Pride And Prejudice-19th-Century Female Protagonist In A 19th Century Woman's Shoes

“Pride and Prejudice” - 19th Century Female Protagonist in a 21st Century Woman’s Shoes.

Elizabeth Bennet, Pride and Prejudice’s protagonist, is often described as a “modern woman” in today society by many readers and audiences. Jane Austen uses ideologies, juxtaposition and cultural assumptions to persuade her audience to think and feel a certain way. Elizabeth is a character that is well before her time of the 1800’s in Rural England; her view on marriage is that you marry for love and not wealthy, title or security. Austen’s positioning of Elizabeth in the novel leads the audience to believe that she is a “modern woman”.

Austen has beliefs on how she perceived the “modern woman” to be; escaping from her time through the fictional character

The country folk were often shown living on large estates, even if they were only in the middle class of society, and having maids/servants to wait on them for things like tea. City people were often shown wearing suits and waist coats for the men and exaggerated large skirts and extravagant fascinators on their heads for the women. This was also the case for the upper class of city persons that had moved to the country like Mr Bingley and his sisters. All very posh and proper, the Bingley sister’s often very rude and inconsiderate of anyone but themselves, expressing impolite remarks about Elizabeth towards Mr Darcy who was sitting thoughtfully by himself in the room. Country people like the Bennet family, excluding Mrs Bennet, are very well mannered and polite towards everyone whether acquaintance or not. Elizabeth, however, is polite yet has a witty attitude about her that makes her quite disliked by some people. Other people, Mr Darcy, find it very flattering and something that he might possibly look for in a woman. Elizabeth is positioned as standing out from the rest of her family not only stated by her father, “I dare not day Mr Bingley will be very glad to see you; and I will end a few lines by you to assure him of my hearty consent to his marrying which ever he chooses of the girls: though I must throw in a good work for my little Lizzie,’ but by other member of

The younger of the Bennet sisters, Kitty and Lydia, are assumed to be silly and foolish, especially Lydia who is seen in the conclusion of the novel running off with Mr Wickham. Little does she know but Mr Wickham was not as involved in the marriage as Lydia was. Mary on the other hand, keeps very much to herself. Presuming that she doesn’t get married, she will end up a maid for another wealthy family in the area as she very much only enjoys playing the piano and sing and is not in the very least interested in the idea on marriage. Jane however, is expected to be the first to marry as she is seen by her mother the handsomest, most caring daughter out of them all. Unfortunate, Lydia beats her to it having married Mr Wickham several months before Jane married Mr Bingley. Elizabeth was expected by her family to marry their cousin, Mr Collins to keep the family bloodline going and to keep their estate when their father was to pass. Expecting her to ‘take one’ for the family, unfortunately, Lizzie declined Mr Collins’ proposal of marriage as she did Mr Darcy as well at first. Expecting Mr Darcy to love Elizabeth out of heart and not mind, he basically told her that he couldn’t help loving her and that he knows that he shouldn’t but he does any way. Toward Elizabeth, this was quite insulting to a woman of her intelligence.