Thanks for bringing up one of my favorite authors, but Jane Austen should be used with caution. 1.) Generally speaking her novels focus on the direct experienc

Thanks for bringing up one of my favorite authors, but Jane Austen should be used with caution. 1.) Generally speaking her novels focus on the direct experience of family and friends. She's cutting on issues like the hypocrisy of the clergy and the indolence of the landed gentry. Issues from society at large like the emergence of the English middle class intrude only implicitly. In fact she's commonly criticized for her narrow view. [0] 2.) Within those bounds there's a sizable military presence in both 'Pride and Prejudice' (soldiers at Meryton, Brighton, and elsewhere) as well as 'Persuasion', where many of the main characters are drawn from the English Navy and spent much of their life at sea. I can't prove it but have long suspected the characters would have been quite different had they been published 15 years before or after. Within the scope of her concerns the society she portrays seems quite militarized. [0] http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/austen/index.html http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/a...