ABSTRACT
Literary criticism has long been interested in Jane Austen’s (1775-1817) focus on character development. The connection between the positioning of her cast and the narrative action of her novels has recently received particular attention. In his narratological study The One vs. the Many (2003), Alex Woloch assigns the configuration and compression of minor characters in Pride and Prejudice an essential function for the protagonist’s achievement of central interiority. According to Woloch, Austen’s new narrative coherence gives each minor character a specific and contextualized position within the novel as a whole.31 In a similar vein, Patricia Meyer Spacks views Austen’s plot elements – such as the depiction of manners in relation to moral conduct, and the series of events leading up to a significant recognition – as deployed to produce a change in the protagonist’s consciousness.32 Austen’s main characters gain complexity by responding to outside events, and by going through intellectual and emotional processes of reasoning. Her minor characters often serve to initiate such contemplations. In Persuasion, her last finished novel, Austen compellingly uses major and minor characters in order to advance the protagonist’s attainment of self-awareness. In the course of the narrative, Anne Elliot encounters various personalities – and, more importantly, their particular agendas. Her character development derives from advocating her interests irrespective of whether or not they are in conflict with the expectations of others: it equals bringing ‘inner experience’ into accord with ‘outward behaviour.’33
