Tentative Thesis

Le Brun takes a very deterministic approach to the mapping of human emotions and how they manifest themselves physically. While there is much to his work that remains relevant today, modern psychological trends seem to refute the universality of Le Brun's methods, generally taking a more flexible view of this phenomenon. As such, there is room to propose a compromise between the antiquated and the modern, given that emotion does, inherently, manifest in physical form, however, these manifestations vary dramatically from culture to culture, era to era, and, most importantly, from person to person. In Austen's Persuasion and Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, particularly, there are clear demonstrations of both correct and incorrect inferences of the physical representations of various emotions. From these instances, the compromise between old and new thoughts becomes more clear.