bennett family and part of the reason he interviened between Bingley and Jane. So I wonder if contemporary audiences would have agreed with Darcy there.