Life and Love in Pride and Prejudice
How would life be different if you lived in the early 1800s in a small town of England? How did the courtship rituals exist at that time? These questions are the main subjects of the book, Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, who wrote the book about the time that these things took place.
When you open to the first page and begin reading, the Bennet family is instantly introduced, along with Mr. Bingley. The Bennet family , which is composed of parents who generally have opposite opinions, and four daughters, each with their own special abilities, play the main role, especially the second daughter Elizabeth. The whole story is narrated through her point of view, so the opinions of other people that eventually become your own are taken from whom Elizabeth is close to and whom she dislikes. That brings us to the other characters, namely the Bingley family and Mr. Darcy.
The Bingley family represents a very wealthy family, whose son would be a prize for any girl, and who is deeply interested in Jane, the eldest, beautiful Bennet daughter. The family though doesn't believe the Bennet's to be of a high enough standard, and move their brother to London to distract him with Mr. Darcy's sister, who supposedly was as unlikable as Mr. Darcy himself. Disliked by many because of his pompousness and pride, Mr. Darcy ruined his chances with Elizabeth for himself. In his own desire, he would have easily married her, she even hated to dance with the man.
This type of love triangle, with one person liking a certain someone, but having to settle with someone else, happens throughout the book, just with different people. Most of the time all the characters were either in the a household or at a formal party where these loves, courtships, and dislikes began. This form of settings in the book I found rather boring, and it made it very difficult for me to continue reading, though I now know it is Jane Austen style to not have much action but to develop more of the character's personalities. This book is a great suggestion if you love to really understand a character and her feelings towards others.
The neat idea is what Austen did with the title of the book. With this book, "Pride and
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When a bachelor from London comes to Longbourn, the Bennet sisters get excited to get to meet him at the ball. At the ball he is taken by Jane Bennet, the eldest of the five sisters. Mr.Darcy is Mr.Bingley’s friend and he isn’t taken by anyone, which makes everyone think of him as arrogant. But in a course of time he finds himself attracted to Elizabeth Bennet, the second eldest of the sister, because of her charm and intelligence. Jane’s and Mr.Bingley’s relationship continued and on her way to visit him she gets sick and Elizabeth walks all the way to the Bingley’s house to take care of her sister.
Bingley and Jane Bennet show immediate chemistry from the beginning of the novel to the end. They encounter a rough patch in their relationship towards the middle of the novel when Mr. Bingley does not visit Netherfield for an extended period of time. However, the reader can almost assume an impending marriage between the two from the beginning of the novel, even with their rough patch in the middle. Bingley and Jane serve as the two of the most kind characters in Pride and Prejudice and establish themselves as the perfect couple. Their intentions in the marriage exhibit themselves as pure and kind-hearted. They married each other for all of the right reasons. Love distinguished itself as the most important quality in their caring and passionate marriage which proves as rare marriage equality in this novel. Many tried to separate this couple, including Darcy, but in the end all attempts to ruin their love failed because they ended up happily married. Their views and attitude toward their marriage portray a unique and rare marriage in this novel due to the fact that they married for love instead of money or
Elizabeth Bennet is the second oldest in a family of five girls and no boys. Her family is what some people might call a dysfunctional one. Mr. and Mrs. Bennet have opposite and clashing personalities but at the same time they share a likeness. Mr. Bennet is not a social man and does not communicate with his family much. He is often found through out the novel hiding away in his library with a book. While on the other hand Mrs. Bennet is very social, does not shut her mouth and has probably read very few books in her life. She is portrayed as a modern day airhead who runs her life to please onlookers. No matter how opposite they sound they do have one joining quality. Mr. And Mrs. Bennet are both far from being good parents and successful authority figures. That is where Elizabeth's problems begin.
