Jane Austen S Representation Of Marriage In Pride And Prejudice

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2012 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: 1,3, University of Hildesheim (Institut für englische Literatur und Sprache), course: -, language: English, abstract: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” (Austen 1813/1994: 5) The famous opening sentence of the even more famous novel anticipates the majority of Pride and Prejudice ́s content. This Bachelor thesis examines Jane Austen ́s representation of marriage in her novel Pride and Prejudice, published in 1813 in England during the Regency Period. Pride and Prejudice contains every sort of marriage a person like Jane Austen could imagine in those days: matched marriages, concerned of “making a good match”, the romantic love marriages including marrying under one ́s social rank, and the disastrous incident of lovers eloping.

Austen’s most celebrated novel tells the story of Elizabeth Bennet, a bright, lively young woman with four sisters, and a mother determined to marry them to wealthy men. At a party near the Bennets’ home in the English countryside, Elizabeth meets the wealthy, proud Fitzwilliam Darcy. Elizabeth initially finds Darcy haughty and intolerable, but circumstances continue to unite the pair. Mr. Darcy finds himself captivated by Elizabeth’s wit and candor, while her reservations about his character slowly vanish. The story is as much a social critique as it is a love story, and the prose crackles with Austen’s wry wit.

Elizabeth Bennet and her four sisters need husbands, according to their mother. When Mr. Bingley, a handsome, wealthy bachelor, moves in nearby and his equally suitable friends come for visits, Mrs. Bennet's hope soars. Yet Elizabeth finds one of the friends, Mr. Darcy, arrogant and conceited, and her opinion of him worsens when she discovers he has thwarted the relationship between Mr. Bingley and her sister Jane. Romance, heartbreak, and satire weave throughout the story to show the dangers of judging by first impressions and being too prideful to follow one's heart. This is an unabridged version of Jane Austen's delightful comedy, which was first published in 1813 and has remained a popular English novel for more than 200 years.

The text of Pride and Prejudice is the 1813 first edition text.

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1-, University of Potsdam (Institut für Anglistik/Amerikanistik), 10 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: In her work Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen defines six types of marriage. Excluding the Phillipses and the Lucases, the remaining six marriages contrast each other and show Austen ́s opinions on the subject of marriage. Within a social and cultural context where marriage was assumed to be of great importance, Austen uses this number of marriages to expose and satirise societal values of the age and to explore the nature of the ideal marriage. The marriages of Elizabeth and Darcy, Jane and Bingley, Charlotte Lucas and Mr. Collins, The Bennets, Lydia and Wickham and the Gardeners form the center of the paper. What was their driving force to enter into matrimony? Can they truly be regarded as six different types of marriage and if so - which type of marriage did Austen favour herself? As an introduction, the paper gives an insight into the meaning of and the various reasons for marriage in the Victorian era and presents the alternatives for women if an eligible partner was not in sight.

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Münster, course: The Rise of the English Novel, 8 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Since it was my part to introduce Jane Austen in a paper on 18th century women writers I wanted to know more about the female writers at her time. I chose Pride and Prejudice because it is one of Jane Austen's most famous novels. While I was reading it I soon discovered that marriage is the main theme of the novel. I want to compare the different kinds of marriages described in the novel putting emphasis on the marriage of the hero-ine and the hero. I want to show the importance of marriage in women's eyes in the 18th century. In a further step I will take a closer look at the ending of the novel which has often been described as a fairytale ending on the one hand and as confirmation of patriarchal structures on the other. I want to show that the ending can be interpreted in a different way. I shall reveal that marriage in Pride and Prejudice is not only the essence romantic novels are made of but rather important to the existence of women in the 18th century.

Biographical background - Literary background - the art of Jane Austen.

Originally published in 1992. In an age when genteel women wrote little more than personal letters, how did Jane Austen manage to become a novelist? Was she an isolated genius who rose to fame through sheer talent? Did she draw strength from the support of her family or from women writers who went before her? In Jane Austen among Women, Deborah Kaplan argues that these explanations are either misleading or insufficient. Austen, Kaplan contends, participated actively in a women's culture that promoted female authority and achievement—a culture that not only helped her become a novelist but also influenced her fiction.