D.W. Harding

3) I agree with D.W. in the sense that Austen truly does use exaggerated characters to prove her underlying hatred, even though hatred my be a strong word, for those she dislikes as well as to use it to relate with people who in a sense lived in the same sensitive, lacking of social status life style that she was.  He proves a great point with this idea signaling to the fact that her sarcasm isn't really detected and is more sensed by how snobby the characters are, exaggerating their motivations and story tellers and characters of fiction as we can not imagine that back in the 1800s, even the poor people thought that they can lie in the same bed as the rich and not wake up the next morning feeling as poor as they were the night before.

Thoughts:
I think that D.W. Harding makes some fantastic points as well as some points that you can't necessarily say are accurate but are not on the right track.  It really does make sense how D.W. puts Austen in perspective as a person of sensitive life and values who is unable to "compete" with the sharks of the contemporary life and reverts to writing to make connections with those she hates.  I think he is off in the fact that he says that Austen's sarcasm is light or delicate.  As he describes her as putting the people she hates in her book as characters so they can love, she is also understanding that they have to be made fun of and insulted for them to understand the humor and disregard the facts.  In this sense, Austen sarcasm isn't necessarily sharp but incredibly witty as the people she dislikes in the society, the upper class, are reading her book and relating to her and her characters, little do they that these snobby, sometimes stupid, and socially extravagant people are themselves in a nutshell.  Lastly I understand where Harding is coming from when he says that Austen is a critic of society and has no right to do because her sensitivity in a way doesn't allow her to explore different aspects of life, but as an author you have to write your book on what you think and see more often then what you do, essentially that's why it's called fiction.