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Victorian Novel Research Paper
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Jane Austen was born in Steventon, England, in 1775, where she lived for the first twenty-five years of her life. Her father, George Austen, was the rector of the local parish and taught her mostly at home. She began to write as a teenager and completed the original manuscript of Pride and Prejudice, titled First Impressions, between 176 and 177. A publisher rejected the manuscript, and it was not until 180 that Austen began the revisions that would bring it to its final form. Pride and Prejudice was published in January 181, two years after Sense and Sensibility, her first novel, and it achieved a popularity that has remained to this day. (Butler, 6) During Austens life, only her immediate family knew of her authorship of these novels. At one point, she wrote behind a door that creaked when visitors approached; this warning permitted her to hide manuscripts before anyone could enter the room. Though publishing anonymously prevented her from gaining reputation as a writer, it also allowed her to maintain her privacy at a time when English society associated a females entrance into the public with a blameworthy loss of femininity. Additionally, Austen may have wanted to remain anonymous because of the more general atmosphere of repression spread through her era. As the Napoleonic Wars threatened the safety of monarchies throughout Europe, government censorship of literature grew. (Honan, 8)
Pride and Prejudice is set primarily in the town of Hertfordshire, about 50 miles outside of London. The novel opens at with a conversation at Longbourn, the Bennets estate, about the arrival of Mr. Bingley, a single man of large fortune, to Netherfield Park, a nearby estate. Mrs. Bennet, whose obsession is to find husbands for her daughters, sees Mr. Bingley as a potential suitor. Mr. and Mrs. Bennet have five children Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia.
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When Jane is invited for dinner at Netherfield, Mrs. Bennet refuses to provide her with a carriage, hoping that because it is supposed to rain Jane will be forced to spend the night. However, because Jane gets caught in the rain, she falls ill and is forced to stay at Netherfield until she recovers. Upon hearing that Jane is ill, Elizabeth walks to Netherfield in order to go nurse her sister. Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst (Bingleys sisters) are scandalized that Elizabeth walked so far alone in the mud. Seeing that Jane would like Elizabeth to stay with her, Bingleys sisters invite Elizabeth to remain at Netherfield until Jane recovers. During her stay at Netherfield, Elizabeth increasingly gains the admiration of Mr. Darcy. She is blind to his partiality, however, and continues to think him a most proud and haughty man because of the judgment she made of him when he snubbed her at the ball. Miss Bingley, who is obviously trying to gain the admiration of Mr. Darcy, is extremely jealous of Elizabeth and tries to prevent Mr. Darcy from admiring her by making rude references to the poor manners of Elizabeths mother and younger sisters and to her lower class relatives. When Mrs. Bennet and her younger daughters come to visit Jane, Elizabeth is mortified by their foolishness and complete lack of manners. Bingleys admiration for Jane continues unabated and is evident in his genuine solicitude for her recovery. After Jane recovers, she returns home with Elizabeth. Mr. Collins, a cousin of Mr. Bennet who is in line to inherit Longbourn because the estate has been entailed away from the female line, writes a letter stating his intention to visit. When he arrives, he makes it clear that he hopes to find a suitable wife among the Miss Bennets. Mr. Collins is a clergyman, and his patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh (who is also Darcys aunt), has suggested that he find a wife, and he hopes to lessen the hardship of the entailment by marrying one of Mr. Bennets daughters. Mr. Collins is a silly man who speaks in long, pompous speeches and always has an air of solemn formality. When the Miss Bennets and Mr. Collins go for a walk to Meryton, they are introduced to an officer in the regiment named Mr. Wickham. They also run into Mr. Darcy, and when Darcy and Wickham meet both seem to be extremely uncomfortable. Mr. Wickham immediately shows a partiality for Elizabeth and they speak at length. Wickham tells Elizabeth that the reason for the mutual embarrassment when he and Darcy met is that Darcys father had promised that Wickham, his godson, should be given a good living after his death, but that Darcy had failed to fulfill his fathers dying wishes and had left Wickham to support himself. Elizabeth, already predisposed to think badly of Darcy, does not question Wickhams account. When Elizabeth tells Jane Wickhams story Jane refuses think badly of either Wickham or Darcy and assumes there must be some misunderstanding. The next day Mr. Collins proposes to Elizabeth. She refuses him, and after a while Mr. Collins comes to understand that her refusal is sincere, not just a trick of female coquetry. Mrs. Bennet is extremely angry at Elizabeth for not accepting, but Mr. Bennet is glad. Mr. Collins shifts his attentions to Elizabeths friend Charlotte Lucas. He proposes to Charlotte and she accepts. Elizabeth is disappointed in her friend for agreeing to marry such a silly man simply to obtain financial security. In the meantime Darcy has gone on a short business trip to London. While he is gone Lady Catherine comes to Longbourn and asks to speak with Elizabeth. Lady Catherine tells Elizabeth that she has heard Darcy is going to propose to her and attempts to forbid Elizabeth to accept the proposal. Elizabeth refuses to make any promises. Lady Catherine leaves in a huff. Darcy returns from his business trip. While he and Elizabeth are walking he tells her that his affection for her is the same as when he last proposed, and asks her if her disposition toward him has changed. She says that it has, and that she would be happy to accept his proposal. They speak about how they have been changed since the last proposal. Darcy realized he had been wrong to act so