Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre: Love and Characterization

2651 Words6 Pages

Love has many forms and can be expressed in many ways. The way a person expresses their love is dependent on their personality. Some people’s love is passionate and fiery, for others it is more reserved. Though a love can be expressed differently, this does not mean the people involved love each other any less. There are countless novels that focus on the love between characters, and each character loves differently. In Jane Eyre, Mr. Rochester and Jane have an impassioned affair, this affair is cut short by Jane’s realization that Mr.Rochester already has ties to another woman. In Pride and Prejudice, it is clear that Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy love each other very deeply, as Mr. Darcy is able to overcome his doubts about Elizabeth’s family, and his own timidity, and marry his true love. Though their romance is more reserved, the love that Elizabeth and Darcy share is no weaker than that of Jane and Mr.Rochester. The way that Bronte and Austen approach the theme of love, and the styles of characterization they use, define what the novels becomes. Though they share a common theme, each novelist approaches the subject differently, by the way they use characterization to create characters that contrastingly react to situations.

Karl Kroeber described Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre to be “not strictly comparable” but like “different species of the same genus” (119). Characterization is very different in these two novels. It is different because Jane Eyre is a romantic novel, while Pride and Prejudice is a novel of manners, but it is also different because the authors use characterization for different means. Jane Austen means to explore the human character, and the way people interact with those...

... middle of paper ...

...Comp. Barbara T. Gates. Boston, MA: G.K. Hall, 1990. Print.

Ross, Josephine. "'Of Lovers and Husbands'" Jane Austen: A Companion. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 2003. 128. Print.

Scott, Walter. "Scott on Jane Austen." 1826. Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage. Ed. B. C. Southam. London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1968. 106. Print.

Unsigned. “British Critic on Pride and Prejudice.” 1813. Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage. Ed. B.C. Southam. London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1968. 41-42. Print.

Unsigned. Critical Review. 1813. Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage. Ed. B. C. Southam. London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1968. 43+. Print.

Woolf, Virginia. Phases of Fiction, Part 2. 1929. World Literature Criticism: 1500 to the Present: A Selection of Major Authors from Gale's Literary Criticism Series. Ed. James P. Draper. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale Research, 1992. 146-48. Print.

Open Document