Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice

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Jane Austen, born December 16, 1775, was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction earned her a place as one of the most widely read authors in English literature. Austen’s novels critique the life of the second half of the eighteenth century and are part of the transition to nineteenth-century realism. Though her novels were by no means autobiographical, her fictional characters do shed light on the facts of her life and but more importantly, they offered aspiring writers a model of how great works of literature were created. In 1796 and 1797 she worked on her novel First Impressions. This novel was later revised and published in 1813 as Pride and Prejudice. This is a nineteenth century English romantic story of the rebellious Elizabeth Bennet, a strong-minded young woman, and Mr. Darcy, an arrogant and wealthy man. Elizabeth’s unwillingness to marry him threatened the future of her family. Jane Austen used her family life experiences, social class structure, and knowledge of the nineteenth century to write Pride and Prejudice, a novel that humorously portrays ideals of the time period while conveying Austen’s unique feminism perspective.

Austen’s life experiences were portrayed in various aspects of the book Pride and Prejudice. Similar to Austen, Elizabeth grew up in the same family structure. Austen lived with her parents and eight brothers and sisters, similar to Elizabeth in the novel, who lived with all of her sisters. “Oh! Single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune would earn about four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls” (Austen 1)! For education, children would either learn in school or would have a governess. A governess is a woman employed to teach and train children in ...

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...ike herself. By providing a witty satire of social conventions, she helped to show women could strive for. Though Austen seemed to be a quiet and shy woman, she still seemed to have had an eventful life. To have developed the detachment and supersonic social radar that characterized Austen's work, she had to be the person people did not notice at the ball, but the one who noticed everything.

Works Cited

Boyle, Laura. "The Influence of Jane Austen’s Social Background on Two of Her Novels." Jane Austen Centre. N.p., 16 June 2012. Web. 15 Feb. 2014.

Emsley, Clive, Tim Hitchcock, and Robert Shoemaker. "The Proceedings of the Old Bailey." Historical Background. Old Bailey Proceedings, Apr. 2013. Web. 13 Feb. 2014.

Swisher, Clarice. Readings on Jane Austen. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven, 1997. Print.

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. New York: Penguin, 1980. Print.

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