Friday--August 26th
Resume and Poster
Tuesday--September 6th
Completion of Summer Reading Packet for OTHELLO, including annotations (Bring book to class beginning 9/6)
Friday--September 9th
All blog postings
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Up to Date on Second Requests to Blog
I only found 4 emails for blog membership this evening. I have sent another email to each of those four. Please send me an email at drspruell@gmail.com should you want to earn the blog grade.
See you in the A.M.
Dr. Spruell
See you in the A.M.
Dr. Spruell
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Where in the world are my fellow bloggers?
By this point of the summer you should have finished reading both Othello and Pride and Prejudice.
You should have read the entire blog.
You should be well underway in responding to the six discussion questions for each work. (You will find them in the blog.)
You should have completed the work on the summer reading handout. Remember, if you lost or didn't receive a handout, they are available on the WNHS front desk and on EdLine.
As seniors in AP/Dual Enrollment English, you will be expected to assume the work ethic of a college student.
You should have read the entire blog.
You should be well underway in responding to the six discussion questions for each work. (You will find them in the blog.)
You should have completed the work on the summer reading handout. Remember, if you lost or didn't receive a handout, they are available on the WNHS front desk and on EdLine.
As seniors in AP/Dual Enrollment English, you will be expected to assume the work ethic of a college student.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
WELCOME CLASS OF 2012!
I don't know about you, but I am looking forward to a wonderful year of reading, discussing, and writing about literature. This blog will serve as a place for us to rendezvous when we can't meet face-to-face, giving us an opportunity to engage and extend some thoughtful discussions. Additionally, meaningful posts will help your grade :) In order to participate you will need to send me an email that includes your name and the desire to join the group. It is that simple!
College, Anyone?
So, it is the last summer of your high school career. Where should you be in your pursuit of the rest of your life?
Hopefully, you have narrowed down the college choices to about three schools. One should be a safety net school. For most of you this will be FSCJ. A second selection should be a school that should accept you. For most of you this will be UNF or JU. The third school should be your desired school. This will run the gamut from UF to FSU to UCF to Georgia Tech to SCAD to UGA. If you haven't prepared at least a mental list, go on the the studentedge.com website from your summer packet and "visit" your schools. Comment on your process and help your classmates understand what you have learned and why this is important. Dream schools will require an early application. We will deal with this when we meet in August. This year will fly by. DO NOT allow yourself to fall behind :)
Hopefully, you have narrowed down the college choices to about three schools. One should be a safety net school. For most of you this will be FSCJ. A second selection should be a school that should accept you. For most of you this will be UNF or JU. The third school should be your desired school. This will run the gamut from UF to FSU to UCF to Georgia Tech to SCAD to UGA. If you haven't prepared at least a mental list, go on the the studentedge.com website from your summer packet and "visit" your schools. Comment on your process and help your classmates understand what you have learned and why this is important. Dream schools will require an early application. We will deal with this when we meet in August. This year will fly by. DO NOT allow yourself to fall behind :)
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: JANE AUSTEN
Jane Austen, the daughter of an English clergyman, was born in 1775 at her father’s Hampshire Vicarage in South Central England. Austen had six brothers and one sister. Austen and her sister, Cassandra, were inseparable. After several attempts to find an appropriate boarding school, they were schooled at home. Their father taught his own children and several who boarded with the family. This education was by extensive reading of the classics. Both sisters were pretty and popular, and they enjoyed most of the social amenities portrayed in Austen’s novels.
By the time she was in her mid-twenties, Jane’s brothers, two of whom later became admirals, had careers and families of their own. After the father’s death in 1805, the family lived temporarily in Southhampton before finally settling in Chawton.
A lively and affectionate family circle and a network of friends provided a stimulated context for her writing. It was the world of landed gentry and the country clergy that she used in her novels.
In the six novels published between 1811 and 1817, Austen revealed the possibilities of domestic literature. Her concentration on personality and character and the tensions between her heroines and their society make her works more closely related to the modern world than to the traditions of the eighteenth century. This modernity, together with the wit, realism, and timelessness of her prose style, helps to explain her continuing appeal to twentieth century reason.
Northanger Abbey, a satire on the romances, was sold for ten pounds in 1803, but as it was not published, was bought back by members of the family. It did not appear in print until after Austen’s death.
Although her friends knew of her authorship, she received little recognition in her lifetime. She was quite aware of her special excellences and limitations, and often compared her style to that of a miniaturist painter. She ridiculed the silly, the affected, and the stupid, ranging in her satire from early, light portraiture to later, more scornful exposures.
Austen published several minor works and five major novels: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1816), and posthumously, a collection of Persuasion and Northanger Abbey (1818). Other minor works included Juenilia, the novel, Lady Susan, and the fragments: The Watsons and Sandition. Her name never appeared on her title pages, therefore, she received little recognition until after her death in 1817.
Her comedies of manners depict the self-contained world of provincial ladies and gentlemen, and most of her works revolved around the delicate business of providing proper husbands and wives for marriageable offspring of the middle class. She is best remembered for her lively interplays of character, her meticulous care to style and plot, a sense of comic irony, and her moral firmness. The overall substance of this novel concerns a small section of society locked into a timeless present in which little will change. The people involved are fixed, and the routines and social rituals are predetermined. Money is a problem when it is short.
Successful courtships lead to satisfactory marriages. For the first two volumes of the book, Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet are pre-judging and re-judging. It is a drama of insight that acts by revision and sees things as they really are and not what was presumed.
There is a whole vocabulary connected with the processes of decision, conviction, and opinion. People’s varied and unstable judgments are exposed and analyzed. Opinions are constantly changing as characters’ behaviors appear in a different light. The need to be aware of the difference between appearance and reality is made clear throughout the novel.
Austen writes about what she knows. Therefore, great areas of human experience are never mentioned. The male characters are not finely drawn. In contrast, the female characters are strong and stand out as intelligent and complex individuals. Extreme passions are avoided. This is demonstrated when Elizabeth accepts Darcy’s second proposal. She says, “My sentiments have undergone such a material change as to make me receive with gratitude and pleasure your present assurances.” There seem to be many important topics which Austen avoided.
Her greatest talents were her subtle insight into character and her precise dialogue. Each character’s speech is appropriate. Collins is pompous, Mr. Bennet is cynical and sarcastic, Elizabeth is forthright and honest, Lydia is frothy and giddy, and Darcy is sensitive and sure of himself.
Although Romanticism was at its peak during Austen’s life, she rejected this movement. She adhered more closely to the neo-classic style, and to its discipline, devoid of passion. Her style emphasizes plots that turn like gears on the intricacies of character interaction. Her work is often satiric but underlined with moral purport. She seemed to observe human conduct with an amused and good-humored consciousness.
She once compared her writing style to that of a painter whose subjects are miniatures. This is particularly true of her immaculate attention to detail. She was a perfectionist, and re-wrote most of her novels at least twice.
Jane Austen died at the height of her creative potential at the age of 42. Researchers have suggested the cause to be either Addison’s disease or tuberculosis. She spent the last weeks of her life in Winchester, Hampshire in South England and is buried in the cathedral there.
She gradually developed a following in England in the late 1800's, but became even more popular in America. Today, she is regarded as one of the great masters of the English novel.
By the time she was in her mid-twenties, Jane’s brothers, two of whom later became admirals, had careers and families of their own. After the father’s death in 1805, the family lived temporarily in Southhampton before finally settling in Chawton.
A lively and affectionate family circle and a network of friends provided a stimulated context for her writing. It was the world of landed gentry and the country clergy that she used in her novels.
In the six novels published between 1811 and 1817, Austen revealed the possibilities of domestic literature. Her concentration on personality and character and the tensions between her heroines and their society make her works more closely related to the modern world than to the traditions of the eighteenth century. This modernity, together with the wit, realism, and timelessness of her prose style, helps to explain her continuing appeal to twentieth century reason.
Northanger Abbey, a satire on the romances, was sold for ten pounds in 1803, but as it was not published, was bought back by members of the family. It did not appear in print until after Austen’s death.
Although her friends knew of her authorship, she received little recognition in her lifetime. She was quite aware of her special excellences and limitations, and often compared her style to that of a miniaturist painter. She ridiculed the silly, the affected, and the stupid, ranging in her satire from early, light portraiture to later, more scornful exposures.
Austen published several minor works and five major novels: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1816), and posthumously, a collection of Persuasion and Northanger Abbey (1818). Other minor works included Juenilia, the novel, Lady Susan, and the fragments: The Watsons and Sandition. Her name never appeared on her title pages, therefore, she received little recognition until after her death in 1817.
Her comedies of manners depict the self-contained world of provincial ladies and gentlemen, and most of her works revolved around the delicate business of providing proper husbands and wives for marriageable offspring of the middle class. She is best remembered for her lively interplays of character, her meticulous care to style and plot, a sense of comic irony, and her moral firmness. The overall substance of this novel concerns a small section of society locked into a timeless present in which little will change. The people involved are fixed, and the routines and social rituals are predetermined. Money is a problem when it is short.
Successful courtships lead to satisfactory marriages. For the first two volumes of the book, Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet are pre-judging and re-judging. It is a drama of insight that acts by revision and sees things as they really are and not what was presumed.
There is a whole vocabulary connected with the processes of decision, conviction, and opinion. People’s varied and unstable judgments are exposed and analyzed. Opinions are constantly changing as characters’ behaviors appear in a different light. The need to be aware of the difference between appearance and reality is made clear throughout the novel.
Austen writes about what she knows. Therefore, great areas of human experience are never mentioned. The male characters are not finely drawn. In contrast, the female characters are strong and stand out as intelligent and complex individuals. Extreme passions are avoided. This is demonstrated when Elizabeth accepts Darcy’s second proposal. She says, “My sentiments have undergone such a material change as to make me receive with gratitude and pleasure your present assurances.” There seem to be many important topics which Austen avoided.
