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Language In Clarissa, Evelina And Pride And Prejudice

Language In Clarissa, Evelina And Pride And Prejudice

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not favoritism, ultimately decide who will inherit the<br />

estate. He, Mr. Bennet learn that the "harshness" comes<br />

with the application of these rigid laws in singular<br />

cases not foreseen by the law itself. The realism Austen<br />

lends to her characters' social and financial situations,<br />

then, continues through her portrayal of their legal<br />

situations regarding inheritance and strict settlement<br />

practice. Austen's own family felt the "harshness"<br />

firsthand.<br />

Just after the publication of <strong>Pride</strong> and <strong>Prejudice</strong>,<br />

Austen's mother nearly lost the family cottage at Chawton<br />

through the imposition of an entail. A relative had<br />

adopted Austen's brother, Edward Knight, the inheritor of<br />

the estate at Chawton. A settlement will placed on the<br />

estate nearly a hundred years earlier had put an entail<br />

on it. <strong>In</strong>heritors were to follow one family line; if<br />

that line were to end, the entail would then follow the<br />

Hinton family line. When Edward Knight was in a position<br />

to inherit, a Hinton nephew disputed the inheritance,<br />

contending that the entail had never been legally<br />

dissolved, and that adoption negated Edward's claim,<br />

since he was not truly of the family line. Edward<br />

countered that there had been errors made in the deed of<br />

suspending entailment and the entail was invalid because

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