First published in 1813, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is a comic novel of manners. The novel describes the trials and tribulations of the upper middle class English gentry of that time in finding love (Austen, 1813). Although not well known at the time of its publication, this novel and Sense and Sensibility, published earlier, have become highly popular during the 20th century and are now routinely seen on listings of the “100 best novels” or the “100 most read novels” (Donahue, 2013). Austen’s books are known for their feminine view of the world at a time when female authors were not common. Pride and Prejudice tells the story of the Bennett family, who had the misfortune of its land being entailed to a male relative, that is, it must be inherited by a man, but there were only five daughters in the family. This situation is a basic conflict in the story and drives the need of each of the daughters to find a suitable marriage as they will not inherit any wealth from their father. This story can be analyzed by examining basic characteristics of a novel including setting, plot, characters, narrator and narration, mood, style, symbols, and theme.
The setting of Pride and Prejudice has two important aspects: place and time. As for place, it is set in the countryside about 25 miles outside of London in Hertfordshire, an actual area in England, near an imaginary village of Meryton. Most of the action is at the Bennett home, which is named Longbourn, located near Meryton and a grander house named Netherfield. One commentator did a thorough review using clues from the book and came to the conclusion that actual houses and locations that inspired this setting could be Redbourn (Longbourn), Harpenden (Meryton) and Kimpton (Netherfield), all located in roughly the correct area and even having some similarities in name (Smith, 2005). But it remains that Austin’s setting are not actual villages or houses. In Pride and Prejudice the characters are of a class that their homes are all grand enough estates to have names, although there are definitely different variations of grandeur between the different homes. For example, the home of a member of the nobility, such as Lady Catherine de Bourgh, one of the higher socially ranked characters in the book, is described as much fancier in its rooms and furnishings than Longbourn.
The time of the book, early 1800s, is absolutely essential to its plot, style, and themes. The society in England at the time was extremely bound to strict rules of social interaction and much of the conflict in the book is caused by the characters’ need to abide by those rules or the distress which resulted to the characters when such rules were not followed. However, it is clear from choices Austin makes within the book that she was taking a satirical approach to the social rules and regulations of the time in her novel. For example, Lady Catherine de Bourgh is a character that is ultimately shown to be quite foolish and shallow in her attempts to control the love lives of those around her, despite the current social assumption that someone of that rank was someone to be highly admired merely for being a member of the nobility. In this way, the time setting of the book sets up one of its themes, which is the conflict between the actual character of a person and the character that someone of that social rank would be assumed to have at that time, given the social rules being followed.
The plot of Pride and Prejudice revolves around the efforts of the five Bennett girls -- Jane, Elizabeth, Catherine, Mary and Lydia – to find suitable husbands. It follows the story of about a year and a half as suitable men become known to the girls and the efforts that they and their mother, Mrs. Bennett, go through in order for them to meet and be able to spend time with the various possible husbands. One of the key means of meeting men at the time was at balls or assemblies, grand dance parties held at the estate houses. One of the suitable gentlemen in the story is Mr. Charles Bingley, who had rented the nearby estate, Netherfield, as a country home. One plot line of the story is that of Mr. Bingley falling in love with the eldest Bennett daughter, Jane, at an assembly or ball in Meryon, and the subsequent misunderstandings and plottings by those surrounding them to keep them apart. Another early plot line is the appearance of Mr. William Collins, the male heir of Longbourn and cousin of the Bennett girls and his unsuccessful attempt to get the second eldest, Elizabeth to marry him. A further secondary plot line is the adventures of Lydia, the youngest daughter and how she ultimately is the first of the sisters to marry, in no small part due to her willingness to ignore social obligations and run away with an officer in the army, Wickham, even without first being married. The monetary and social negotiations that surround her ultimate marriage play into the central plot of the novel, Elizabeth’s evolving love/hate relationship with Mr. Fitzwilliam Darby, the owner of Pemberley, a beautiful estate located north of Longbourn. The novel ends with both pairs of lovers marrying – Jane and Mr. Bingley and Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. These marriages resolve the primary conflict of the novel, as even though there are still two daughters to be married, the Bennett family’s elevated social status is now cemented with these two marriages to men with such substantial incomes in their estates.