Her greatest talents were her subtle insight into character and her precise dialogue. Each character’s speech is appropriate. Collins is pompous, Mr. Bennet is cynical and sarcastic, Elizabeth is forthright and honest, Lydia is frothy and giddy, and Darcy is sensitive and sure of himself.
Although Romanticism was at its peak during Austen’s life, she rejected this movement. She adhered more closely to the neo-classic style, and to its discipline, devoid of passion. Her style emphasizes plots that turn like gears on the intricacies of character interaction. Her work is often satiric but underlined with moral purport. She seemed to observe human conduct with an amused and good-humored consciousness.
She once compared her writing style to that of a painter whose subjects are miniatures. This is particularly true of her immaculate attention to detail. She was a perfectionist, and re-wrote most of her novels at least twice.
Jane Austen died at the height of her creative potential at the age of 42. Researchers have suggested the cause to be either Addison’s disease or tuberculosis. She spent the last weeks of her life in Winchester, Hampshire in South England and is buried in the cathedral there.
She gradually developed a following in England in the late 1800's, but became even more popular in America. Today, she is regarded as one of the great masters of the English novel.
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE INTRODUCTION
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice had a long and varied life before it finally saw publication on January 28, 1813. Austen began the book, originally titled First Impressions, in 1796. Her father submitted it to a London publisher the following year, but the manuscript was rejected. Austen continued to work on the book, and scholars report that the story remained a favorite with the close circle of friends, relations, and acquaintances she took into her confidence. She probably continued working on First Impressions after her family relocated to Bath in 1801 and did not stop revising and rewriting until after the deaths of both her father and a close friend in 1805. After this point Austen seems to have given up writing for almost five years. She had resumed work on the book by 1811, scholars report, and the final product appeared anonymously in London bookstalls early in 1813.
The critical history of Pride and Prejudice was just as varied as the evolution of the novel itself. At the time the novel was published in the early nineteenth century, most respected critical opinion was strongly biased against novels and novelists. Although only three contemporary reviews of Pride and Prejudice are known to exist, they are all remarkably complimentary. Anonymous articles in the British Critic and the Critical Review praised the author's characterization and her portrayal of domestic life. Additional early commentary exists in the diaries and letters of such prominent contemporary readers as Mary Russell Mitford and Henry Crabb Robinson, both of whom admired the work's characters, realism, and freedom from the trappings of Gothic fiction. After this period, however, criticism of Pride and Prejudice, and of Austen's works as a whole, largely disappeared. With the exception of two posthumous appreciations of Austen's work as a whole by Sir Walter Scott and Archbishop Richard Whateley, very little Austen criticism appeared until 1870.
In 1870, James Edward Austen-Leigh, son of Jane Austen's brother James, published A Memoir of Jane Austen by Her Nephew. This biography was the first major study of Austen as a person and as an artist, and it marked the beginning of a new era in Austen criticism. Although most critics no longer accept its conclusion that Austen was an "amateur genius" whose works were largely unconscious productions of her fertile imagination, it nonetheless performed a valuable service by bringing Austen and her works back into critical attention, Modem critical opinion of Austen began with the publication in 1939 of Mary Lascelles's Jane Austen and Her Art, which escaped from the Victorian portrait of Austen put forth by Austen-Leigh.
The critical history of Pride and Prejudice was just as varied as the evolution of the novel itself. At the time the novel was published in the early nineteenth century, most respected critical opinion was strongly biased against novels and novelists. Although only three contemporary reviews of Pride and Prejudice are known to exist, they are all remarkably complimentary. Anonymous articles in the British Critic and the Critical Review praised the author's characterization and her portrayal of domestic life. Additional early commentary exists in the diaries and letters of such prominent contemporary readers as Mary Russell Mitford and Henry Crabb Robinson, both of whom admired the work's characters, realism, and freedom from the trappings of Gothic fiction. After this period, however, criticism of Pride and Prejudice, and of Austen's works as a whole, largely disappeared. With the exception of two posthumous appreciations of Austen's work as a whole by Sir Walter Scott and Archbishop Richard Whateley, very little Austen criticism appeared until 1870.
In 1870, James Edward Austen-Leigh, son of Jane Austen's brother James, published A Memoir of Jane Austen by Her Nephew. This biography was the first major study of Austen as a person and as an artist, and it marked the beginning of a new era in Austen criticism. Although most critics no longer accept its conclusion that Austen was an "amateur genius" whose works were largely unconscious productions of her fertile imagination, it nonetheless performed a valuable service by bringing Austen and her works back into critical attention, Modem critical opinion of Austen began with the publication in 1939 of Mary Lascelles's Jane Austen and Her Art, which escaped from the Victorian portrait of Austen put forth by Austen-Leigh.
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: CHARACTERS
Catherine Bennet
Catherine "Kitty" Bennet is virtually a nonentity in the Bennet family. Although she is the fourth sister, younger than Mary but older than Lydia, Austen reveals that she is "weak-spirited, irritable, and completely under Lydia's guidance . . . ignorant, idle, and vain." However, the end of the novel is a bit encouraging for Kitty. Jane and Elizabeth make sure that she visits both of them frequently, and they introduce her to more intelligent and entreating society. Austen notes that this change in environment has an excellent effect on Kitty.
Elizabeth Bennet
"Elizabeth 'Eliza' or 'Lizzie' Bennet," writes Elizabeth Jenkins in her critical biography Jane Austen: A Biography, "has perhaps received more admiration than any other heroine in English literature." Elizabeth is the soul of Pride and Prejudice, who reveals in her own person the very title qualities that she spots so easily in her sisters and their suitors. Elizabeth has her father, Mr. Bennet's, quick wit and ironic sense of humor. Unlike her older sister Jane, she resists accepting all people uncritically. She is quick to recognize most people's principal characteristics—for instance, she recognizes the stupidities of many members of her family and quickly characterizes Lady Catherine de Bourgh as a control addict and her sister's suitor Charles Bingley as a simple and good-hearted young man. But she is also, concludes Jenkins, "completely human. Glorious as she is, and beloved of her creator, she is kept thoroughly in her place. She was captivated by [George] Wickham, in which she showed herself no whit superior to the rest of female Meryton." When Elizabeth begins to accept her own impressions uncritically, she makes her worst mistakes.
Because Elizabeth is so keen an observer of other people, she recognizes her mother's silliness and vows not to be caught in the same trap as her father. This refusal, however, is itself a trap. By trusting entirely to her own observations (pride) and her own initial assessments of people (prejudice), Elizabeth threatens her future happiness with Fitzwilliam Darcy. "Above all," concludes Jenkins, "there is her prejudice against Darcy, and though their first encounter was markedly unfortunate, she built on it every dislike it could be made to bear; her eager condemnation of him and her no less eager remorse when she found that she had been mistaken, are equally lovable."
Jane Bennet
Jane Bennet is Elizabeth's older sister, the most beautiful and amiable of the Bennet sisters. Her father considers her too willing to please and believes that she lacks the character to deal with life's difficulties. He tells Jane, "You are . . . so complying, that nothing will ever be resolved on; so easy, that every servant will cheat you; and so generous, that you will always exceed your income." Jane eventually marries the equally amiable Charles Bingley.
Lydia Bennet
Lydia is the youngest of the Bennet daughters and perhaps the silliest. Austen describes her as "a stout, well-grown girl of fifteen, with a fine complexion and good-humoured countenance; a favorite with her mother, whose affection had brought her into public at an early age." Rather than spend any of her day receiving any sort of education, Lydia instead devotes all of her energies to collecting gossip about their neighbors, freely spending money about the town, and flirting with young men. Although all the Bennet girls are initially attracted to George Wickham, it is the headstrong Lydia who elopes with him and who is eventually married to him. Lydia's impudent actions put her sisters' marriage prospects in jeopardy, but she shows no signs of remorse; unlike Elizabeth and Darcy, she does not learn from her mistakes.
Mary Bennet
Mary Bennet is the third Bennet daughter, younger than Elizabeth and Jane and older than Catherine and Lydia. Rather than prancing around town flirting with young men, Mary considers herself an intellectual and would rather enjoy the company of a book. But Austen reveals that she overestimates her own talents and intelligence, saying that Mary "had neither genius nor taste; and though vanity had given her application, it had given her likewise a pedantic air and conceited manner, which would have injured a higher degree of excellence than she had reached."
Mr. Bennet
Austen describes Mr. Bennet, the father of the five Bennet girls (Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Catherine, and Lydia), as "so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic, humour, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three and twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character." He is mildly well-off. Austen reports that he has an income of two thousand pounds sterling a year, enough for his family to live comfortably—but socially he ranks toward the bottom of the scale of the landed gentry. This is one of the reasons that people like Fitzwilliam Darcy and Lady Catherine de Bourgh regard the family with some disdain.
Mr. Bennet is one of the primary means by which the author expresses her ironic wit. He shares this quality with Elizabeth, his favorite daughter. However, unlike Elizabeth's, Mr. Bennet's wit is usually expressed in sarcastic asides directed at his wife. Unlike his daughter, Mr. Bennet does not question or examine his own life, and his situation never improves. In addition, he allows his younger daughters to behave as carelessly and improperly as his wife. His inattention to his own family results in his daughter Lydia eloping with the despicable George Wickham.
Mr. and Mrs. Bennet are not well matched. Her silliness does not mix well with his sarcastic wit. Mr. Bennet recognizes this, and it is one of the reasons he instills in his daughter Elizabeth the importance of matching temperaments with her husband.
