My first MLA research Project

The Themes of Love, Fear and Jealousy in Austen’s Pride and Prejudice

     Jane Austen is a British novel writer who born in 16 December 1775 in Hampshire and is one of the powerful writers of the world literature. She embarks on modern novel insight in 18th century with plain and explicit expression, ironic perspective to the social incidents and strong women characters. She submits her work to reader on condition that she conceal her identity and use the statement of ‘by a lady’ on the last pages of her novels. Successful writer,who could not declare herself at that time by virtue of the shallow insight that is given by society to the women and as a result of social norms, is admired and respected by millions of people today. The power of her pencil and contribution to literature enable her to surpass centuries till today and it will also allow for another centuries. She mostly prioritizes the powerful woman role in her novels and handles the subjects of being a woman in Britain, the perspective of society to women and marriage with particular subthemes such as love, class discrimination, prejudice, first impression, jealousy and pride. Dwelling on these matters persistently, is an indicant that at those times, there are serious wrong-goings regarding them. The fact that the author also reflects the period gracefully in her works, blows the lid off that women head for marriage not for love but for the purpose of providing money and security for their lives and she criticises openly that women are contingent upon a man both economically and socially. She is also believed to refuse marriage,which women regard as a obviation to save their lives. That is why, she wants to demonstrate that a woman can gain her own life very well just like a bannerbearer, epitomising this in her life. Her many novels manage to be among the world classics and are often adapted to the silver scren. Being among the most famous works of the author, the novels such as Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility are hailed and praised by the critics from both 19th century and today. And I will directly share my own opinions and analysis about the author’s exceptional work, Pride and Prejudice with you, approaching some certain themes in my following lines.

     As a beginning, taking part among the masterpieces, Pride and Prejudice offer us a love story between a wealthy high-class gentlemen Fitzwilliam Darcy and middle-class lady Elizabeth Bennet ending with an ultimate love, from which many social facts can be inferred, such as class seperation, reputation etc. And they fight with these obstacles, including their own errors; pride and prejudice, through the story. Elizabeth is proud, beautiful, spiritual and sharp-witted character like Kalil(2000, p. 73) describes Elizabeth in her book that ‘ even in her blindest moments, Elizabeth is an unfailing attractive character. She is described as a beauty and has especially expressive eyes, but what everybody notices about her is her spirited wit and her good sense. Mainly because of that good sense, Elizabeth is her father’s favorite child and her mother’s least favorite. Her self-assurance comes from a keen critical mind and is expressed through her quick-witted dialogue.’ They become acquainted with at a dance ball, and then a relationship which has full of misunderstandings and misjudging starts to occur between them. While not being able to resist each other’s appeals first, their mutual pride does not allow them to step into each other, consequently, at some point, Elizabeth’s liking turns into hatred in the light of the facts(!) As Kalil(2000, p. 11) states that ‘as Darcy grows more interested in Elizabeth, Elizabeth continues to despise him and is instead attracted to George Wickham, a handsome and personable militia officer’  According to her, she can only be fascinated by a gentlemen who has a decent character in terms of all and Darcy is a man who is quite snobbish and has a rude manner toward people, especially to the ones who are considered as lower- class than his own. Darcy, on the other hand,sees her unqualified at first yet his first impression turns into an admiration that thrives day by day as he has the opportunity to observe her more closely. Altough that pride and prejudice appeared between them is enough to diverge them from one another for a while, it is not enough to break them with each other like in every real love story. Darcy loses himself in her intelligence, self-confidence, spirit, courage and beauty and eventually becomes madly in love with her. He suppresses his feelings for some time because it is an insult to his family, nobility and all the things that he has the responsibility, to choose such a low-class female as a lover. Yet, can’t bearing to the pain anymore, he proposes to her using these words from which many things could be inferred, “In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings wil not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you”(Austen, p.359). And after her reply in an unexpected way to such a confession, “Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections?-to congratulate myself on the hope of relations, whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own?” (Austen, p. 365) Here, Darcy declares his love in a quite offensive manner that we can conclude that it is almost a shame that an aristocrat picks up an inferior woman as a wife. He discloses his affection but at the same time degrades her. Considering the period, we can say that this is general attitude when it comes to marriage. I think in there, if there were another woman instead of Elizabeth, who has not sort of values like dignity and pride, this conversation would end in a way that the wedlock preperations would have been set out, considering such a man, whom everyone admires, makes the offer. However, Elizabeth never gives way to these humiliating words of Darcy for she has a great deal of proud and self-respect and she rejects him in a cold manner . As Blom (2015, p.1) states ‘ she believes that affection, friendship and respect are major elements of a happy and strong marriage; she rejects the notion that one should mary for wealth or social status’, that her insubmissive character allows her to make marriage only based upon the values she looks for; passion, affection, friendship and respect. In other words, she is purely determined to make marriage not for money and reputation but for pure love. Also,we can understand her laudable challenge to social norms which means, ‘even you are counted as superior than me, it cannot give you the right of talking me like this way.’ She actually respond like that. Lastly, it is also inferred that the imperatives of society put individual in a very hard position especially when it comes to this kind of love to nowhere.

