How are love and romance portrayed differently in the 18th and 20th centuries?

How are love and romance portrayed differently in the 18th and 20th centuries?

Discuss the similarities and differences in attitudes to love and

romance prevailing in the 18th Century society depicted in “Pride and

Prejudice” with that portrayed in the 20th Century by “Of Mice and

Men”

The books of “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen and “Of Mice and

Men” by John Steinbeck, set in the 18th and 20th Century respectively,

seem to portray highly different cultural attitudes to love and

romance. This essay tries to discuss their similarities and

differences in such attitudes as portrayed in the two books,

especially their attitudes to sex and their purpose of marriage, and

thereby to find out why some marriages being portrayed are considered

to be a failed marriage and some considered to be a successful

marriage, how a marriage can work and how far apart these two cultures

are.

The attitude to sex in “Pride and Prejudice” is considered to be

rather conservative. The book shows a disinclination to acknowledge

the subject. When it speaks about sex, it speaks euphemistically. This

is obvious when it says that Lydia is not involved in any other sexual

misadventures after her original elopement with Wickham, but remains

faithful to him. It says “in spite of her youth and her manners, she

retained all the claims to reputation which her marriage had given

her”.

In the book, Austen shows us a ‘genteel’ class view. The general mood

of the society is that there is very little or no physical contact

between men and women at a public occasion. The age depicted is an age

of manners, etiquette, rules and codes. A strict control of

relationship and the need to be polite and courteous prevents an open

exchange of feelings about sex. It is both the decencies and virtue

are stressed. A flighty Romantic’s behaviour, as portrayed in the case

of Lydia, who runs off with Wickham, a man she is not properly married

to, is not tolerated by the society at that time. A girl will be

looked down upon, if she lacks both decency and virtue, as Mary says,

“loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable, one false step involves

her in endless ruin, her reputation is no less brittle than it is

beautiful, and she cannot be too much guarded in her behaviour towards

the undeserving of the other sex”.

Whereas in “Of Mice and Men”, which shows a 20th century rural working

class’s view, the attitude to sex is quite open. The subject is

discussed freely, without embarrassment. For example, in the

conversation between Candy and George when they are in the bunkhouse