proudly and place so much emphasis on class differences. Elizabeth realized that she had been wrong to judge Darcy prematurely and to allow her judgment to be affected by her vanity. Both couples marry. Elizabeth and Darcy go to live in Pemberley. Jane and Bingley, after living in Netherfield for a year, decide to move to an estate near Pemberley. Kitty begins to spend most of her time with her two sisters, and her education and character begin to improve. Mary remains at home keeping her mother company. Mr. Bennet is very happy that his two oldest daughters have married so happily. Mrs. Bennet is glad that her daughters have married so prosperously. (Gubar, IV) The social environment of Austens Regency England was mostly stratified, and class divisions were embedded in family connections and wealth. In her work, Austen is often critical of the assumptions and prejudices of upper class England. She distinguishes between goodness of person and rank and possessions. Though she frequently mocks snobs, she also makes fun of the poor breeding and misbehavior of those lower on the social scale. Yet, Austen was in many ways a realist, and the England she portrays is one where social mobility is restricted and class-consciousness is strong. Socially disciplined ideas of suitable behavior for each gender played a part in Austens work as well. While social development for young men lay in the military, church, or law, the main method of self-improvement for women was the acquirement of wealth. Women could only accomplish this goal through successful marriage, which explains matrimony as a goal in Austens writing. Though young women during this time had more freedom to choose their husbands than in the early eighteenth century, realistic thoughts continued to limit their options. Even so, critics often accuse Austen of describing a limited world. As a clergymans daughter, Austen would have done parish work and was certainly aware of the poor around her. However, she wrote about her own world, not theirs. The assessments she makes of class structure appear to include only the middle class and upper class; the lower classes, if they appear at all, are generally servants who act content with their social positions and jobs. This lack of interest in the lives of the poor may be a failure on Austens part, but it should be understood as a failure shared by almost all of English society at the time. The novel is a strong piece of social interpretation, vividly cutting apart the class-based prejudices of its characters, from the too-proud Mr. Darcy to the snotty Miss Bingley and the oddly conceited Lady Catherine de Bourgh. The theme of class is related to reputation, in that both reflect the strictly controlled nature of life for middle and upper classes in Regency England. (Honan, 10)
Considerations of class are omnipresent in the novel. The novel does not put forth a democratic ideology or call for the leveling of all social classes, yet it does criticize an over-emphasis on class. Darcys excessive pride is based on his extreme class-consciousness. Yet eventually he sees that factors other than wealth determine who truly belongs in the upper classes. While those such as Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst, who are born into the aristocracy, are idle, mean-spirited and annoying, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner are not members of the nobility in terms of wealth or birth but are natural aristocrats by virtue of their intelligence and good-breeding. The comic formality of Mr. Collins and his submissive relationship with Lady Catherine serve as a satire class consciousness and social formalities. In the end, the verdict on class differences is moderate. As critic Samuel Kliger notes, It the conclusion of the novel makes it clear that Elizabeth accepts class relationships as valid, it becomes equally clear that Darcy, through Elizabeths genius for treating all people with respect for their natural dignity, is reminded that institutions are not an end in themselves but are intended to serve the end of human happiness. (Grey, 06) The novel represents a society in which a womans reputation is of the most importance. A woman is expected to behave in certain ways. Stepping outside the social standard makes her exposed to isolation. This theme appears in the novel, when Elizabeth walks to Netherfield and arrives with muddy skirts, to the shock of the reputation-conscious Miss Bingley and her friends. The happy ending of Pride and Prejudice is satisfying, but in many ways it leaves the theme of reputation, and the importance placed on reputation, unknown. (Gilbert, 58)
Austen is critical of the gender injustices present in 1th century English society. The novel demonstrates how money such as Charlotte need to marry men they are not in love with simply in order to gain financial security. The entailment of the Longbourn estate is an extreme hardship on the Bennet family, and is quite obviously undeserved. The entailment of Mr. Bennets estate leaves his daughters in a poor financial situation which both requires them to marry and makes it more difficult to marry well. Clearly, Austen believes that women are at least as intelligent and capable as men, and considers their inferior status in society to be unjust. She herself went against convention by remaining single and earning a living through her novels. In her personal letters Austen advises friends only to marry for love. Through the plot of the novel it is clear that Austen wants to show how Elizabeth is able to be happy by refusing to marry for financial purposes and only marrying a man whom she truly loves and esteems.
"Elizabeth was much too embarrassed to say a word. After a short
pause, her companion added, 'You are too generous to trifle with
me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so
at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from
you will silence me on this subject forever.?Elizabeth feeling all the
more than common awkwardness and anxiety of his situation, now
forced herself to speak; and immediately, though not very fluently,
gave him to understand, that her sentiments had undergone so material
a change, since the period to which he alluded, as to make her receive
with gratitude and pleasure, his present assurances.?
