In the 18th century where the feminist in social status was not yet prominent, the English writer Jane Austen wrote her masterpiece Pride and Prejudice which was published anonymously on January 28, 1813, as a romantic satire of social manners in Georgian England. Jane Austen was born at Stevenson in Hampshire, England, on December 16, 1775, to a rural middle-class family. She was educated at home by her father who was a clergyman and then she was sent with her sister to learn reading at boarding school. Austen’s background allowed her to start the writing journey with short enthusiastic stories for her family who enjoyed her witty scribblings. Austen spent her life as a single woman who has a passion for writing. In 1797, she wrote her first epistolary work under the name First Impressions. Her father, obviously believing that her manuscript was good enough to offer to the reading public through the prominent London publisher Thomas Cadell ( (Bloom).
However, the London publisher rejected the precursor without a reading. Austen never stopped writing. She wrote her second work Sense and Sensibility that was published in 1811 and she revised the manuscript of First Impressions and changed the title to what would later become Austen’s internationally famous Pride and Prejudice. Austen’s Pride and Prejudice has remained a popular criticism work in English history that reflects a comical-sarcastic view of society at the 18th century and highlights women’s dependence on a marriage to secure social standing and economic security. Pride and Prejudice helped shape the public view toward feminine individuality and the nobility of true love that has influenced the popular culture for more than two centuries.
Austen was historically inspired by the transitional period of the Georgian era. Austen’s background in England characterized by the dawn of the industrial revolution, the shift from Enlightenment to Romantic trends in arts and letters, and the first whispers of feminist and abolitionist concerns in Western Europe. Austen incorporated these historical trends into her conflict to provide a historical glimpse and particular details of daily life and common manners during the Regency period. Austen had deep social influence when she wrote Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen lived in the first decades of the 19th century where the society was highly stratified. Social position tended to be established in terms of families, not individuals, the value of people counted on the possession of a fortune, and women were discriminated and valued by their accomplishments to get a marriage proposal (Gao).
127 our experts are availableright now
Thus, marriage is the central theme in Pride and Prejudice. The intended marriage mentioned in the conflict mainly concerns financial conditions and subsistence rather than love and appreciation. This also explains why Austen creates her ideal man to be a single man in possession of a good fortune (Gao). Austen aimed to present a critical view toward the absurdity and social distinction that surrounded her in the society. Austen brought an ideal picture of a noble love between Elizabeth and Darcy who overcome class boundaries to be together. Austen discussed prejudgment as a prominent issue between her characters. Elizabeth becomes unduly prejudiced against Darcy, because of his pride and the false presentation of his character by Wickham. But at the conflict progresses, Elizabeth’s prejudice against Darcy and his pride against Elizabeth are removed, and eventually they are married ( (Sundari). Feminine individuality is another evident theme of pride and prejudice. As a feminine writer, Austen was the first English woman to portray feminism theme in her work, symbolized by the protagonist Elizabeth Bennet, a perfect ideal of strong-independent woman who realized that individual needs are not necessary getting rid of femininity, but to enhance a meaningful relationship between man and woman.
Pride and Prejudice is a humorous fiction about love and life among English gentility. The conflict revolves around a middle-class family who lives in the county of Hertfordshire. The Bennet family consisting of five sisters, a tardy father, and a mother who all her desire is to find husbands for her daughters from the upper rich class. The family is living a calm life when news enters the house that Mr. Bingley a young man of fortune, is going to become their neighbor. The conflict begins at the Assembly Ball when the protagonist Elizabeth Bennet, the second sister and the most intelligent one, meets Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, a proud superior-wealthy man, who insults Elizabeth, pronouncing her as“ tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt [him]” (Austen) a remark that wounds Elizabeth’s vanity and begins her prejudice against Darcy. Both parties misjudged each other from the first impression. A climax happens when Darcy became attracted to Elizabeth and he proposed to her but she faced him with a rejection claimed that he is “the last man in the world” she “could ever be prevailed on to marry” (Austen).
The courtship between Elizabeth and Darcy faces boundaries before Elizabeth knew Darcy’s real virtues from his letter. Elizabeth understands Darcy’s actions, and her gratitude reflects her changed feelings toward him, leading to the resolution, a second proposal and a happy marriage. Pride and Prejudice has attracted various critics to analyze and evaluate Austen’s literary art. Sara Emsley who received MA and a PhD in English Literature from Dalhousie University, makes an argument about the importance of self-knowledge as a main theme in pride and prejudice to overcome misjudgment, “Pride and Prejudice is about cultivating the courage to be open to education through a constant revision of self-knowledge in order to try to understand one’s principles better and to act according to them” Self-knowledge is the key to reconciling morality and judgment. It is Elizabeth’s knowledge of her misjudging that allows her to sympathize with Darcy’s faults and forgive him. Priscilla Gilman is an assistant professor of English at Yale University. Gilman highlights the power of Austen’s technique in criticizing the social manners in her society, “Austen’s critique of critics functions as a defense against literary critics; Pride and Prejudice defends itself from criticism by satirizing it. In providing this commentary on the limits of criticism’s penetration, Austen undermines the accuracy and authority of local critical judgments, their ability to be finally true”. According to Gilman, Austen’s sarcastic tone works as a defensive system to protect her from the destructive criticism.
Pride and prejudice has been a prominent influence in the English literature over the past two centuries. The classic and the timeless nature of the plot, characters, and setting allowed Austen to produce a transformable narrative that makes adaptions and interpretations inspired by the work to be molded into new creations. Austen writes Pride and Prejudice in a formal way, she composes her work in a straightforward manner that is still able to be read by young adult audiences in addition to older generations. Austen compiles three realistic themes that are still been recognizable today. These themes include money, class, internal family conflict, and the struggle revolving around romantic relationships work as the backbone of Austen’s plot to be relevant and adopted by new writers, artists, and creators. Pride and Prejudice has been a template for most movies and TV series. Bridget Jones’s Diary is one of the adopted movies released in 2001 as a romantic comedy film directed by Sharon Maguire that kept the allusive connection to Pride and Prejudice while also aligning the plot with few fluctuations to keep Austen’s Pride and Prejudice attractive and in correlation to the modern time.
Pride and Prejudice is a critic and ironic work by Jane Austen that has been a relevant and influential piece of English literature for more than two centuries. Pride and Prejudice is a comedy of manners, criticizes the centrality of the advantageous marriage and fundamental social value in the 18th century. Austen incorporated historical and social influences of the Georgian period to produce a masterpiece that highlights prominent elements of social life including marriage, love, and feminism that are still apparent in the modern century. The transformable narrative of Pride and Prejudice has inspired the modern culture to create a wide range of adaptations that have the power to keep the persistence merit of Pride and Prejudice for more than 200 years.
