Pride and Prejudice: Influences on Society

As Jane Austen says, “a lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment. I knew you would be wishing me joy” (26). Today, for most people, love comes first in the process of matrimony— followed by the actual marriage. Women living in the 1800s have only wealth in mind when deciding who to marry; which is entirely different from individuals today, who consider various aspects of a person other than material objects. In Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, the archetypes of sisters, ritual and the woods/river, the character analysis of Mr. Darcy and the moral lesson that your initial judgments aren’t always right are some of the multifarious that reveal the underlined meaning of the novel.

The bond of the Bennet sisters represents the archetype of trust and stability throughout the events in the story. Elizabeth could no longer wait to tell Jane what had happened between her and Mr. Darcy while she was gone (Austen 212). Whether they were apart or together, Elizabeth and Jane were in constant communication. While they were apart they wrote letters daily to each other about what had happened, when they were together they spoke in privacy every night before they would go to sleep. Jane and Elizabeth depended on each other throughout the whole story for support and for advice.

The sisters also showed the archetype as mentor/initiates. Elizabeth was worried and tried to convince her father that it was a poor choice to let Lydia travel with Mrs. Foster (Austen 219). This was a prime example of how Elizabeth felt that she should somewhat be a protector to her younger sisters. This also shows that no matter what happens, your family will always love you and have your best ...

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