Jane Austen's anti-heroes and heroes

Despite her youth, Jane Austen knew enough about human nature to invest each of her characters with a different personality, yet underlying each was their common humanity. The anti-heroes and heroes of her fiction were all endowed with mixed strengths and weaknesses, just as she found people to be in the real world. None of her anti-heroes were devils, and none of her heroes were superheroes. The village atmosphere which was the locale of her works gave her the opportunity to enlarge on the personalities of her characters: their foibles, secret hopes, downfalls, and eventually the happy endings for the worthy protagonists. Although her plots appear to be "boy meets girl" with problems before the "boy gets girl" conclusion, the satire, the complications, the intricacies, and the heartaches in between are what make Jane Austen's skill as a writer shine through her work even today.