Abstract
An obvious exception to this rule is Sense and Sensibility with its climax in Marianne's illness and near death, but even there the avoidability of the event is emphasized-as if this disaster were an interpolation from one of the romances upon which Marianne endeavors to model her life. Harriet Smith is accosted by some demanding gypsy children; Jane Fairfax (it is reported) nearly fell out of a boat; the Woodhouses and Knightleys almost get snowed in once. Austen regularly sets up tableaux in which we watch the reactions of a group of characters to slight disturbance or upheaval, an argument, a minor inconvenience-and watch them reveal their strength of character by those reactions. Austen's narrative technique mimics the nature of reality: she explores the way ordinary troubles, the miniature crises of which our days are made, expose a person's quality and serve as a kind of dress rehearsal for a true crisis.