She is the most beautiful of all her sisters and is a very sweet girl. If not for her kind personality, her character would be rather boring, seen as more of a dramatic individual who is irritating and hard to root for. She sees the best in people, too the point of naivety; this is precisely her problem. While it is a flattering trait of hers, Jane is actually quite oblivious to the real qualities of many of the people she encounters. As Elizabeth says, “she never sees a fault in anyone”. For example, up through the first thirty chapters of the book, Jane is the only one who refuses to believe that Mr. Darcy is a self-entitled, high standard wanting, elitist fiend. She insists that he is a good man who has deeper qualities than anyone cares to admit. Meanwhile, Darcy says that she “smiles to much”. Another example of her naivety is when she finally accepts that Miss Bingley is trying to separate her from Mr. Bingley, as insisted by Elizabeth. Upon reflection of the matter, she states, "I do not at all comprehend her reason for wishing to be intimate with me; but if the same circumstances were to happen again, I am sure I should be deceived again". She even admits it! She is sweet, but she is a little blind. Her sister Elizabeth, on the other hand, is much more witty. She is beautiful, kind, smart, and not so oblivious. Of the sisters, she is the most sensible and
The Bennets have five unmarried daughters, and Mrs Bennet, is one who agrees with the opening sentence: ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.’ The statement is one of great significance to the novel, because of its masterful irony, its humorous tone, and its foreshadowing of the entire novel. To Mrs Bennet, the arrival of Mr Bingley in the neighbourhood is seen as a great opportunity for one of her daughters to obtain a wealthy spouse. The first sentence is ironic because a man with a fortune does not necessarily need a wife, as much as a woman, who has no means of outside support in the 19th century, is greatly in need of a wealthy spouse. When the reader meets Mr Darcy, a wealthy and ‘fine, tall person’, with ‘handsome features’ ...
Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Ed. Donald Gray. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001.
The plot of the novel follows traditional plot guidelines; although there are many small conflicts, there is one central conflict that sets the scene for the novel. The novel is about an embarrassing mismatched couple and their five daughters. The novel begins with Mrs. Bennet, telling her daughters of the importance of marrying well. During this time a wealthy man, Charles Bingley, moves close to Netherfield, where the Bennets’ reside. The Bennet girls struggle to capture his attention, and Jane, who judges no one, is the daughter who manages to win his heart, until Mr. Bingley abruptly leaves town.
Charles Bingley is the new neighbor of the Bennet family. He is “quiet young, wonderfully handsome, extremely agreeable” (11), amiable, and modest. As “a single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year” (6), Mr. Bingley immediately becomes the focus of Mrs. Bennet’s wishes involving marriage for her daughters. Mr. Bingley moves from London to the country with his sisters, Louisa Hurst and Caroline Bingley, in order to settle down in his own
Interestingly noted, they are both similar in character and behavior: both are kind, slightly gullible, and positive. Jane and Bingley serve as a contrast between Elizabeth and Darcy; the two couples are able to balance each other. In the Regency period, a happy marriage is uncommon, but Jane and Bingley’s relationship proves to the reader that such a love is able to overcome the pressures of a society that stresses a strict class structure.
...children to search for spouses, meanwhile, Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst endeavor to persuade Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley not to marry women from lower social classes. Nevertheless, the reader learns to ignore the satirized characters of Mrs. Bennet, Mrs. Hurst, and Miss Bingley and true love prevails when Elizabeth marries Mr. Darcy.
Kneedler, Susan. "The New Romance in Pride and Prejudice." Literature Resource Center. Gale, 1993. Web. 11 Mar. 2011.
To a great extent, Jane Austen satirizes conventional romantic novels by inverting the expectations of "love at first sight" and the celebration of passion and physical attractiveness, and criticizing their want of sense. However, there are also elements of conventional romance in the novel, notably, in the success of Jane and Bingley's love.
Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Ed. Donald Gray. New York: WW Norton &. Company, 1996.
2 Feb. 2010. Moore, Catherine E. “Pride and Prejudice.” Master Revised Second Edition (1996): Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Web. The Web.