Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen

Jane Austen’s ‘follow up’ to her publishing debut, Sense and Sensibility, was the perennially popular Pride and Prejudice. Despite the fantasy like perfect marriages that crown her fiction, Austen’s work provides a close and merciless study of character and society. Pride and Prejudice also provides an extraordinarily subtle analysis of the differing layers of perception.

Pride and Prejudice was the second novel that Jane Austen published in her lifetime. It appeared in 1813, two years after Sense and Sensibility (1811). The novel’s first incarnation was under the title ‘First Impressions’, written sometime between 1796 and 1797. This early version was rejected by publishers. Austen extensively revised it and gave it the title by which it is now world famous.

Jane Austen’s own criticism of Pride and Prejudice noted that it was too light, and wanted ‘shading’. In comparison to its predecessor, Sense and Sensibility, it is indeed lighter in tone. There is much more humour and wit, with none of the dark passages that are found in Sense and Sensibility. The most dramatic part of the novel is Lydia’s running off with Wickham, but even that affords quite a few laughs.

A Tale of Two Sisters

The most interesting similarity between Austen’s first two published novels is the literary device of contrasting the differing temperaments of two sisters. It’s of course tempting to think that the basis of these relationships is Austen’s own with her sister Cassandra, also a close friend and confidante. In Sense and Sensibility the calm, rational Elinor Dashwood is contrasted against her more emotional and impulsive sister, Marianne. In Pride and Prejudice the eldest sister, Jane Bennet, is the more rational, calmer character, who is cautious not to jump to conclusions. The second eldest sister and star of the novel, Elizabeth Bennet, is impetuous and somewhat intellectually hasty.

The main difference between Elinor Dashwood and Elizabeth Bennet is that the former is all forbearance and sobriety. Elizabeth, by contrast, is a lot of fun. She gives the novel its vital life force. While Elizabeth does make some serious errors of judgement, she’s intellectually sharp. The novel has many funny scenes showcasing Elizabeth’s intellectual jousting with opponents. We also cheer at her fierce independence and utter fearlessness. When she gets word that her dear sister Jane is taken ill with a cold at the Bingley’s residence, she insists on walking the three miles on foot, through mud and muck, to see that all is okay. Or when the Gorgon like Lady Catherine tries to scare Elizabeth off from marrying Darcy, Elizabeth makes it clear she’ll do exactly as she wishes.

The plot of Pride and Prejudice is well known, the original title ‘First Impressions’ pretty much explains it all. Elizabeth mistakes a few over heard comments at a party from Mr Darcy to be abominable rudeness and pride. Various twists and turns in the plot confirm and then refute this ‘first impression’, until Elizabeth has a light bulb moment in the middle of the novel, realising she has made a devastating error of judgement. ‘Til this moment I never knew myself,’ the self-correcting Elizabeth says to herself.

Themes in Pride and Prejudice

The main theme of Pride and Prejudice seems to be the importance of self-discovery and the necessity of not being too proud or hasty in our judgements. Elizabeth’s initial emotionalism at perceiving a slight to herself clouds her judgement, not allowing her to see Darcy’s character clearly. In this sense the novel is an extraordinarily subtle analysis of the differing layers of perception. Jane Austen wrote about a very small and limited society, but her gift was to look deeply, not broadly. A passage in chapter nine perhaps best explains Austen’s mode of study, where Elizabeth Bennet says that people are fascinating to observe because they are constantly changing.

"I did not know before," continued Bingley immediately, "that you were a studier of character. It must be an amusing study."

"Yes, but intricate characters are the most amusing. They have at least that advantage."

"The country," said Darcy, "can in general supply but a few subjects for such a study. In a country neighbourhood you move in a very confined and unvarying society."

"But people themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be observed in them for ever."

Jane Austen’s sharp observation of character makes her a realist as a writer. Much of the social conditions, relationships and personalities in Pride and Prejudice are painted in an unvarnished manner. We get the silly, the tiresome, the selfish and the vain. The reader also learns about the financial position of women in society, and just what it means to marry poorly, or not at all. Charlotte Lucas, Elizabeth’s best friend, in an amazing move marries the dull and insipid Mr Collins. How can she marry someone who will bore her to tears, Elizabeth wonders? But Charlotte is not rich, and Mr Collins stands to inherit much. Charlotte says she can live without love, the more important is to be secure. No doubt this is a stark choice that faced many women in Austen’s time.

Mrs Bennet, Elizabeth’s mother, is the great comic character of Pride and Prejudice. By any standards, she’s an irresponsible mother, quite happy to see her daughter Lydia married off to the unsuitable Wickham. It’s also tempting to see her as a bit of a feminist character, like Chaucer’s Wife of Bath. Her main concern is to get all her daughters married off, as the family property is entailed to Mr Collins, the closest male relative. This means that if the girls cannot find marriages, they will be reduced to poverty, or worse. Mrs Bennet frets constantly about this, and rails at the injustice of the patriarchal system that disinherits females. Yet she is also extraordinarily silly, without a clue in the world as to how her society’s financial system works. While Austen uses Mrs Bennet to paint a stark picture of the status of women, she never gives political views through her characters. Hence it’s impossible to figure out what Austen’s opinions were with regards to the status of women. Austen wrote what she saw, not what she wanted to see, or felt she should see.

The most unrealistic aspect of Jane Austen’s fiction is the idealised marriages. Jane and Elizabeth Bennet in the end score smart men with money who also love them. (Just as Elinor and Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility ultimately prevail, in very unpromising circumstances). In a perfect world, Jane Austen seems to be saying, this is how things should work out. But when the focus is pulled back from these perfect couples, giving the reader a view of society in full, everything is disorder and disarray. Mr and Mrs Bennet, Elizabeth’s parents, provides the perfect example of this as both are entirely unsuited to each other. One of the more curious lines, in fact, from Sense and Sensibility talks about the ‘strange unsuitableness’ of married couples. Austen wraps up her novels with perfect marriages, but most of the existing relationships and families in her fiction are what we would today term ‘dysfunctional’.

Again, Jane Austen is very much the realist with her minute descriptions of English people and society at the turn of the 19th century. We know her characters and situations are real because we still read her today and see ourselves, family and friends therein reflected.

Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen. Published by Penguin Classics. ISBN: 0-14-043047-4