     Another discussable point lies on the issues of jealousy and fear; jealousy of Miss Bingley and Lady Catherine is observed in both Lady’s attitudes. While Miss Bingley dislikes Lizzie inasmuch as she herself wants to attention of Mr. Darcy, Lady Catherine begrudges her by virtue of the potential engagement occasion between Lizzie and her nephew. Because she wants her nephew to marry with her daughter, not with a despicable, inferior woman, who has nothing to unite as a result of that marriage.

     Elizabeth, on the other hand, experiences the feeling of fear inwardly. Being surrounded with aristocrat and upper-class females, she feels fear of being incompetent in her deep downs time to time tough she always strives for being a confident and acting self-confidently which is her main principle from my point of view. With her capability of outtalk and wittiness, she manages to take a tough stance against their supremacy.

     When it comes to Miss Bingley’s grudge, it can be said that this is very common attitude when a powerful woman both in terms of their ancestry and property, sees any other woman who is much inferior, as a threat for themselves, they can easily feel enough to belittle them with their ordinariness etc. Here, the problem is,when it is expected from men to stop looking down on women, the ideology of women’s being underestimated belongs to the society of that time, is even among the women themselves, curiously enough. Because it may be discovered by everyone that you cannot expect that just like that from men, if you are not united in yourself, as a women. So, Miss Bingley wears this problematic behavior in the same way when Elizabeth is about to be introduced to Darcy’s little sister;

Convinced as Elizabeth now was that Miss Bingley’s dislike of her had originated in jealousy, she could not help feeling how very unwelcome her appearance at Pemberley must be to her, and was curious to know with how much civility on that lady’s side the acquaintance would be renewed (Austen, p.498)

     In this paragraph, it is obvious that jealousy is the primary reason for Miss Bingley’s disracing her. She cannot stand thinking how inappropriate Elizabeth’s being there, in front of that Mr.Darcy’s precious sister. She reprimands and blames her courage for being there, just because of that she is too inferior to get intimate with the noble man’s family member. Yet it is the idea of Mr. Darcy himself, introducing Elizabeth into  Georgiana Darcy which is very exclusive thing at that time.

     Likewise, Lady Catherine wears that problematic behavior in an other way for the same purpose. She offends her no matter where they are and who are there which means both in her dinner table in which everyone sits and in even Elizabeth’s own place. When Lady  Catherine hears about Darcy’s propose to Elizabeth, she steps up to the plate personally. She comes Lizzie’s house and demands a private talk to make clear that she cannot marry with her nephew, explaining explicitly, by virtue of her poor situation. As it is clearly understood from this quotation that;

The engagement between them is of a peculiar kind. From their infancy, they have been intended for each other. It was the favourite wish of his mother, as well as of hers. While in their cradles, we planned the union: and now, at the moment when the wishes of both sisters would be accomplished in their marriage, to be prevented by a young woman of inferior birth, of no importance in the world, and wholly unallied to the family! Do you pay no regard to the wishes of his friends? To his tacit engagement with Miss de Bourgh? Are you lost to every feeling of propriety and delicacy? Have you not heard me say that from his earlisest hours he was destined for his cousin?(Austen, p.666)

     Here, Lady Catherine never minces her words that she says to Miss Bennet, she is not suitable to join her noble family as her being less significant woman with no reputation and property. Instead, she emphasizes that her daughter is worthy of that marriage. She insults her with so keen and bitter words that she directly pronounces her that she is just lowborn and has no importance in the world as if all the merits and importance are just depend on one’s status, money and reputation.