Mrs. Bennet
Mrs. Bennet, Austen reports, is "a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented, she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news." Mrs. Bennet is primarily concerned with the outer aspects of her society: the importance of marrying well in society without regard to the suitability of the personalities in the match. Neither does Mrs. Bennet have any regard for respecting proper manners and behavior. She is continually embarrassing Elizabeth and Jane with her inappropriate comments and schemes to marry off her daughters. Additionally, Elizabeth finds her mother's influence on the younger Bennet daughters particularly disturbing. Mrs. Bennet allows the younger girls to devote all their time searching for eligible young bachelors, neglecting any form of education. It is perhaps because of Mrs. Bennet's attitudes that her youngest daughter, Lydia, elopes with the despicable George Wickham.
Caroline Bingley
Caroline Bingley is the sister of Charles Bingley. She and her sister are very proud of her family's wealth—conveniently forgetting, Austen notes, "that their brother's fortune and their own had been acquired by trade." They are willing to go to great lengths to prevent his marriage into the poorer Bennet family. It is Caroline who reveals to Jane Bennet her plans to have Charles marry Fitzwilliam Darcy's sister Georgiana.
Charles Bingley
Charles Bingley is a friend of Fitzwilliam Darcy and the new occupant of the Netherfield estate, which neighbors the Bennet's home, Longbourn. It is through Bingley that Elizabeth first meets Darcy and is unimpressed by Darcy's manners. Bingley, whom Austen describes as "good-looking and gentlemanlike; he had a pleasant countenance and easy, unaffected manners," is very attracted to Jane Bennet. This affection distresses his sisters, including Caroline Bingley, and Darcy himself. They all believe that the Bennet family is too far down the social ladder to deserve such attention from him. Ironically, Charles himself has received his fortune by his family's interest in trade, considerably less respectable than Darcy's wealth inherited by birthright. Charles' sisters and Darcy deliberately give Elizabeth Bennet the impression that Bingley is to marry Darcy's sister, Georgiana, after he leaves for London. Eventually, however, Bingley returns to Netherfield and marries Jane.
Mr. William Collins
Mr. William Collins is Mr. Bennet's nephew and a clergyman. Because Mr. Bennet has no sons, Collins is in line to inherit Mr. Bennet's estate. Austen describes him as "not a sensible man, and the deficiency of nature had been but little assisted by education or society." Mr. Bennet enjoys Collins's visit to his home because he appreciates Collins's naive stupidity, but Elizabeth resents his attentions and rejects his marriage proposal. She is very distressed when her friend Charlotte Lucas decides to marry Mr. Collins out of interest in his estate rather than his personality.
Fitzwilliam Darcy
Fitzwilliam Darcy, like Elizabeth Bennet, combines in his character the prime characteristics of Pride and Prejudice: his aristocratic demeanor (pride) and his belief in the natural superiority of the wealthy landed gentry (prejudice). Darcy sometimes unconsciously assumes that a lack of money or social status are characteristics that disqualify people from marrying or loving each other. Elizabeth quickly discovers this aspect of his character, and it is her flat rejection of his first proposal of marriage that sparks his eventual change of heart. He recognizes the essential arrogance of his upbringing and repents of it; he tells Elizabeth, "By you I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased." In return for the privilege of become Elizabeth's husband, he is willing to put up with her three silly sisters, her equally silly mother, and even the scoundrel George Wickham as a brother-in-law.
Some critics maintain that this change of heart was nothing more than the uncovering of Darcy's innate characteristics. "Darcy's essential character is independent of circumstances," states Elizabeth Jenkins in her critical biography Jane Austen: A Biography. "He had the awkwardness and stiffness of a man who mixes little with society and only on his own terms, but it was also the awkwardness and stiffness that is found with Darcy's physical type, immediately recognizable among the reserved and inarticulate English of today." This analysis suggests that Darcy's character is more like that of his sister, Georgiana Darcy, a painfully shy girl. Georgiana Darcy's shyness and awkwardness and Fitzwilliam Darcy's arrogance and harshness come from the same roots. It is, however, Darcy's ability to examine his own life and recognize his flaws and his courage in approaching Elizabeth Bennet again, after she had already rejected him once, that leads to their eventual marriage and life together.
Georgiana Darcy
Georgiana Darcy is Fitzwilliam Darcy's younger sister. She is extremely shy and uncomfortable in company. Austen describes her as "tall . . . and, though little more than sixteen, her figure was formed, and her appearance womanly and graceful. She was less handsome than her brother, but there was sense and good humour in her face, and her manners were perfectly unassuming and gentle." Elizabeth Bennet expects that she will dislike Georgiana just as much as she initially dislikes her brother, but she turns out to be favorably impressed. Her impressions of Georgiana are among the first intimations Elizabeth has that her conclusions about Darcy may be wrong.
Miss Anne de Bourgh
Anne de Bourgh is the only daughter of Lady Catherine de Bourgh and the late Sir Lewis de Bourgh. Her mother plans to marry the sickly Anne to her cousin, Fitzwilliam Darcy.
Lady Catherine de Bourgh
Lady Catherine de Bourgh is Fitzwilliam Darcy's aunt. A proud, unforgiving woman, she is a control addict who likes to tell everyone what to do. She is scheming to have her nephew marry her own daughter, Anne de Bourgh, whom Austen describes as "sickly and cross." Elizabeth quickly realizes that Lady Catherine is a petty tyrant, but she seizes upon this revelation as an excuse to conclude that Fitzwilliam Darcy is himself equally flawed. Lady Catherine makes a final attempt to create a breach between Darcy and Elizabeth in the final chapters of the book, but her attempt backfires and only serves to help bring them together.
Colonel Fitzwilliam
Colonel Fitzwilliam is Darcy's cousin. He is the younger son of an earl and, although "not handsome," explains Austen, "in person and address [he was] most truly the gentleman." He develops a fondness for Elizabeth Bennet, but realistically admits that as a younger son he must marry for wealth, not love.
Mr. Edward Gardiner
Mr. Gardiner is Mrs. Bennet's brother, whom Austen describes as "a sensible, gentlemanlike man, greatly superior to his sister as well by nature as education." He and his wife take Elizabeth Bennet on a tour of Derbyshire, including a side trip to Darcy's estate at Pemberley. He also tries to help Mr. Bennet locate Wickham and Lydia after they elope. Mr. Gardner and his wife are among the few relatives Elizabeth can be assured will not embarrass her.
Mrs. M. Gardiner
Mrs. Gardiner, Edward Gardiner's wife and Elizabeth Bennet's aunt, is according to Austen "an amiable, intelligent, elegant woman, and a great favourite with all her Longbourn nieces." She accompanies Elizabeth on a tour of Fitzwilliam Darcy's estate at Pemberley.
Mr. Hurst
Mr. Hurst is the husband of Mr. Charles Bingley's sister Louisa. He is lazy, says Austen, an "indolent man who lived only to eat, drink, and play at cards, who when he found [Elizabeth to] prefer a plain dish to a ragout, had nothing to say to her."
Mrs. Louisa Hurst
Louisa Hurst is the wife of Mr. Hurst and the sister of Mr .Charles Bingley and Caroline Bingley. She plots with her sister to remove their brother's affection from Jane Bennet and transfer it to someone more suitable.
Charlotte Lucas
Charlotte Lucas is Elizabeth Bennet's best friend. She distresses Elizabeth by deciding to marry William Collins, Mr. Bennet's nephew, out of interest in his estate. Up until this point Elizabeth had respected Charlotte's sensibility, but her decision to marry Mr. Collins lost her much of Elizabeth's respect.
Lady Lucas
Lady Lucas is the wife of Sir William Lucas and mother of Elizabeth Bennet's friend Charlotte Lucas. Austen describes her as "a very good kind of woman, not too clever to be a valuable neighbor to Mrs. Bennet."
Sir William Lucas
A close neighbor of the Bennets, he earned most of his income through trade. His daughter, Charlotte, marries Mr. Collins, Mr. Bennet's heir.
Mr. Philips
Mrs. Bennet's brother-in-law, Mr. Philips is an attorney. He hosts the party at which Wickham tells Elizabeth about Darcy's withholding a promised legacy. Already having a negative first impression of Darcy, Elizabeth unquestioningly accepts Wickham's story as evidence that Darcy is a miserable person. When she discovers that it is actually Wickham who wronged Darcy, Elizabeth feels terrible for allowing her pride to interfere with an objective judgement of Darcy.
Mrs. Philips
Mrs. Bennet's sister, Mrs. Philips, is described by Austen as a silly, vulgar woman.
George Wickham
Lieutenant George Wickham is an unscrupulous man who schemes to win money by marrying a wealthy heiress. He is physically quite attractive; Austen says of him that "he had all the best part of beauty, a fine countenance, a good figure, and a very pleasing address." His father was once the steward of Darcy's estates, and Wickham plays on the relationship by trying to elope with Georgiana Darcy, Fitzwilliam Darcy's sister. Darcy gave Wickham a cash payment after Wickham turned down a comfortable church position the late Mr. Darcy provided for him. After Wickham elopes with Lydia Bennet, Darcy tracks him down, bribes him into marrying Lydia, and buys him an officer's rank in the army. Wickham is presented in the novel as a man totally without principle.
Catherine "Kitty" Bennet is virtually a nonentity in the Bennet family. Although she is the fourth sister, younger than Mary but older than Lydia, Austen reveals that she is "weak-spirited, irritable, and completely under Lydia's guidance . . . ignorant, idle, and vain." However, the end of the novel is a bit encouraging for Kitty. Jane and Elizabeth make sure that she visits both of them frequently, and they introduce her to more intelligent and entreating society. Austen notes that this change in environment has an excellent effect on Kitty.