The main characters in the book are the Bennett family. Mr. Bennett is a comic character that is constantly fighting for his time alone and regrets his marriage to Mrs. Bennett. Mrs. Bennett is presented as a rather petty woman who has definitely made it her life’s mission to get her daughter’s married off successfully. Their marriage is portrayed as not a happy one, and is certainly a warning to the girls of how careful they must be in selected a husband. Jane, the eldest daughter, has a primary trait of thinking the best of everyone, bringing her heartache as she waits for Mr. Bingley to realize that he cannot live without her, despite his friends’ and sisters’ attempts to convince him otherwise. Elizabeth, the second eldest is the book’s narrator and the character within the novel that has the most change over the course of the story. Catherine, Mary, and Lydia are portrayed as shallow girls who care only about chasing after military officers stationed in Meryton. The Bennett’s neighbors, Sir William and Lady Lucas, have a daughter Charlotte, who accepts Mr. Collin’s proposal after he is refused by Elizabeth and she will therefore inherit Longbourn after Mr. Bennett’s death. Sir William is the mayor of Meryton and received his knighthood from the king for this service.
A further character is Mr. Wickham, an officer in the military, who marries Lydia in the end, but only after he has put Elizabeth under his spell, which she gradually untangles from as she learns of Wickham’s true character. That she did not let the rest of her sisters understand Mr. Wickham’s true nature is a source of strong regret for Elizabeth. Two additional characters are Lady Catherine de Bourgh and her daughter, who employ Mr. Collins as their clergyman. As mentioned above, both of these characters of nobility are strongly criticized in the novel as an arrogant, obnoxious woman and her worthless, sickly daughter, neither worthy of the praise heaped upon them by the effusive Mr. Collins. The main male character is Mr. Darby, again a character of noble birth, but one that is soundly criticized by all at the beginning but grows in stature over the course of the novel by his actions. For all the characters in Pride and Prejudice the primary motivator is the social rules and expectations of the time and much of the conflict in the story comes from when those rules are not followed. Certainly the absurdities of those rules, the resulting actions of the characters, and how those rules seem to conspire against the characters finding true happiness, are among what can be learned from these characters and their actions.
The narration in Pride and Prejudice is a special kind of narration called free indirect discourse. This type of narration is “the free representation of a character’s speech, by which one means, not words actually spoken by a character, but the words that typify the character’s thoughts, or the way the character would think or speak, if she thought or spoke.” (Boyle, 2011). In this way, Elizabeth narrates the story, even though it is told in third, rather than first, person. All of the story is presented from Elizabeth’s point of view, although the scattered use of letters allows some of the story to be told from other character’s points of view, when they are the author of those letters. This is particularly true of the Mr. Darcy character, where very important past facts are only told through stylized letters from him to Elizabeth. There is no doubt that Elizabeth’s biases, particularly about the character of Mr. Darcy, are a central characteristic of the book and her personal realization of the error of her perceptions is a primary turning point in the novel. Her initial prejudices are an indication that the events in the novel need to be taken in light of who is acting as the narrator and allows for re-consideration of what occurs without Elizabeth’s coloration present.
Nevertheless, the mood of the work is decidedly comedic and light. Some commentators have called this novel the first romantic comedy (Donahue, 2013). There is much witty banter between the various speakers in the novel. The characters are drawn with comedic effect with the goal of making fun of the societal rules of the time. However, because the novel is not written in first person, even a comic mood does tend to be less emotional and more intellectual. This is taken to an extreme in that the main actions of the novel are the interactions between opinions, ideas, and attitudes, rather than descriptions or other more conventional narrative. These interactions are what drive the story forward. As a result, the emotions in the novel are expressed through these interactions, remaining mainly beneath the surface of the story, and are not expressed directly to the readers. This provides further evidence of the more intellectual rather than emotional nature of the book’s mood.
