Background and Theme of "Pride and Prejudice"

Paper Summary:

The paper discusses Jane Austen's work, "Pride and Prejudice" and states that its plot reflects the influences of Austen's own life and of the society to which she belonged. The paper notes that the ultimate quality of the novel comes however not from its realism but from the way in which she manages to portray the inward lives of the characters in the outward, social context. The paper discusses how Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" weaves into its structure the social and the psychological at the same time, focusing on the way in which society influences the evolution of the characters. The paper highlights that the main themes debated by the novel are love, marriage and thr status of women in England at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

From the Paper:

"Next, one of the most significant themes in Austen's novel is marriage, again in a social context. Mrs. Bennet's obsession with marriage as a social contract is effectively used in the novel, through many reverberations, to convey the general mood of the age. In fact, the famous first sentence of the novel ironically compresses this message: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." Sarcastically, Austen draws attention to the way in which a social arrangement was considered as crucial as a 'universal truth'. In this respect, it can be contended therefore that the fault for the infelicitous marriages belonged to the social system itself, in which property and social standing were invariably considered as the most respected attributes of a person."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. New York: Bantam Classics, 1983.
• Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 116: British Romantic Novelists, 1789-1832. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Edited by Bradford K. Mudge, University of Colorado at Denver. The Gale Group, 1992. pp. 3-35.
• Kneedler, Susan. The New Romance in Pride and Prejudice," in Approaches to Teaching Austen's Pride and Prejudice, edited by Marcia McClintock Folsom, Modern Language Association of America, 1993, pp. 152-66.
• Prewitt, Julia. The Social History of Pride and Prejudice." Approaches to Teaching
• Austen's Pride and Prejudice, edited by Marcia McClintock Folsom, Modern Language Association of America, 1993, pp. 57-66.

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