Elizabeth Bennet
"Elizabeth 'Eliza' or 'Lizzie' Bennet," writes Elizabeth Jenkins in her critical biography Jane Austen: A Biography, "has perhaps received more admiration than any other heroine in English literature." Elizabeth is the soul of Pride and Prejudice, who reveals in her own person the very title qualities that she spots so easily in her sisters and their suitors. Elizabeth has her father, Mr. Bennet's, quick wit and ironic sense of humor. Unlike her older sister Jane, she resists accepting all people uncritically. She is quick to recognize most people's principal characteristics—for instance, she recognizes the stupidities of many members of her family and quickly characterizes Lady Catherine de Bourgh as a control addict and her sister's suitor Charles Bingley as a simple and good-hearted young man. But she is also, concludes Jenkins, "completely human. Glorious as she is, and beloved of her creator, she is kept thoroughly in her place. She was captivated by [George] Wickham, in which she showed herself no whit superior to the rest of female Meryton." When Elizabeth begins to accept her own impressions uncritically, she makes her worst mistakes.
Because Elizabeth is so keen an observer of other people, she recognizes her mother's silliness and vows not to be caught in the same trap as her father. This refusal, however, is itself a trap. By trusting entirely to her own observations (pride) and her own initial assessments of people (prejudice), Elizabeth threatens her future happiness with Fitzwilliam Darcy. "Above all," concludes Jenkins, "there is her prejudice against Darcy, and though their first encounter was markedly unfortunate, she built on it every dislike it could be made to bear; her eager condemnation of him and her no less eager remorse when she found that she had been mistaken, are equally lovable."
Jane Bennet
Jane Bennet is Elizabeth's older sister, the most beautiful and amiable of the Bennet sisters. Her father considers her too willing to please and believes that she lacks the character to deal with life's difficulties. He tells Jane, "You are . . . so complying, that nothing will ever be resolved on; so easy, that every servant will cheat you; and so generous, that you will always exceed your income." Jane eventually marries the equally amiable Charles Bingley.
Lydia Bennet
Lydia is the youngest of the Bennet daughters and perhaps the silliest. Austen describes her as "a stout, well-grown girl of fifteen, with a fine complexion and good-humoured countenance; a favorite with her mother, whose affection had brought her into public at an early age." Rather than spend any of her day receiving any sort of education, Lydia instead devotes all of her energies to collecting gossip about their neighbors, freely spending money about the town, and flirting with young men. Although all the Bennet girls are initially attracted to George Wickham, it is the headstrong Lydia who elopes with him and who is eventually married to him. Lydia's impudent actions put her sisters' marriage prospects in jeopardy, but she shows no signs of remorse; unlike Elizabeth and Darcy, she does not learn from her mistakes.
Mary Bennet
Mary Bennet is the third Bennet daughter, younger than Elizabeth and Jane and older than Catherine and Lydia. Rather than prancing around town flirting with young men, Mary considers herself an intellectual and would rather enjoy the company of a book. But Austen reveals that she overestimates her own talents and intelligence, saying that Mary "had neither genius nor taste; and though vanity had given her application, it had given her likewise a pedantic air and conceited manner, which would have injured a higher degree of excellence than she had reached."
Mr. Bennet
Austen describes Mr. Bennet, the father of the five Bennet girls (Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Catherine, and Lydia), as "so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic, humour, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three and twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character." He is mildly well-off. Austen reports that he has an income of two thousand pounds sterling a year, enough for his family to live comfortably—but socially he ranks toward the bottom of the scale of the landed gentry. This is one of the reasons that people like Fitzwilliam Darcy and Lady Catherine de Bourgh regard the family with some disdain.
Mr. Bennet is one of the primary means by which the author expresses her ironic wit. He shares this quality with Elizabeth, his favorite daughter. However, unlike Elizabeth's, Mr. Bennet's wit is usually expressed in sarcastic asides directed at his wife. Unlike his daughter, Mr. Bennet does not question or examine his own life, and his situation never improves. In addition, he allows his younger daughters to behave as carelessly and improperly as his wife. His inattention to his own family results in his daughter Lydia eloping with the despicable George Wickham.
Mr. and Mrs. Bennet are not well matched. Her silliness does not mix well with his sarcastic wit. Mr. Bennet recognizes this, and it is one of the reasons he instills in his daughter Elizabeth the importance of matching temperaments with her husband.
Mrs. Bennet
Mrs. Bennet, Austen reports, is "a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented, she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news." Mrs. Bennet is primarily concerned with the outer aspects of her society: the importance of marrying well in society without regard to the suitability of the personalities in the match. Neither does Mrs. Bennet have any regard for respecting proper manners and behavior. She is continually embarrassing Elizabeth and Jane with her inappropriate comments and schemes to marry off her daughters. Additionally, Elizabeth finds her mother's influence on the younger Bennet daughters particularly disturbing. Mrs. Bennet allows the younger girls to devote all their time searching for eligible young bachelors, neglecting any form of education. It is perhaps because of Mrs. Bennet's attitudes that her youngest daughter, Lydia, elopes with the despicable George Wickham.
Caroline Bingley
Caroline Bingley is the sister of Charles Bingley. She and her sister are very proud of her family's wealth—conveniently forgetting, Austen notes, "that their brother's fortune and their own had been acquired by trade." They are willing to go to great lengths to prevent his marriage into the poorer Bennet family. It is Caroline who reveals to Jane Bennet her plans to have Charles marry Fitzwilliam Darcy's sister Georgiana.
Charles Bingley
Charles Bingley is a friend of Fitzwilliam Darcy and the new occupant of the Netherfield estate, which neighbors the Bennet's home, Longbourn. It is through Bingley that Elizabeth first meets Darcy and is unimpressed by Darcy's manners. Bingley, whom Austen describes as "good-looking and gentlemanlike; he had a pleasant countenance and easy, unaffected manners," is very attracted to Jane Bennet. This affection distresses his sisters, including Caroline Bingley, and Darcy himself. They all believe that the Bennet family is too far down the social ladder to deserve such attention from him. Ironically, Charles himself has received his fortune by his family's interest in trade, considerably less respectable than Darcy's wealth inherited by birthright. Charles' sisters and Darcy deliberately give Elizabeth Bennet the impression that Bingley is to marry Darcy's sister, Georgiana, after he leaves for London. Eventually, however, Bingley returns to Netherfield and marries Jane.
Mr. William Collins
Mr. William Collins is Mr. Bennet's nephew and a clergyman. Because Mr. Bennet has no sons, Collins is in line to inherit Mr. Bennet's estate. Austen describes him as "not a sensible man, and the deficiency of nature had been but little assisted by education or society." Mr. Bennet enjoys Collins's visit to his home because he appreciates Collins's naive stupidity, but Elizabeth resents his attentions and rejects his marriage proposal. She is very distressed when her friend Charlotte Lucas decides to marry Mr. Collins out of interest in his estate rather than his personality.
Fitzwilliam Darcy
Fitzwilliam Darcy, like Elizabeth Bennet, combines in his character the prime characteristics of Pride and Prejudice: his aristocratic demeanor (pride) and his belief in the natural superiority of the wealthy landed gentry (prejudice). Darcy sometimes unconsciously assumes that a lack of money or social status are characteristics that disqualify people from marrying or loving each other. Elizabeth quickly discovers this aspect of his character, and it is her flat rejection of his first proposal of marriage that sparks his eventual change of heart. He recognizes the essential arrogance of his upbringing and repents of it; he tells Elizabeth, "By you I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased." In return for the privilege of become Elizabeth's husband, he is willing to put up with her three silly sisters, her equally silly mother, and even the scoundrel George Wickham as a brother-in-law.
Some critics maintain that this change of heart was nothing more than the uncovering of Darcy's innate characteristics. "Darcy's essential character is independent of circumstances," states Elizabeth Jenkins in her critical biography Jane Austen: A Biography. "He had the awkwardness and stiffness of a man who mixes little with society and only on his own terms, but it was also the awkwardness and stiffness that is found with Darcy's physical type, immediately recognizable among the reserved and inarticulate English of today." This analysis suggests that Darcy's character is more like that of his sister, Georgiana Darcy, a painfully shy girl. Georgiana Darcy's shyness and awkwardness and Fitzwilliam Darcy's arrogance and harshness come from the same roots. It is, however, Darcy's ability to examine his own life and recognize his flaws and his courage in approaching Elizabeth Bennet again, after she had already rejected him once, that leads to their eventual marriage and life together.
Georgiana Darcy
Georgiana Darcy is Fitzwilliam Darcy's younger sister. She is extremely shy and uncomfortable in company. Austen describes her as "tall . . . and, though little more than sixteen, her figure was formed, and her appearance womanly and graceful. She was less handsome than her brother, but there was sense and good humour in her face, and her manners were perfectly unassuming and gentle." Elizabeth Bennet expects that she will dislike Georgiana just as much as she initially dislikes her brother, but she turns out to be favorably impressed. Her impressions of Georgiana are among the first intimations Elizabeth has that her conclusions about Darcy may be wrong.
Miss Anne de Bourgh
Anne de Bourgh is the only daughter of Lady Catherine de Bourgh and the late Sir Lewis de Bourgh. Her mother plans to marry the sickly Anne to her cousin, Fitzwilliam Darcy.
Lady Catherine de Bourgh
Lady Catherine de Bourgh is Fitzwilliam Darcy's aunt. A proud, unforgiving woman, she is a control addict who likes to tell everyone what to do. She is scheming to have her nephew marry her own daughter, Anne de Bourgh, whom Austen describes as "sickly and cross." Elizabeth quickly realizes that Lady Catherine is a petty tyrant, but she seizes upon this revelation as an excuse to conclude that Fitzwilliam Darcy is himself equally flawed. Lady Catherine makes a final attempt to create a breach between Darcy and Elizabeth in the final chapters of the book, but her attempt backfires and only serves to help bring them together.