The sentence structure used by Jane Austin is highly convoluted. There is an indirect expression of ideas that can be overly complex, with many twists and turns. This style is further contributed to by the use of free indirect discourse, as discussed above. The words used are complex vocabulary and the word choice appears to be as much as showing off the characters’ intelligence as what is the best way to express the ideas. It is clear that the style of writing is a reflection of the manner of speech and the method of social interaction of the day – highly stylized and mannered. In this way, the style of the novel sets a tone that conveys how it might have been during that time to try to communicate – everything done indirectly and politely. This indirect speech is also the source of much of the irony or satire upon the social mores present in the book. Ultimately, however, love overcomes the social complications of the day and despite all efforts to thwart the characters in finding happiness, the reader believes that at least Elizabeth and Jane have a good chance in having happy marriages. This belief occurs despite the overly complex path the girls had to travel to get to the marriages at the end of the novel.
There are relatively few symbols within Pride and Prejudice. However, one place in the book that does seem possibly symbolic is Elizabeth’s immediate attraction to Pemberley, Mr. Darcy’s estate, when she is visiting with her aunt and uncle and does not believe that Mr. Darcy is present. Her great attraction to the nature surrounding the home, and to the home itself can be seen as a type of foreshadowing to her ultimate change in attitude about Mr. Darcy’s character and her ultimately falling in love with him and becoming Pemberley’s mistress. The footbridge that she crosses when touring the grounds can be seen as symbolic of the bridge to understanding her true feelings about Mr. Darcy. The beauty of the grounds and home could also be seen as symbolic of the actual good nature of Mr. Darcy’s character despite the immediate perception that the society in Meryton saw him as unjustly proud and aloof. Indeed, the original title of the book was to be First Impressions, perhaps to provide an emphasis on the false nature that the first impression of someone can provide (Boyle, 2011).
There are at least two major themes within Pride and Prejudice. These themes are found within the title itself and how the two main characters, although not completely defined by either pride or prejudice, display both of these emotions within the storyline of the novel. By pride, it is meant a strong belief in your own self-worth, often at the expense of the worth of others and prejudice is making assumptions about someone without knowing their true nature. For example, Mr. Darcy is an example of a character who is almost undone by pride in his social standing over others and prejudice against those who he perceives as below him, such as the Bennett family, but over the course of the novel, this position softens as he gets to know the true nature of the daughters, particularly Elizabeth. Elizabeth herself also suffers from pride and prejudice, again more strongly at the beginning of the novel, when Mr. Darcy’s rejection of her at the first assembly ball hurts her feelings and makes her feel inferior. She takes longer to get over her pride and prejudice than Mr. Darcy, but eventually she begins to understand better why he may have acted the way he did and to not take his actions quite so personally. Thus, Pride and Prejudice is a comedy of manners, reflective of the time in which it was written and of the social rules that so dictated the actions of people like characters in the book – the English landed gentry. In writing the book, Jane Austin not only expressed the witty banter and intellectual verbal play of the times, but also the social constrains that birth, rank, and wealth placed on persons within that society. However, the book does not live on as a classic for those reasons, instead, it is a highly entertaining love story and the first example of the now standard story structure of the romantic comedy.
Bibliography
Austin, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. 1817. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications. 1995. Print.
Boyle, Laura. “Pride and Prejudice: An Overview.” 17 July 2011. Web. 15 July 2013.
Donahue, Deirdre. “Why are we still so passionate for Pride and Prejudice?” USA Today. 28 January 2013. Web. 15 July 2013.
Smith, Kenneth. “The Probable Location of ‘Longbourn’ in Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice.” Persuasions: The Jane Austin Journal. 27:234-41. Web. 15 July 2013.
