Conformity In Pride And Prejudice

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is a novel that explores the particular social customs and manners of England’s upper class in the early Nineteenth Century where characters are challenge by the nature of their background. This novel centers around the perils and difficulties of a headstrong woman, Elizabeth, as she search for a marriage in which she will be able to retain her individuality. In the world of women who do not have their own fortune, and often have to forsake their love and marry for economic stability and social status, Elizabeth struggles with egotistical interactions and overcoming indulgences in her first impressions to realize her true love. Jane Austen illustrates Elizabeth's determination to marry for love as she moves within a limited society, confronts her own faults when making her own decisions, and judges others beyond the surface to live a fulfilling life. Austen challenges traditional notions about women through Elizabeth’s striving to express her own feminine individuality in a society that demands strict social conformity.

The novel is set in an environment where people can only look up in society in order to survive and prolong their family lineage. In a society where women can only find comfort in a rich husband, Elizabeth becomes the character with an unyielding personality that deviates from the culturally accepted norm. The opening lines of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice are:

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighborhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the ri...

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...ty and good looks rather than examining the inward character which reflect a person’s true personality. Her eventual willingness to acknowledge her faults and amend her behavior accordingly is the turnabout of her relationship with those she misjudged. Elizabeth’s self-awareness begins to dawn on her; she becomes progressively more conscious of her own errors and deficiencies and eventually to feel a deep sense of regret. That progress from confident self-assertion to self-conscious regret is the path of her psychological progress. This transition portrays the heroines willingness to change in a restricted society. It creates a vulnerable side to the opinionated female that leads to the established sense of self-awareness. As Elizabeth becomes conscious of her unconsciousness, she is able to prevent her individuality from being consumed by the fabrication by others.