Readings of Jane Austen tend to be polarized: she is seen either as conformist - the prevalent view - or quietly subversive. In "General Consent in Jane Austen" Barbara Seeber overcomes this critical stalemate, arguing that general consent does not exist as a given in Austen's texts. Instead, her texts reveal the process of manufacturing consent - of achieving ideological dominance by silencing dissent. Drawing on the theories of Mikhail Bakhtin, Seeber interrogates academic and popular constructions of Jane Austen, opening up Austen's "unresolvable dialogues". "General Consent in Jane Austen" examines the "early" and "late" novels as well as the juvenilia in the light of three paradigms: "The Other Heroine" focuses on voices that challenge and compete with the central heroines; "Cameo Appearances" examines buried past narratives; and "Investigating Crimes" explores acts of violence. These three avenues into dialogic space destabilize conventional readings of Austen. The Bakhtinian model that structures this book is not one of linearity and balance but one of conflict, simultaneity and multiplicity.
While some novels fit into only one paradigm, others incorporate more than one; "Mansfield Park" receives the most attention. A bold and provocative study, "General Consent in Jane Austen" should be of interest not only to Austen scholars but to scholars of literary theory and dialogism.