Similarities And Differences Between Pride And Prejudice And Maggie

Class and Gender The novels Pride and Prejudice and Maggie: A Girl of the Streets seem very different from each other at first glance, but they actually possess astonishing similarities. Both narratives depict women who, even though they are virtually at opposite ends of the social class spectrum, are just as equally trapped by both their social status and gender. The nature of the characters’ pursuit of status is the most obvious difference between the women of Pride and Prejudice and Maggie. Pride and Prejudice depicts a story seemingly about romance and marriage, involving characters whose statuses are all high enough where even “low” status is far from poverty. Despite at first appearing to be a heartwarming romance novel, it becomes apparent that what seems to be a story of love is more accurately a story of class mobility. Marriage in this story is virtually a business deal. The men choose their wives based on how her social standing may increase their own. Choosing a woman of low class would result in a downward movement in class ranking and would therefore be dubbed as a “bad match.” For this reason, the decisions regarding the coupling of characters is not based on love, but on the need to gain

In their nineteenth century England world, women are at the mercy of men due to the fact that solely men control the process of marriage. The male characters meticulously pick a suitable wife based on her social standing, and not much else. The main objective in finding a woman of high class who would be considered a “good match” is for the man to use her status in order to increase his own. Because of this, one’s social status is everything. Both Maggie and the characters of Pride and Prejudice recognize that class is not only a defining factor of one’s worth but also a ticket to