The importance of letters in “Pride and Prejudice” and “Emma”

Abstract

Epistolary writing is a feature which only a few novelists have adopted. The research is aimed at examining epistolary writing with regards to Jane Austen’s novels Pride and Prejudice and Emma. Both the novels Pride and Prejudice and Emma contain several letters that fulfill the task of developing the plot through its aim of creating incidents. The novel Emma mainly contains only one letter in specific, which is Frank Churchill’s letter that we find in Chapter 50 and all the others are incidents where someone else speaks up about what is conveyed through a letter. Letters of confession, letters of love marriages, letters of unspoken emotions and letters of informing certain trivial matters as arrivals and illnesses, day to day casual letters are mentioned in both novels. Through the information revealed by the letters, the plot too develops in a certain way, manifesting certain characteristics of the characters and adding up to the themes. Letters Austen mentions in both novels can be categorized according to the message the letter conveys and how a letter adds to the development of the plot can be analyzed with a close examination of the letters and the incidents where letters are brought out.