Free Indirect Distice In Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice

Jane Austen is known for the use of free indirect discourse in her works. She uses this, along with vivid language to critique the social values of society during the feminist movement. One of her most famous works in which she uses both free indirect discourse and vivid language is Pride and Prejudice. Within Pride and Prejudice, Austen uses many different scenes to portray her thoughts on the social values of her era, but some of them do not contribute to the work as a whole. The social values of men, women, and the reasons for marriage are revealed in Pride and Prejudice in the scene of the Meryton ball and provide a direct connection to the theme of the hazards of first impressions. First of all, Austen gives an example of how the social

So high and so conceited that there was no enduring him! He walked here, and he walked there, fancying himself so very great! Not handsome enough to dance with! I wish you had been there, my dear, to have given him one of your set-downs. I quite detest the man.” (Austen 15) At this point in the story, the reader believes that Darcy and Elizabeth will not be together, but the reader is proven wrong in the end when Darcy and Elizabeth slowly start falling in love with each other. This shows the reader that first impressions can be misleading.

Next, Because of the ridicule women receive for disobeying the social values of the time, the social values of most women was to ignore their emotions, and to focus more on the social status of men. Austen gives an example of this when Mrs. Bennet says, “If I can but see one of my daughters happily settled at Netherfield…and all the others equally well married, I shall have nothing to wish for.” (Austen

During this time period, men are expected to marry accomplished women who are on the same intellectual level as them, but it is almost impossible for women to be on the same intellectual level as men because they do not receive the same level of education as the men do. Also, women are expected to marry man whose family has a high social status, whether he is accomplished or not. Darcy and Elizabeth disobey this social value at the end of Pride and Prejudice where they get married to each other. Darcy is looked down on for getting married to someone of a lower social status, while Elizabeth is seen as someone who has married up into a higher social standing. Their marriage is seen as an untraditional one because instead of getting married because of society’s social values, they were getting married because of their love for each other. This is an example of how Darcy’s horrible first impression on Elizabeth was turned around by his ability to change his manners because of his love for