Colonel Fitzwilliam
Colonel Fitzwilliam is Darcy's cousin. He is the younger son of an earl and, although "not handsome," explains Austen, "in person and address [he was] most truly the gentleman." He develops a fondness for Elizabeth Bennet, but realistically admits that as a younger son he must marry for wealth, not love.
Mr. Edward Gardiner
Mr. Gardiner is Mrs. Bennet's brother, whom Austen describes as "a sensible, gentlemanlike man, greatly superior to his sister as well by nature as education." He and his wife take Elizabeth Bennet on a tour of Derbyshire, including a side trip to Darcy's estate at Pemberley. He also tries to help Mr. Bennet locate Wickham and Lydia after they elope. Mr. Gardner and his wife are among the few relatives Elizabeth can be assured will not embarrass her.
Mrs. M. Gardiner
Mrs. Gardiner, Edward Gardiner's wife and Elizabeth Bennet's aunt, is according to Austen "an amiable, intelligent, elegant woman, and a great favourite with all her Longbourn nieces." She accompanies Elizabeth on a tour of Fitzwilliam Darcy's estate at Pemberley.
Mr. Hurst
Mr. Hurst is the husband of Mr. Charles Bingley's sister Louisa. He is lazy, says Austen, an "indolent man who lived only to eat, drink, and play at cards, who when he found [Elizabeth to] prefer a plain dish to a ragout, had nothing to say to her."
Mrs. Louisa Hurst
Louisa Hurst is the wife of Mr. Hurst and the sister of Mr .Charles Bingley and Caroline Bingley. She plots with her sister to remove their brother's affection from Jane Bennet and transfer it to someone more suitable.
Charlotte Lucas
Charlotte Lucas is Elizabeth Bennet's best friend. She distresses Elizabeth by deciding to marry William Collins, Mr. Bennet's nephew, out of interest in his estate. Up until this point Elizabeth had respected Charlotte's sensibility, but her decision to marry Mr. Collins lost her much of Elizabeth's respect.
Lady Lucas
Lady Lucas is the wife of Sir William Lucas and mother of Elizabeth Bennet's friend Charlotte Lucas. Austen describes her as "a very good kind of woman, not too clever to be a valuable neighbor to Mrs. Bennet."
Sir William Lucas
A close neighbor of the Bennets, he earned most of his income through trade. His daughter, Charlotte, marries Mr. Collins, Mr. Bennet's heir.
Mr. Philips
Mrs. Bennet's brother-in-law, Mr. Philips is an attorney. He hosts the party at which Wickham tells Elizabeth about Darcy's withholding a promised legacy. Already having a negative first impression of Darcy, Elizabeth unquestioningly accepts Wickham's story as evidence that Darcy is a miserable person. When she discovers that it is actually Wickham who wronged Darcy, Elizabeth feels terrible for allowing her pride to interfere with an objective judgement of Darcy.
Mrs. Philips
Mrs. Bennet's sister, Mrs. Philips, is described by Austen as a silly, vulgar woman.
George Wickham
Lieutenant George Wickham is an unscrupulous man who schemes to win money by marrying a wealthy heiress. He is physically quite attractive; Austen says of him that "he had all the best part of beauty, a fine countenance, a good figure, and a very pleasing address." His father was once the steward of Darcy's estates, and Wickham plays on the relationship by trying to elope with Georgiana Darcy, Fitzwilliam Darcy's sister. Darcy gave Wickham a cash payment after Wickham turned down a comfortable church position the late Mr. Darcy provided for him. After Wickham elopes with Lydia Bennet, Darcy tracks him down, bribes him into marrying Lydia, and buys him an officer's rank in the army. Wickham is presented in the novel as a man totally without principle.
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: THEMES
PRIDE
The two major themes of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice are summed up in the title. The first aspect can be traced in the actions and statements of all of the work's major and many of its minor characters. Pride is the character flaw that causes Elizabeth Bennet to dislike Fitzwilliam Darcy upon their first meeting. She perceives in him a cold aloofness that she attributes to his own inflated opinion of himself. Yet Elizabeth herself also suffers from the same flaw; her pride in her own ability to analyze character is such that she refuses to reevaluate Darcy in the face of evidence in his favor.
In some characters, Austen depicts pride overtly. Lady Charlotte de Bourgh is motivated by pride in her family's status to try to break up a potential match between Elizabeth and Darcy. Mrs. Louisa Hurst and Caroline Bingley try to achieve the same effect with the relationship between their brother Charles Bingley and Jane Bennet. In each case, however, Austen depicts the pride of these minor characters as ridiculous: "Austen treats pride," writes Robert B. Heilman in "E pluribus unum: Parts and Whole in Pride and Prejudice" "as if it were wholly unproblematic, a failing no less clear-cut than prejudice."
In the case of Elizabeth and Darcy, however, Austen treats pride less directly. On his first appearance in the novel, Darcy appears "above his company and above being pleased," reports Heilman, the "proudest, most disagreeable man in the world." The people who record these observations, the critic continues, "believe that they are seeing a sense of superiority, snobbishness, excessive self-approval." However, they do not take into consideration that some of the other behavior that Darcy exhibits, such as "reserve, an apparent unresponsiveness to overtures, a holding back from conventional intercourse, pleasantries, and small talk," may actually stem from a quiet personality. So what appears to be pride may be simple shyness or awkwardness. When Elizabeth and others consider Darcy full of pride, they are also condemning him, says Heilman, for not obeying the rules of the "neighborhood social ways." For Darcy and Elizabeth, at least, pride can be more than a simple negative quality.
In fact, pride serves several different functions in the novel. In addition to the misplaced pride of the minor characters, there are characters who negleet to honor their pride when they should protect it. Elizabeth's friend Charlotte Lucas decides to marry William Collins, the heir to Mr. Bennet's estate, out of a simple desire to make his estate her own. Elizabeth strongly objects to such a union; it offends her sense of pride for someone to enter into a loveless marriage for purely material purposes. The George Wickham-Lydia Bennet elopement is another example of an arrangement where pride should have been taken into consideration and was not. In this way, Heilman states, Austen defines pride as "the acceptance of responsibility. This indispensably fills out a story that has devoted a good deal of time to the view of pride as an easy and blind self-esteem." Gradually, even Darcy and Elizabeth herself come to a realization of the necessity not to reject pride, but to control it.
PREJUDICE AND TOLERANCE
The subject of prejudice is linked to pride in the title of Pride and Prejudice. It is also more directly linked to Elizabeth Bennet's character. From the beginning, states Marvin Mudrick in "Irony as Discrimination: Pride and Prejudice," "Elizabeth sets herself up as an ironic spectator, able and prepared to judge and classify, already making the first large division of the world into two sorts of people: the simple ones, those who give themselves away out of shallowness (as Bingley fears) or perhaps openness (as Elizabeth implies) or an excess of affection (as Mr. Collins will demonstrate); and the intricate ones, those who cannot be judged and classified so easily, who are 'the most amusing' to the ironic spectator because they offer the most formidable challenge to his powers of detection and analysis." EIizabeth is prepared to divide the entire world into one of these two categories—an extreme example of prejudice in the "pre-judging" sense of the term. It is most evident in her judgment of Darcy, so sure is she of her powers of observation that she refuses to reevaluate Darcy even when the weight of evidence begins to turn in favor of him.
It is not until Darcy overcomes his own prejudice against those of lower social station—by treating Elizabeth and the Gardiners graciously and considerately at Netherfield—that Elizabeth's opinion of him begins to change. "Not only do Elizabeth and Darcy . . . have the most serious problem of surmounting barriers of misconception and adverse feeling," Heilman declares, "but they are the most sensitive—both in susceptibility to injured feelings and in capacity for getting to the center of things—to matters of prejudice and pride." The ending "is a remarkable tracing of Elizabeth's coming around to a completely changed point of view," the critic concludes. "To Jane she acknowledges that she has cultivated her 'prejudices' and has been 'weak and vain and nonsensical.'" With this realization, Elizabeth begins the process of change that will eventually bring herself and Darcy together.
CHANGE AND TRANSFORMATION
The major characters of the novel suffer from a combination of the two title characteristics of Pride and Prejudice. What separates Elizabeth and Darcy from the silly minor characters, such as Wickham, Lydia, Mr. Collins, and Lady Catherine, and even from the good minor characters such as Mr. Bennet, Jane, and Charles Bingley, is their ability and willingness to learn and grow, to overcome their initial shortcomings. They mature and come to a better understanding of each other by the novel's end through a slow and painful growth process.
Darcy begins his process of transformation with Elizabeth's rejection of his suit. He makes his proposal to her clumsily, stressing his own wealth and position (and minimizing hers) and stating that he has tried to suppress his feelings because of the low position of her family. When Elizabeth indignantly rejects his hand,accusing him of arrogance and selfishness, Darcy begins a process of reevaluation of his behavior. When he next appears in the story—at the beginning of Volume 3—he is much friendlier and more attentive to Elizabeth. She begins to feel an attraction to him that is not fully realized until the Wickham-Lydia elopement is fully resolved. Darcy completes his transformation by swallowing his pride and proposing to Elizabeth again, in spite of the fact that her acceptance will make the silly Bennet girls his sisters-in-law and the detestable Wickham his brother-in-law.
Elizabeth's process of transformation begins later and takes longer. She realizes her own prejudices toward Darcy in Chapter 12 of Volume 2, when he gives her the letter in which he reveals the truth about Wickham and his role in the breakup of the Bingley-Jane relationship. She does not complete the change, however, until the end of Volume 3, when Lady Catherine de Bourgh demands assurances from her that she will not accept a proposal from him. Elizabeth refuses, and by doing so gives Darcy his first hint that his feelings for her are at last reciprocated. "By a slow revision of preconceptions," concludes Heilman, "Elizabeth and Darcy 'earn' the better insight and rapport that insight makes possible."
