Blog Post 1

"The progress of the friendship between Catherine and Isabella was quick as its beginning had been warm, and they passed so rapidly through every gradation of increasing tenderness, that there was shortly no fresh proof of it, to be given to their friends or themselves. They called each other by their Christian name, were always arm in arm when they walked, pinned up each other's train for the dance, and were not to be divided in the set; and if a rainy morning deprived them of other enjoyments, they were still resolute in meeting in defiance of wet and dirt, and shut themselves up, to read novels together." (Austen, 35-36)

I chose to post about this paragraph because it is one of the first relationships that the narrator discusses in great depth at the beginning of the novel. I found it to be interesting that Jane Austen chose to develop this friendship before the relationship of others throughout the course of volume one. Although I am not entirely familiar with classic novels, I would typically expect a male/female relationship to develop prior to a deep, meaningful friendship. This leads to my question of why Jane Austen decided to elaborate on this relationship first rather than a family or romantic relationship. My expectation is that their friendship with lead to the development of more romantic relationships, perhaps with Henry Tilney or even Isabella's brother, John Thorpe.