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The Conversation

Carmen Barajas, Profesora Psicología Evolutiva y de la Educación, Universidad de Málaga

Jane Austen and theory of mind: how literary fiction sharpens your ‘mindreading’ skills

Jane Austen Darcy Elizabeth Bennet Elizabeth Bennett

TTL Deez/Shutterstock

At the beginning of Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen’s most well-known novel, the protagonist, Elizabeth Bennet, overhears Mr Darcy speaking ill of her. This, naturally, leads her to form a negative opinion of him.

Drawing of two men chatting in the background about a woman sitting in the foreground. — ‘She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me’. Mr Darcy speaks without realising that the subject of his comment is listening. C. E. Brock /Wikimedia Commons

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