WEALTH AND CLASS
Wealth and class are correlated, but at the time of the novel's action, that correlation is beginning to break down. For centuries, England's economy depended on agriculture, and by and large wealth belonged to those who owned large country estates. With the industrial revolution, however, wealth has begun to concentrate in the cities, and members of the middle class can become rich through "trade." This new social mobility has forced the gentry into a defensive posture, and they are more sensitive to questions of class than ever. Mr. Collins warns Lizzy, for instance, that Lady Catherine "likes to have the distinction of rank preserved."
One of the Bennet girls' uncles is an attorney, and the other - Mr. Gardiner - is "in trade" in London; as Darcy points out, the girls' "low connections . . . must very materially lessen their chance of marrying men of any consideration in the world." When it appears, however, that Mr. Gardiner has bribed Wickham to marry Lydia, Mr. Bennet wonders how he will ever repay him. The tradesman Mr. Gardiner, that is, seems to have more liquid capital than the landed gentleman Mr. Bennet. "Men of consideration" would thus object, not to Mr. Gardiner's lack of money, nor to his manners, which are impeccable, but to his station in life - that he was not born to wealth and works for a living.
Bingley's father also made his fortune in trade. The size of that fortune, however, and the fact that Bingley inherited it instead of earning it himself, seem to cleanse it of its unpalatable associations. Nonetheless, Bingley's sisters are anxious that he should buy a large country estate, which will legitimize his wealth.
Austen clearly intends to undermine these class distinctions. The oldest Bennet girls do indeed marry men of consideration, and outside the two central couples, the Gardiners are the most admirable characters in the book - certainly more admirable than the titled Lady Catherine. Still, Austen cannot resist drawing her hero, Mr. Darcy, from the upper classes. Her social attitudes may be progressive, but they are not revolutionary.
MARRIAGE
Pride and Prejudice's famous first sentence declares the centrality of marriage to the storyline. In the course of the book - which spans a little less than a year - four marriages in fact take place: three of the Bennet girls' and Charlotte Lucas's. More are plotted: Lady Catherine schemes that Darcy should marry her daughter; Miss Bingley schemes to marry Darcy, and to get her brother married to Darcy's sister; Mr. Collins actually proposes to Lizzy; and Wickham fixes his attentions on Darcy's sister, Lizzy, and the fleetingly glimpsed Miss King before finally being persuaded to marry Lydia.In England in the late 18th and early 19th century, marriage among the wealthy was viewed as a kind of financial merger. When Darcy and Ann De Bourgh were infants, their mothers had already decided they would marry - and not, obviously, on the basis of personal affinity and sexual attraction. A little farther down the social ladder, Mrs. Bennet is furious when Lizzy refuses Mr. Collins's proposal: the thought of pawning her daughter off on a buffoon is negligible beside the prospect of keeping Mr. Bennet's estate - which Collins will inherit - in the family.
Austen is obviously unsympathetic to this view of marriage. Charlotte's decision to marry Mr. Collins damages her friendship with Lizzy, who repeatedly characterizes her motives as "mercenary," and when Lizzy visits the newlyweds at the Hunsford parsonage, she quickly deduces that Charlotte has arranged household affairs such that she spends as little time with her husband as possible.
But neither is Austen a romantic. Lydia loves Wickham wholeheartedly, but their marriage is a disaster. Mr. Bennet, too, married because he was "captivated by youth and beauty," but his wife's foolishness "had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her." The book's two successful marriages - Lizzy's and Jane's - follow long delays, reversals of opinion, and several tests of both character and commitment.
Toward the end of the book, moreover, Jane asks Lizzy how long she has loved Darcy. When Lizzy replies, "I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley," we suspect she is only half-joking. Austen seems to suggest that, while economic motives for marriage should not be decisive, neither should they be despised.
THE RIGHTS, STATUS, AND EDUCATION OF WOMEN
In Pride and Prejudice, the stakes of the marriage plots are high because Mr. Bennet's estate has been "entailed away from the female line" - a common legal provision of the period whereby only men may inherit property. If the Bennet girls do not marry well, they will be almost penniless when their father dies. The fact that the heir of the estate, Mr. Bennet's nephew Mr. Collins, is a buffoon who already has a comfortable living of his own, might suggest that Austen considers entailment unfair.
Critics have pointed out, however, that only two characters in the book - Mrs. Bennet and Lady Catherine - actually object to the entail, and that they are scarcely less ridiculous than Collins. It seems unlikely that Austen would make them the mouthpieces for her own opinions.
If Austen is equivocal about women's political equality, however, she insists on their intellectual equality. At the time of the novel, the education of gentlewomen was intended to equip them to be good wives, and it emphasized decorative arts and household management. Bingley mockingly describes the conventional "accomplishments" of women as "painting tables" and "netting purses"; his sister Caroline rejoins that a truly "accomplished" woman must also have "a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages."
By these standards, Lizzy is undistinguished: she has neither been to a women's boarding school nor had a governess; her musical performance is "pleasing, but by no means capital"; and she astonishes Lady Catherine with the admission that she cannot draw. Nonetheless, when she asks Darcy what attracted him to her, he responds, "the liveliness of your mind, I think."
When Lizzy rejects Collins's marriage proposal, he simply cannot believe she is serious, ascribing her refusal to the "wish of increasing my love by suspense, according to the usual practice of elegant females." In reply, she says, "Do not consider me now as an elegant female . . . but as a rational creature." Most critics agree that the phrase "rational creature" intentionally employs terminology Mary Wollstonecraft introduced in her seminal feminist tract A Vindication of the Rights of Women. The exchange would then explicitly reject the conventional view of women as nothing more than contestants in the marriage lottery, armed only with studied coquettishness and the ability to "knit purses."
PERSONAL AUTONOMY
A related but distinct theme is that of personal autonomy. In many ways, Lizzy is a champion of individualism. When Caroline Bingley derides her decision to walk three miles to Netherfield as showing "an abominable sort of conceited independence, a most country town indifference to decorum," we cannot, given the source, be expected to agree. Similarly, during the climactic final confrontation in which Lady Catherine attempts to dissuade Lizzy from marrying Darcy by appealing to "the claims of duty, honor, and gratitude," Lizzy replies, "I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness." And while Lizzy's witticisms sometimes seem to test the bounds of propriety - as when she teases Bingley for the transparency of his character - it is her "liveliness of mind" that first attracts her fabulously eligible husband.
But just as Austen urges compromise on the questions of class, marriage, and women's rights, so does she point up the limits of personal autonomy. By withdrawing into his private world of contemplation and ironic distance, for example, Mr. Bennet has neglected his duties as parent and estate manager, leading to both Lydia's near-catastrophic unruliness and his daughters' vulnerability to the entail. Lydia, for that matter, is a monster of autonomy, whose unrestrained pursuit of personal satisfaction ruins her own future and nearly ruins her sisters'. Lizzy's dispositional similarity to her father, and the attraction to Wickham that she shares with Lydia, suggest that she could fall into the errors of both. It is precisely her determination to rely on - as she says to Lady Catherine - "her own opinion" that initially blinds her to Darcy's virtues. Critics have suggested that, according to the moral scheme of the novel, her subsequent recognition of the limits of her autonomy is what finally earns her the right to a happy ending.
IRONY AND SATIRE
Irony and satire are techniques that not only Austen but her characters - particularly Lizzy and her father - employ throughout the book. Lizzy, we are told, has "a lively, playful disposition, which delights in anything ridiculous," and Mr. Bennet later says to her, "For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?" Mr. Bennet invites Collins to visit purely in the hope of finding him absurd, and Lizzy subtly taunts Lady Catherine by flouting her expectation of deference.
The technical definition of "irony" is "the expression of meaning using language of a different or opposite tendency," as when Lizzy, refusing to dance with Darcy, tells Sir William that "Mr. Darcy is all politeness," or when, at the end of the book, Mr. Bennet says, "I admire all my three sons-in-law," but "Wickham perhaps is my favorite." Irony can be seen, however, as acknowledging a multiplicity of perspectives simultaneously; its prominence in a novel so concerned with the difference between real and perceived value is thus no accident. Before Wickham's true character had been exposed, for example, Lizzy told her aunt, in all seriousness, that "my father . . . is partial to Mr. Wickham." Mr. Bennet's later declaration of a favorite son-in-law is a joke, but it also illustrates the reorientation of the book's value system through the resolution of the marriage plot.
The two major themes of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice are summed up in the title. The first aspect can be traced in the actions and statements of all of the work's major and many of its minor characters. Pride is the character flaw that causes Elizabeth Bennet to dislike Fitzwilliam Darcy upon their first meeting. She perceives in him a cold aloofness that she attributes to his own inflated opinion of himself. Yet Elizabeth herself also suffers from the same flaw; her pride in her own ability to analyze character is such that she refuses to reevaluate Darcy in the face of evidence in his favor.
In some characters, Austen depicts pride overtly. Lady Charlotte de Bourgh is motivated by pride in her family's status to try to break up a potential match between Elizabeth and Darcy. Mrs. Louisa Hurst and Caroline Bingley try to achieve the same effect with the relationship between their brother Charles Bingley and Jane Bennet. In each case, however, Austen depicts the pride of these minor characters as ridiculous: "Austen treats pride," writes Robert B. Heilman in "E pluribus unum: Parts and Whole in Pride and Prejudice" "as if it were wholly unproblematic, a failing no less clear-cut than prejudice."
