In this article, I use stylistics, narratology and evaluation theory to understand how Jane Austen manages to insert evaluative comments in her novels, while at the same time appearing to invest them with what R.F. Patteson calls “a tissue of indeterminacy.” While evaluation, the “point” of language, has an indeterminacy of its own, it is my contention that in Austen’s works, and particularly in Emma and Mansfield Park, a sort of “evaluative opacity” is created by disseminating and undermining authority. Rather than simply eschewing all sources of authority in high modernist fashion, Austen confers authority on her narrators and on other characters (particularly her heroines): then, when a traditional, authoritative narrative has been thus constructed, Austen proceeds to play her authorities against each other and/or to show the wrongness of authority against the backdrop of fictional facts.
