"'In general she has been in very good health, and very good looks since Michaelmas'" (Austen, 115).
Michaelmas is a feast celebrating St. Michael the Archangle. Austen is showing the reader that her characters are somewhat religious, and she is connecting the readers back into the time setting of her novel. Austen is also stating that religion is an important part of society and that religion can affect ones place in it. The highest members of society are all religious (the king is the head of the church) and the higher one climbs, the more religious they must become.
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this feels surface here -- why does she bring religious celebration into the narrative here? What purpose does it serve? How does it connect into the novel's meaning?
ReplyDeleteI think it's more as a timeline.. If you know when Michaelmas is celebrated, and what day Anne related this information to her father (when he had last seen Mary) then we can see how long ago it was that they were together.
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