In the case of Elizabeth and Darcy, however, Austen treats pride less directly. On his first appearance in the novel, Darcy appears "above his company and above being pleased," reports Heilman, the "proudest, most disagreeable man in the world." The people who record these observations, the critic continues, "believe that they are seeing a sense of superiority, snobbishness, excessive self-approval." However, they do not take into consideration that some of the other behavior that Darcy exhibits, such as "reserve, an apparent unresponsiveness to overtures, a holding back from conventional intercourse, pleasantries, and small talk," may actually stem from a quiet personality. So what appears to be pride may be simple shyness or awkwardness. When Elizabeth and others consider Darcy full of pride, they are also condemning him, says Heilman, for not obeying the rules of the "neighborhood social ways." For Darcy and Elizabeth, at least, pride can be more than a simple negative quality.
In fact, pride serves several different functions in the novel. In addition to the misplaced pride of the minor characters, there are characters who negleet to honor their pride when they should protect it. Elizabeth's friend Charlotte Lucas decides to marry William Collins, the heir to Mr. Bennet's estate, out of a simple desire to make his estate her own. Elizabeth strongly objects to such a union; it offends her sense of pride for someone to enter into a loveless marriage for purely material purposes. The George Wickham-Lydia Bennet elopement is another example of an arrangement where pride should have been taken into consideration and was not. In this way, Heilman states, Austen defines pride as "the acceptance of responsibility. This indispensably fills out a story that has devoted a good deal of time to the view of pride as an easy and blind self-esteem." Gradually, even Darcy and Elizabeth herself come to a realization of the necessity not to reject pride, but to control it.
PREJUDICE AND TOLERANCE
The subject of prejudice is linked to pride in the title of Pride and Prejudice. It is also more directly linked to Elizabeth Bennet's character. From the beginning, states Marvin Mudrick in "Irony as Discrimination: Pride and Prejudice," "Elizabeth sets herself up as an ironic spectator, able and prepared to judge and classify, already making the first large division of the world into two sorts of people: the simple ones, those who give themselves away out of shallowness (as Bingley fears) or perhaps openness (as Elizabeth implies) or an excess of affection (as Mr. Collins will demonstrate); and the intricate ones, those who cannot be judged and classified so easily, who are 'the most amusing' to the ironic spectator because they offer the most formidable challenge to his powers of detection and analysis." EIizabeth is prepared to divide the entire world into one of these two categories—an extreme example of prejudice in the "pre-judging" sense of the term. It is most evident in her judgment of Darcy, so sure is she of her powers of observation that she refuses to reevaluate Darcy even when the weight of evidence begins to turn in favor of him.
It is not until Darcy overcomes his own prejudice against those of lower social station—by treating Elizabeth and the Gardiners graciously and considerately at Netherfield—that Elizabeth's opinion of him begins to change. "Not only do Elizabeth and Darcy . . . have the most serious problem of surmounting barriers of misconception and adverse feeling," Heilman declares, "but they are the most sensitive—both in susceptibility to injured feelings and in capacity for getting to the center of things—to matters of prejudice and pride." The ending "is a remarkable tracing of Elizabeth's coming around to a completely changed point of view," the critic concludes. "To Jane she acknowledges that she has cultivated her 'prejudices' and has been 'weak and vain and nonsensical.'" With this realization, Elizabeth begins the process of change that will eventually bring herself and Darcy together.
CHANGE AND TRANSFORMATION
The major characters of the novel suffer from a combination of the two title characteristics of Pride and Prejudice. What separates Elizabeth and Darcy from the silly minor characters, such as Wickham, Lydia, Mr. Collins, and Lady Catherine, and even from the good minor characters such as Mr. Bennet, Jane, and Charles Bingley, is their ability and willingness to learn and grow, to overcome their initial shortcomings. They mature and come to a better understanding of each other by the novel's end through a slow and painful growth process.
Darcy begins his process of transformation with Elizabeth's rejection of his suit. He makes his proposal to her clumsily, stressing his own wealth and position (and minimizing hers) and stating that he has tried to suppress his feelings because of the low position of her family. When Elizabeth indignantly rejects his hand,accusing him of arrogance and selfishness, Darcy begins a process of reevaluation of his behavior. When he next appears in the story—at the beginning of Volume 3—he is much friendlier and more attentive to Elizabeth. She begins to feel an attraction to him that is not fully realized until the Wickham-Lydia elopement is fully resolved. Darcy completes his transformation by swallowing his pride and proposing to Elizabeth again, in spite of the fact that her acceptance will make the silly Bennet girls his sisters-in-law and the detestable Wickham his brother-in-law.
Elizabeth's process of transformation begins later and takes longer. She realizes her own prejudices toward Darcy in Chapter 12 of Volume 2, when he gives her the letter in which he reveals the truth about Wickham and his role in the breakup of the Bingley-Jane relationship. She does not complete the change, however, until the end of Volume 3, when Lady Catherine de Bourgh demands assurances from her that she will not accept a proposal from him. Elizabeth refuses, and by doing so gives Darcy his first hint that his feelings for her are at last reciprocated. "By a slow revision of preconceptions," concludes Heilman, "Elizabeth and Darcy 'earn' the better insight and rapport that insight makes possible."
WEALTH AND CLASS
Wealth and class are correlated, but at the time of the novel's action, that correlation is beginning to break down. For centuries, England's economy depended on agriculture, and by and large wealth belonged to those who owned large country estates. With the industrial revolution, however, wealth has begun to concentrate in the cities, and members of the middle class can become rich through "trade." This new social mobility has forced the gentry into a defensive posture, and they are more sensitive to questions of class than ever. Mr. Collins warns Lizzy, for instance, that Lady Catherine "likes to have the distinction of rank preserved."
One of the Bennet girls' uncles is an attorney, and the other - Mr. Gardiner - is "in trade" in London; as Darcy points out, the girls' "low connections . . . must very materially lessen their chance of marrying men of any consideration in the world." When it appears, however, that Mr. Gardiner has bribed Wickham to marry Lydia, Mr. Bennet wonders how he will ever repay him. The tradesman Mr. Gardiner, that is, seems to have more liquid capital than the landed gentleman Mr. Bennet. "Men of consideration" would thus object, not to Mr. Gardiner's lack of money, nor to his manners, which are impeccable, but to his station in life - that he was not born to wealth and works for a living.
Bingley's father also made his fortune in trade. The size of that fortune, however, and the fact that Bingley inherited it instead of earning it himself, seem to cleanse it of its unpalatable associations. Nonetheless, Bingley's sisters are anxious that he should buy a large country estate, which will legitimize his wealth.
Austen clearly intends to undermine these class distinctions. The oldest Bennet girls do indeed marry men of consideration, and outside the two central couples, the Gardiners are the most admirable characters in the book - certainly more admirable than the titled Lady Catherine. Still, Austen cannot resist drawing her hero, Mr. Darcy, from the upper classes. Her social attitudes may be progressive, but they are not revolutionary.
MARRIAGE
Pride and Prejudice's famous first sentence declares the centrality of marriage to the storyline. In the course of the book - which spans a little less than a year - four marriages in fact take place: three of the Bennet girls' and Charlotte Lucas's. More are plotted: Lady Catherine schemes that Darcy should marry her daughter; Miss Bingley schemes to marry Darcy, and to get her brother married to Darcy's sister; Mr. Collins actually proposes to Lizzy; and Wickham fixes his attentions on Darcy's sister, Lizzy, and the fleetingly glimpsed Miss King before finally being persuaded to marry Lydia.In England in the late 18th and early 19th century, marriage among the wealthy was viewed as a kind of financial merger. When Darcy and Ann De Bourgh were infants, their mothers had already decided they would marry - and not, obviously, on the basis of personal affinity and sexual attraction. A little farther down the social ladder, Mrs. Bennet is furious when Lizzy refuses Mr. Collins's proposal: the thought of pawning her daughter off on a buffoon is negligible beside the prospect of keeping Mr. Bennet's estate - which Collins will inherit - in the family.
Austen is obviously unsympathetic to this view of marriage. Charlotte's decision to marry Mr. Collins damages her friendship with Lizzy, who repeatedly characterizes her motives as "mercenary," and when Lizzy visits the newlyweds at the Hunsford parsonage, she quickly deduces that Charlotte has arranged household affairs such that she spends as little time with her husband as possible.
But neither is Austen a romantic. Lydia loves Wickham wholeheartedly, but their marriage is a disaster. Mr. Bennet, too, married because he was "captivated by youth and beauty," but his wife's foolishness "had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her." The book's two successful marriages - Lizzy's and Jane's - follow long delays, reversals of opinion, and several tests of both character and commitment.
Toward the end of the book, moreover, Jane asks Lizzy how long she has loved Darcy. When Lizzy replies, "I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley," we suspect she is only half-joking. Austen seems to suggest that, while economic motives for marriage should not be decisive, neither should they be despised.
THE RIGHTS, STATUS, AND EDUCATION OF WOMEN
In Pride and Prejudice, the stakes of the marriage plots are high because Mr. Bennet's estate has been "entailed away from the female line" - a common legal provision of the period whereby only men may inherit property. If the Bennet girls do not marry well, they will be almost penniless when their father dies. The fact that the heir of the estate, Mr. Bennet's nephew Mr. Collins, is a buffoon who already has a comfortable living of his own, might suggest that Austen considers entailment unfair.
Critics have pointed out, however, that only two characters in the book - Mrs. Bennet and Lady Catherine - actually object to the entail, and that they are scarcely less ridiculous than Collins. It seems unlikely that Austen would make them the mouthpieces for her own opinions.
If Austen is equivocal about women's political equality, however, she insists on their intellectual equality. At the time of the novel, the education of gentlewomen was intended to equip them to be good wives, and it emphasized decorative arts and household management. Bingley mockingly describes the conventional "accomplishments" of women as "painting tables" and "netting purses"; his sister Caroline rejoins that a truly "accomplished" woman must also have "a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages."
