Women of the 1800’s were very limited in what they could do in life - especially the women of the upper and middle classes. They were expected to do nothing more than marry and to marry well. If they could not do this, the life that they faced was very grim. It would be a life of spinsterhood and being cared for by other family members, or working as a governess for some upper class family.
Jane Austen’s book, Pride and Prejudice, shows the reader the importance of marrying, and, hopefully, marrying well, but also the important of marrying for love. Jane Austen was born in1775, and the world that she grew up in was one that was very limited for women. Jane was very lucky in the fact that her parents knew how important an education was for all children. She was sent to school, but she received most of her education at home from the books in her father’s library. David Nokes states in his book, Jane Austen, A Life, that “at an early age, Jane had determined that, whatever else might be her fate, she would not indulge the role of charming female imbecile” (103). In her book, Austen shows us many different characters and how they go about the whole game of marriage. There are five relationships depicted in the book: Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, Charlotte Lucas and Mr. Collins, Lydia and Wickham, Jane and Bingley, and Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy.
Mrs. Bennett is described in the book as being “a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper” (Austen 269). She is a woman with five daughters and her goal in life is to see them all married and hopefully married well. In Understanding Pride and Prejudice, Debra Teachman suggests that “Mrs. Bennet does not have the discernment to be of a real help to h...
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...rison of Two Novels by Jane Austen.” Critical Insights, Jane Austen. Ed. Jack Lynch. Hackensack, NJ: Salem Press, 2010. Print
Halliday, E.M. “Narrative Perspective in Pride and Prejudice.” Twentieth Century Interpretations of Pride and Prejudice. A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. E. Rubinstein. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1969. Print
Morgan, Susan. “Intelligence in Pride and Prejudice.” Modern Critical Interpretations - Pride and Prejudice. Ed. Harold Bloom. Philadelphia, PA: Chelsea House, 1987. Print
Teachmen, Debra. Understanding Pride and Prejudice: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997. Print
Sternlicht, Sanford. "Chapter 4: Pride and Prejudice." Jane Austen. John Lauber. New York: Twayne, 1993. Twayne's English Authors Series 498. Literature Resource Center. Web. 12 July 2011.
Pride and Prejudice is a story that addresses a collective reality in early 19th century England, that a woman lacking a good fortune needed to marry well. This novel focuses on Mr. & Mrs. Bennet and their five daughters (all of whom are of marriageable age): Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty and Lydia. The Bennets live on the Long bourn estate, in England. It has become Mrs. Bennet’s sole purpose to help each of her daughters marry a wealthy man with high social status. This seem to be of particular importance to Mrs. Bennet as there is an entailment on their estate and, with no male heirs, she and her daughters will be evicted from their home upon her husbands death. When a nearby Nether field estate is rented by Mr. Bingley, a man who is handsome,
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Fowler, Karen J.Introduction. Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen: The Complete Novels. By Jane Austen. New York: Penguin, 2006. 211-421. Print.
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Wright, Andrew H. "Feeling and Complexity in Pride and Prejudice." Ed. Donald Gray. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1966. 410-420.
The roots of one’s ethics are derivative of his or her upbringing. With hubris playing such a large roll as it does in Pride & Prejudice, it takes on its own character as the true antagonist of the story. Dissecting the characters of the story shows a traditional core with an unorthodox backwards way of thinking. Where admitting to mistakes means admitting to defeat, it is not difficult to understand the individual stubbornness that comes from each character. This stubbornness provides complications in, what should be, simple romances. However, the ultimate understanding Austen wished to expose is that pride and vanity do more harm than good, emphasizing serves as an example of the havoc that prejudgment can subconsciously
Wiesenfarth, Joseph. “The Case of Pride and Prejudice.” Studies in the Novel 16.3 (Fall 1984): 261–73. Literature Resource Center. Web. 02 May 2015.
Wright, Andrew H. "Feeling and Complexity in Pride and Prejudice." Ed. Donald Gray. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1966. 410-420.
From the bumbling Mr. Collins, who means less than he says, to the ironical parries of Ms. Elizabeth Bennet, Pride and Prejudice is certainly a comedy of manners. Each character, in their own way is either outside the traditional bounds of propriety, or bound within them so clumsily that even sincerity often comes across as humorous. In each situation shown, the characters began in a context of manners that set stage for the illuminating irony each character in some way sets forth. As shown through the situations and characters in the novel, Pride and Prejudice is a book brought to life by the context of propriety. Within this context are created the many ironical contradictions and pretenses exposed by its various colorful characters.
Jane Austen’s famous novel Pride and Prejudice promotes change in the way the English society during the 19th century viewed marriage. Through the use of conservative characters that were socially accepted in England during this time, Austen provides the reader with necessary details that show how insane these people were. On the other hand, Austen gives her dissentient characters more credit for their rebellious deeds. Austen’s campaign against social prejudice seems to succeed when Elizabeth marries Mr. Darcy for love rather than money.
Zimmerman, Everett. "Pride and Prejudice in Pride and Prejudice." Nineteenth-Century Fiction. 1st ed. Vol. 23. University of California, 1968. 64-73. Jstor. Web. 18 Mar. 2011.
On the surface, Jane Austen's 1813 novel, Pride and Prejudice tells the story of how three of the five daughters of a family living in 19th century England become engaged to be married. Underlying themes of the story, however, reveal a message about growing up and the judgments of people based on either outward appearances, behavior, or secondhand information from another person. The title of the novel proves to be extremely fitting, as Elizabeth, the main protagonist, learns that too much pride, along with many unjustified prejudices come to result in ignorance as to who a person really is inside and renders one incapable of finding true love.
Wright, Andrew H. "Feeling and Complexity in Pride and Prejudice." Ed. Donald Gray. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1966. 410-420.