Marriage and Breeding in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Marriage and Breeding in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

In this essay I will be discussing how Jane Austen approaches the

themes of marriage and breeding in the novel Pride and Prejudice. I

shall also be talking about the social, historical and cultural

background to the novel.

Jane Austen was born in 1775, into an upper class family. Wealth and

class are key issues for the time, but at the time at which the novel

is set the relationships between classes is beginning to break down.

For centuries, England's economy depended on agriculture, and usually

wealthily people owned large country estates. With the industrial

revolution, however, wealth began to concentrate in the cities. During

Jane Austen's life she stayed single and spent much of her life

writing and going to fashionable parties like the one Miss Bennet and

Mr Darcy assemble at . Jane Austen observes the biased views of

marriage of the upper social class in the novel.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in

possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." Is the ironic

suggestion that Jane Austen begins Pride and Prejudice with. This

introduces several of the major issues and themes that have been

explored in the novel throughout the past two centuries: marriage,

wealth, class, property, propriety, and of course pride and prejudice.

Moreover, these are not merely issues of historical significance; they

retain their relevance today, still trying to determine how best to

deal with issues of love, money (or the lack of it), and what one

should do when confronted with a bad first impression.

The novel has often been described as a simple...

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...hat she understands when to keep quiet or

not to do something.

Through what the characters say and do, Jane Austen shows irony by

making many of them seem polite, such as Elizabeth, but in reality

they are laughing at the things going on around them. Mr. Bennett is

an excellent example of this, as his wife thinks he is agreeing with

her, when actually he is just mocking her.

In conclusion, Elizabeth manages to overcome her mother's objections

to the pomposity and deign of her long-time adversary, Mr Darcy, and

find true love. The book is full of minor characters who mostly marry

for the wrong reasons. Charlotte married for status, Lydia married for

physical attraction and Mrs Hirst married for money. But the Bennett

sisters are manipulated by Jane Austen to marry for the only thing

worth marrying for true love.