By these standards, Lizzy is undistinguished: she has neither been to a women's boarding school nor had a governess; her musical performance is "pleasing, but by no means capital"; and she astonishes Lady Catherine with the admission that she cannot draw. Nonetheless, when she asks Darcy what attracted him to her, he responds, "the liveliness of your mind, I think."
When Lizzy rejects Collins's marriage proposal, he simply cannot believe she is serious, ascribing her refusal to the "wish of increasing my love by suspense, according to the usual practice of elegant females." In reply, she says, "Do not consider me now as an elegant female . . . but as a rational creature." Most critics agree that the phrase "rational creature" intentionally employs terminology Mary Wollstonecraft introduced in her seminal feminist tract A Vindication of the Rights of Women. The exchange would then explicitly reject the conventional view of women as nothing more than contestants in the marriage lottery, armed only with studied coquettishness and the ability to "knit purses."
PERSONAL AUTONOMY
A related but distinct theme is that of personal autonomy. In many ways, Lizzy is a champion of individualism. When Caroline Bingley derides her decision to walk three miles to Netherfield as showing "an abominable sort of conceited independence, a most country town indifference to decorum," we cannot, given the source, be expected to agree. Similarly, during the climactic final confrontation in which Lady Catherine attempts to dissuade Lizzy from marrying Darcy by appealing to "the claims of duty, honor, and gratitude," Lizzy replies, "I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness." And while Lizzy's witticisms sometimes seem to test the bounds of propriety - as when she teases Bingley for the transparency of his character - it is her "liveliness of mind" that first attracts her fabulously eligible husband.
But just as Austen urges compromise on the questions of class, marriage, and women's rights, so does she point up the limits of personal autonomy. By withdrawing into his private world of contemplation and ironic distance, for example, Mr. Bennet has neglected his duties as parent and estate manager, leading to both Lydia's near-catastrophic unruliness and his daughters' vulnerability to the entail. Lydia, for that matter, is a monster of autonomy, whose unrestrained pursuit of personal satisfaction ruins her own future and nearly ruins her sisters'. Lizzy's dispositional similarity to her father, and the attraction to Wickham that she shares with Lydia, suggest that she could fall into the errors of both. It is precisely her determination to rely on - as she says to Lady Catherine - "her own opinion" that initially blinds her to Darcy's virtues. Critics have suggested that, according to the moral scheme of the novel, her subsequent recognition of the limits of her autonomy is what finally earns her the right to a happy ending.
IRONY AND SATIRE
Irony and satire are techniques that not only Austen but her characters - particularly Lizzy and her father - employ throughout the book. Lizzy, we are told, has "a lively, playful disposition, which delights in anything ridiculous," and Mr. Bennet later says to her, "For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?" Mr. Bennet invites Collins to visit purely in the hope of finding him absurd, and Lizzy subtly taunts Lady Catherine by flouting her expectation of deference.
The technical definition of "irony" is "the expression of meaning using language of a different or opposite tendency," as when Lizzy, refusing to dance with Darcy, tells Sir William that "Mr. Darcy is all politeness," or when, at the end of the book, Mr. Bennet says, "I admire all my three sons-in-law," but "Wickham perhaps is my favorite." Irony can be seen, however, as acknowledging a multiplicity of perspectives simultaneously; its prominence in a novel so concerned with the difference between real and perceived value is thus no accident. Before Wickham's true character had been exposed, for example, Lizzy told her aunt, in all seriousness, that "my father . . . is partial to Mr. Wickham." Mr. Bennet's later declaration of a favorite son-in-law is a joke, but it also illustrates the reorientation of the book's value system through the resolution of the marriage plot.
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: STYLE
ROMANTICISM
The novel Pride and Prejudice was written during the middle of the Romantic period in western literature, but it is itself rather uncharacteristic of other fictional works of the period. Unlike the great Romantic novels and poems of the period, which usually praised youthful passions, Austen's work minimizes them. Compared to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's classic sturm und drang novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), in which the young hero is unsuccessful at love and, unable to make his inner visions conform to the reality of the outer world, finally commits suicide, Austen's works are models of restraint. Instead of the wild forces of nature, Austen concentrates on family life in small English towns. Instead of rampant emotionalism, Austen emphasizes a balance between reason and emotion. Instead of suicide and unrequited love, Austen offers elopement and marriage. Although the author does consider some of the same themes as her Romantic contemporaries—the importance of the individual, for instance—Austen's society is altogether more controlled and settled than the world presented in Romantic fiction.
IRONY
Irony, or the contrast between the expected and the actual, is the chief literary device Austen uses to comment on the small, enclosed world of the English gentry in Pride and Prejudice. Her irony takes different forms for different characters. Perhaps the most ironic character in the entire book is Mr. Bennet, father of the five Bennet sisters. Mr. Bennet is married to a silly woman he cannot respect, who centers her life on marrying her daughters off to wealthy, well-bred men. He expresses his discontent in the marriage by criticizing his wife's stream of comments. Many of these are sarcastic and hurtful, and contribute to the misunderstandings between the couple that leave them incapable of dealing with the disastrous elopement of their youngest daughter Lydia with the detestable George Wickham. Mr. Bennet's conscious use of irony is for him a game—it serves no useful purpose.
For the author, in the persona of Mr. Bennet's daughter Elizabeth, however, irony is both a toy and a defensive weapon in the war against stupidity. The author uses Elizabeth to skewer self-important characters such as Mr. Collins and Mrs. Bennet. Yet Elizabeth is also blind to her own character faults, and her very blindness is another example of Austen's use of irony. In her misunderstandings with Darcy, she (who is blind to her own pride in her ability to read character) accuses him of excessive pride, while he (who is prejudiced against people with less money than he has) accuses her of prejudice. The on-again, off-again love between Jane Bennet and Charles Bingley is also an example of Austen's use of irony to underline messages about love and marriage. "Jane and Bingley provide us, then, with one of the book's primary ironies," writes Marvin Mudrick in "Irony as Discrimination: Pride and Prejudice," "that love is simple, straightforward, and immediate only for very simple people." "In Pride and Prejudice," concludes Mudrick, "Jane Austen's irony has developed into an instrument of discrimination between the people who are simple reproductions of the social type and the people with individuality and will, between the unaware and the aware."
Other examples of Austen's use of irony abound in the novel. "Many pages of Pride and Prejudice can be read as sheer poetry of wit, as [Alexander] Pope without couplets," writes Reuben A. Brower in "Light and Bright and Sparkling: Irony and Fiction in Pride and Prejudice." "The triumph of the novel—whatever its limitations may be—lies in combining such poetry of wit," the critic concludes, "with the dramatic structure of fiction."
The novel Pride and Prejudice was written during the middle of the Romantic period in western literature, but it is itself rather uncharacteristic of other fictional works of the period. Unlike the great Romantic novels and poems of the period, which usually praised youthful passions, Austen's work minimizes them. Compared to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's classic sturm und drang novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), in which the young hero is unsuccessful at love and, unable to make his inner visions conform to the reality of the outer world, finally commits suicide, Austen's works are models of restraint. Instead of the wild forces of nature, Austen concentrates on family life in small English towns. Instead of rampant emotionalism, Austen emphasizes a balance between reason and emotion. Instead of suicide and unrequited love, Austen offers elopement and marriage. Although the author does consider some of the same themes as her Romantic contemporaries—the importance of the individual, for instance—Austen's society is altogether more controlled and settled than the world presented in Romantic fiction.
IRONY
Irony, or the contrast between the expected and the actual, is the chief literary device Austen uses to comment on the small, enclosed world of the English gentry in Pride and Prejudice. Her irony takes different forms for different characters. Perhaps the most ironic character in the entire book is Mr. Bennet, father of the five Bennet sisters. Mr. Bennet is married to a silly woman he cannot respect, who centers her life on marrying her daughters off to wealthy, well-bred men. He expresses his discontent in the marriage by criticizing his wife's stream of comments. Many of these are sarcastic and hurtful, and contribute to the misunderstandings between the couple that leave them incapable of dealing with the disastrous elopement of their youngest daughter Lydia with the detestable George Wickham. Mr. Bennet's conscious use of irony is for him a game—it serves no useful purpose.
For the author, in the persona of Mr. Bennet's daughter Elizabeth, however, irony is both a toy and a defensive weapon in the war against stupidity. The author uses Elizabeth to skewer self-important characters such as Mr. Collins and Mrs. Bennet. Yet Elizabeth is also blind to her own character faults, and her very blindness is another example of Austen's use of irony. In her misunderstandings with Darcy, she (who is blind to her own pride in her ability to read character) accuses him of excessive pride, while he (who is prejudiced against people with less money than he has) accuses her of prejudice. The on-again, off-again love between Jane Bennet and Charles Bingley is also an example of Austen's use of irony to underline messages about love and marriage. "Jane and Bingley provide us, then, with one of the book's primary ironies," writes Marvin Mudrick in "Irony as Discrimination: Pride and Prejudice," "that love is simple, straightforward, and immediate only for very simple people." "In Pride and Prejudice," concludes Mudrick, "Jane Austen's irony has developed into an instrument of discrimination between the people who are simple reproductions of the social type and the people with individuality and will, between the unaware and the aware."
Other examples of Austen's use of irony abound in the novel. "Many pages of Pride and Prejudice can be read as sheer poetry of wit, as [Alexander] Pope without couplets," writes Reuben A. Brower in "Light and Bright and Sparkling: Irony and Fiction in Pride and Prejudice." "The triumph of the novel—whatever its limitations may be—lies in combining such poetry of wit," the critic concludes, "with the dramatic structure of fiction."
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