In the Pride of the Moment: Encounters in Jane Austen's WorldJohn A. Dussinger argues that the strength of Jane Austen's writing is found in the minute encounters that reveal a character's life rather than in the larger design of the story. In the Pride of the Moment contests the familiar view that Austen's novels are stylistically polished but lacking in substance by showing that they give unusual significance to the most ordinary events. Austen's narrative strategy brings her characters together in an