PRIDE AND PREJUDICE - JANE AUSTEN

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About writer

.Jane Austen occupies a foremost place among the English novelists. No other woman novelist, including Mrs. Virginia Woolf and George Eliot, has excelled her. Charlotte Bronte also is not able to reach Jane Austen's artistic excellence, although she can indulge with deeper passions. A few other women novelists such as Mrs. Gaskal and her contemporaries could write only romances of a poorer nature.

Jane Austen shows remarkable ability in the exquisite choice of words. Her plots are delicately worked out. She has a clear and sympathetic vision of human nature. W. L.Cross rightly regards her as"a pure novelist." Her plots are constructed on the principle of a drama. As mentioned by C. H.Lewis, "So entirely dramatic and so little descriptive is the genius of Miss Austen, that she seems to rely upon what her people say and do for the whole effect they are to produce on our imagination."

The principal theme of her novels is matrimony. She is preoccupied with the business of making matches for her heroines. Generally the heroine, after a few false starts, meets the right man, and a series of misunderstandings and frustrations occur to delay but never to prevent their union. Morning calls, dinner parties, dances, shopping expeditions, weddings, etc. are the principal ingredients of her stories.

She is a realist who draws her materials from actual life as she sees it. Her stories are perfectly credible and convincing. There is nothing fantastic, fanciful, or far-fetched in them. She depicts the social life of her time and is thus a practitioner of the domestic novel or the novel of manners. Reform is the keynote of her novels whether they are considered from the point of view of story, characters, or setting.

She is a successful delineator of character. She has something Shakespearean in this respect. She gives us an abundance of character portraits. She shows an acute grasp of the human mind and human motives, and reveals these with great skill. She is not only concerned with the externals of character, but also with a psychological portrayal of it. Her studies of women are more successful than those of men. Another noteworthy feature about these novels is that there are neither any perfect or idealized characters nor through villains in them.

The Title of the Novel

The originally intended title of the novel under question was First Impressions. But Miss Austen changed it later on as Pride and Prejudice. This title of the novel is taken from the moral drawn in Fanny Burney's Cecilia: "The whole of this unfortunate business.....has been the result of pride and prejudice." The whole of the misfortune, though temporary of the characters in Jane Austen's novel, has been the result of pride and prejudice. The title shows the characteristics of Darcy and Elizabeth, the pride of one and prejudice of the other. In the end the dichotomy between pride and prejudice results in a happy union of love leading to marriage when the misunderstandings caused by first impressions are removed.

The novelist successfully proves that our first impressions are the right ones. Thus in the end, both pride and prejudice are to true affection and tied in marriage, and this in a nutshell is the of Pride and Prejudice. The title is suitable to the theme of the novel.

The Main Theme of the Novel

The main theme of her novels is the search for husbands for girls of marriageable age. The arrival of Mr. Bingley and Darcy provides the suitable atmosphere of husband hunting campaign. The concern of the novelist is with the matrimonial game of her characters. The love affairs of Jane and Bingley, and Lydia-Wickham relationships display the youthful vigour of youths. The Collins-Charlotte episode also shows that life is simply a matrimonial game. Lydia-Wickham episodes also surround the problem of love and marriage. Miss Austen never goes out of the parlour. She stresses affairs in a drawing room-money, snobbery, lust, Inducements, seductions, balls, love-jealousies, and the like form the main salad of her novels as Pride and Prejudice.

In this novel, the novelist describes the matrimonial relations of Bennets and the Lucases, the affairs of men and women, arising from sex, love and marriage. The central theme is the husband hunting campaign of Mrs. Bennet and Mrs. Lucas for their marriageable daughter. They strive to choose suitable husbands for daughters. The arrival Bingley of Bi and his friend Darcy activate the theme. The Jane-Bingley love story and the clash of pride and prejudice between Darcy and Elizabeth accelerates the action of the story.

To quote David Cecil, "Jane Austen's English drawing-rooms are theatres in which elemental human folly and inconsistency play out their eternal comedy." The marriage intentions of Mrs. Bennet show that life is nothing but a matrimonial game. Lady Catherine tries to prevent Elizabeth from marrying her nephew. Lydia flirts with the military officers and being unchecked she even elopes with Wickham.

Jane Austen in her novels has shown that mutual harmony is necessary for a successful marriage. Mrs. Bennet measures the matrimonial ties with wealth. She considers Bingley a suitable match for Jane due to his large fortune. She says, "A single man of a large fortune four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls." But the novelist proves that marriage is a union of good persons of similar natures and temperaments. The real object of marriage is not home and housekeeping, parish and poultry, but something higher. It is companionship, and intellectual and emotional association between husband and wife, and she would not approve of marriage where such an associations is wanting.

Reconciliation between Pride and Prejudice

During his first meeting with Elizabeth Bingley, at the ball dance, Darcy creates a bad impression, seeming cold and extremely proud. In particular, he insults Elizabeth Bennet, a girl of spirit and intelligence and her father's favourite. He refuses to dance with her when she is sitting down for lack of a partner, and he says in her hearing that he is in no mood to prefer young ladies slighted by other men. On future occasions, however, he begins to admire Elizabeth in spite of himself. At a later ball she has the satisfaction of refusing him to dance. During her visit to Bingley's house where Elizabeth had gone to meet her ailing sister Jane, she receives enough attention from Darcy. Elizabeth acquires a new admirer in the person of Mr. Collins, a ridiculously pompous clergyman and a distant cousin of the Bennets. He proposes to Elizabeth. Much to her mother's displeasure and her father's joy, she firmly and promptly rejects him. He immediately transfers his affections to Elizabeth's best friend, Charlotte Lucas who accepts at once his offer of marriage.

Elizabeth becomes unduly prejudiced against Darcy, partly because of his pride and partly because of the false presentation of his character by Wickham. But as the story progresses, Elizabeth's prejudice against Darcy and Darcy's pride against Elizabeth are removed, and eventually they are married. In their case again, Jane Austen approves of the marriage of similar natures and temperaments.

The Most Memorable Scene

The first scene of the novel is most interesting and memorable. Mrs. Bennet, the mother of five girls of marriage age tries to persuade Mr. Bingley to marry some of her daughters. She is fascinated by the wealth and personality of Mr. Bingley. Sir William and Lady Lucas showed interest at the arrival of this young man, for they too had daughters to marry. Mr. Bennet meets himself with Mr. Bingley in spite of his refusal. The first scene shows that the chief concern of the parents is to search for economic values. We come to know the pride and prejudice of Darcy and Elizabeth despite their mutual relations.

This scene depicts the source of conflict in the novel. It introduces us to the nature of Mrs. Bennet. The character of her husband is also revealed in this scene, and it is further important from the point of character revelation. Leonard Woolf comments: "The social standards are almost entirely those of money and snobbery. Everyone of the novels ends happily because the heroine, in spite of difficulties, marries above herself."