This proposal and Elizabeth's acceptance mark the climax of the novel, occurring in chapter 58. Austen notably prefers not to stage successful proposals in full, and the reader might be disappointed in the anticlimactic way that the narrator conveys Elizabeth's acceptance. The clunky language in which the narrator summarizes Elizabeth's acceptance serves a specific purpose; it captures the one moment of joyful incoherence for Elizabeth. She accepts Darcy's proposal "immediately,?the narrator shares, but "not very fluently.? As Elizabeth allows herself to admit that her love has replaced her prejudice, her control of language breaks down. The reader is left to imagine the always witty Elizabeth fumbling for words to express her uncontainable happiness.
The novel portrays a world in which society takes an interest in the private virtue of its members. When Lydia elopes with Wickham, therefore, it is scandal to the whole society and an injury to entire Bennet family. Darcy considers his failure to expose the wickedness of Wickhams character to be a violation of his social duty because if Wickhams true character had been known others would not have been so easily deceived by him. While Austen is critical of societys ability to judge properly, as demonstrated especially in their judgments of Wickham and Darcy, she does believe that society has a crucial role in promoting virtue. Austen has a profound sense that individuals are social beings and that their happiness is found through relationships with others. According to critic Richard Simpson, Austen has a thorough consciousness that man is a social being, and that apart from society there is not even the individual. As said in the words of Mary at the beginning of the novel, human nature is particularly prone to [pride].? In the novel, pride prevents the characters from seeing the truth of a situation and from achieving happiness in life. Pride is one of the main barriers that create an obstacle to Elizabeth and Darcys marriage. Darcys pride in his position in society leads him initially to scorn anyone outside of his own social circle. Elizabeths vanity clouds her judgment, making her prone to think ill of Darcy and to think well of Wickham. In the end, Elizabeths rebukes of Darcy help him to realize his fault and to change accordingly, as demonstrated in his genuinely friendly treatment of the Gardiners, whom he previously would have scorned because of their low social class. Darcys letter shows Elizabeth that her judgments were wrong and she realizes that they were based on vanity, not on reason. (Butler, )
Pride and prejudice are intimately related in the novel. As critic A. Walton Litz comments, in Pride and Prejudice one cannot equate Darcy with Pride, or Elizabeth with Prejudice; Darcys pride of place is founded on social prejudice, while Elizabeths initial prejudice against him is rooted in pride of her own quick perceptions. Darcy, having been brought up in such a way that he began to scorn all those outside his own social circle, must overcome his prejudice in order to see that Elizabeth would be a good wife for him and to win Elizabeths heart. The overcoming of his prejudice is demonstrated when he treats the Gardiners with great civility. The Gardiners are a much lower class than Darcy, because Mr. Darcy is a lawyer and must practice a trade to earn a living, rather than living off of the interest of an estate as gentlemen do. From the beginning of the novel Elizabeth prides herself on her ardent ability for perception. Yet this supposed ability is often lacking, as in Elizabeths judgments of Darcy and Wickham.
Austen portrays the family as primarily responsible for the intellectual and moral education of children. Mr. and Mrs. Bennets failure to provide this education for their daughters leads to the shamelessness, foolishness, frivolity, and immorality of Lydia. Elizabeth and Jane have managed to develop virtue and strong characters in spite of the negligence of their parents, perhaps through the help of their studies and the good influence of Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, who are the only relatives in the novel that take a serious concern in the girls well-being and provide proper guidance. Elizabeth and Jane are constantly forced to put up with the foolishness and incorrect judgment of their mother and the sarcastic indifference of their father. Even when Elizabeth advises her father not to allow Lydia to go to Brighton, he ignores the advice because he thinks it would be too difficult to deal with Lydias complaining. The result is the scandal of Lydias elopement with Wickham. (Grey, 14)
Austen sees human life as purposeful and believes that human beings must guide their appetites and desires through their use of reason. Elizabeths foolishness in her misjudgments of Darcy and Wickham has prevented her from reasoning objectively. Lydia seems almost completely devoid of virtue because she has never trained herself to discipline her passions or formed her judgment such that she is capable of making sound moral decisions. Human happiness is found by living a life in accordance with human dignity, which is a life in accordance with virtue. Self-knowledge has a central place in the acquisition of virtue, as it is a prerequisite for moral improvement. Darcy and Elizabeth are only freed of their pride and prejudice when their dealings with one another help them to see their faults and spur them to improve conceptions of virtue. (Butler, 77)
Both Darcy and Elizabeth come to recognize their pride as a flaw in their respective characters. Darcy realizes that he must check his pride in order to be seen in a good light by others. Elizabeth, the object of his affections, is so turned off by his prideful ways that a touch of vanity enables him to change himself for her. Elizabeth, while observing the transformations of Darcy, realizes that she, too, has been guilty of too much pride. She sees that she was indeed prejudiced and that she must come to terms with the failings of her family. Darcy and Elizabeth are able to overcome their pride which enables them to live happily ever after. (Majd, 70)
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