     Lastly, Elizabeth’s fear or conflict, as we can sense, is another notable point that should be touched on. As far as I talked about the facts, the struggle can also be comprehended that Elizabeth has, through the story, caused by Miss Bingley, Lady Catherine and Mr. Darcy himself who is her beloved one at the end of the story most interestingly, her family’s turmoils and even by herself with haste judgement that she made about Mr. Darcy.  And all of them, excluding her errors, represent the norms that society put forwards; class discrimination, women inferiority, decorum etc. Her engagement of all these insolent and arrogant ladies and her family’s uproar put her in an awkward position time to time yet not openly but inwardly. Altough Elizabeth is known by her challenge to social conventions, not caring class and rank, by her feeling free for explaining herself bluntly as a production of complete self-reliance and sheer joy, now and then all these repressions and social oppressions make her feel overwhelmed. As Yu (2010, p. 680) maintains that ‘Elizabeth must not only cope with a hopeless mother, a distant father, two badly behaved younger siblings and several snobbish antagonizing females, she must also overcome her own mistaken impressions of Darcy, which initially lead her to reject his proposals of marriage’.

     Another fear that is felt is that of Mrs. Bennet’s. Golemac (2014, p.4), states ‘fearing that her daughters will be left with nothing after their father’s death and that they will depend on good will of his cousin, Mr. Collins, Elizabeth’s mother, Mrs. Bennet, devotes her life to finding husbands for her daughters’ that Mrs. Bennet’s only goal and business is to make rewarding matches for her daughters like all of them are brood-mare. In other words, she wants to give her daughters away to the rich men in order that family is guaranteed in terms of finance. Her apprehension may be understood from the reason that women cannot inherit the legacy at those times, however, it is completely intolerable that she forces them to make marriages without letting them consider affection and love. 

     In conclusion, Pride and Prejudice is one of the most influential and successful examples of novel of manner that details certain behaviors, habits, customs of the 18th century and handles the expectation of specified groups of people peculiar to certain time and place perfectly. This work is known by the similarities of Austen’s real life and that is why it is considered as the most special and exceptional one among her other works. For it is adapted almost from her life, we can say that it is made up from human being’s complexities, contradictions and behaviours with cause and effect relationship that it would be very hard to discover and digest all of them at one read. Therefore, I just addressed some certain themes to dwell on such as love, fear and jealousy which include in itself  some sub-themes like; inferiority, supremacy, money and femininity etc.

 

Works Cited

1-)Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. EPUB file, 1813. (apple books)

2-)Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. EPUB file, 1813. (apple books)

3-)Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. EPUB file, 1813. (apple books)

4-)Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. EPUB file, 1813. (apple books)

5-)Blom, Elin. Contrasting Attitudes Toward Marriage in Pride and Prejudice: Elizabeth Bennet's Disregard for the Contemporary Marital Conventions. 2015, http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:903774/FULLTEXT04. 

6-)Golemac,Andrea, “Representation of Women in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Emma and Persuasion “, 2014,  https://repozitorij.ffos.hr/islandora/object/ffos:195/datastream/PDF.

7-)Kalil, Marie. CliffsNotes on Austen’s Pride and Prejudice., IDG Books Worldwide, Inc., 2000.

8-)Kalil, Marie. CliffsNotes on Austen’s Pride and Prejudice , IDG Books Worldwide, Inc., 2000.

9-)Yu, Xiaoping. “Character-Driven Theme Analysis in Pride and Prejudice.” Journal of Language Teaching and Research, Vol. 1, no. No. 5, Sept. 2010, pp. 678–681., doi:https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ddac/9b02c5c37897e6277c40ee89febfa32171e7.pdf.