There are many classic novels that are still read to this day. One of the most famous books written in the Victorian era is Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. The plot of the story is that the mother of five girls wants them all to be married to rich and handsome men. They are called the Bennets, and they are not very well off. Everything changes for them when the Bingley family moves over. They have a rich son which Ms. Bennet wants to marry off to one of her kids, because he is really rich. The Bingley family arrive with their friend, Mr. Darcy. He is more well off than Mr. Bingley, but Elizabeth thinks he is quite disagreeable and mean. In the end, he proves to be kind and selfless. After that, there is quite a riot when officers arrive. Mr. Wickham, a nice but vain officer, tricked Elizabeth into thinking Mr. Darcy was a cruel guy, but that was proven to be false later on. Of course, Lydia and Catherine wanted to meet them in hopes to find a husband. In the end, Lydia runs off with Mr. Wickham, they return to their family and get married. Elizabeth forgives Mr. Darcy, and even thanks him for his kindness towards her sisters and how he helped so much, and they get married.
One of the things that the novel focuses a lot on is social class. Social class has three ranks; lower class, middle class, and upper class. In the lower class, there’s the Long family, the Lucas family, and Wickham. These are the people that tend to really seek someone more wealthy to marry. As we know, Wickham wanted to marry Mr. Darcy’s younger sister, Georgia, just because she was very well off. After that, he decided to ‘settle’ with someone a bit below the Darcy family’s rank, which is one of the daughters in the Bennet family. In the middle class, there’s the Bennet family and the Collins family. As we read from the story, Mr. Collins wanted to marry one of the Bennet sisters, and Mrs. Bennet was fine with that because he earned a bit more than their family. In the upper class, there's the Bingleys, the Darcys, and the De Bourghs. They earn a really good amount of money per year, which is why all the families want to get their daughters and sons married to them.
Based on how they behave, we can analyze a lot about these families. With that being said, the different manners of these different families lead to different things happening to them. The Bennets are very persevering and stubborn. What this means is that if they have their heart set out on something, they will do anything to get it, such as Lydia with Wickham. However, when they really don’t want something, they will do anything they can to avoid it, like Elizabeth with Mr. Collins. Everyone in this family having these character traits lead to good endings for each one of them. Mr. Collins is also pretty determined, because he has tried multiple times to find someone to marry him, and will take whatever opportunity is presented to him. The Darcys tend to be more stuck-up and more picky when it comes to choosing someone to marry, because in financial situations, they have the advantage. This would be the same with the Bingleys, but some people in the family such as Mr. Bingley has proven to actually be thoughtful and considerate.
The requirements of a good marriage in the Victorian era were that the woman had ideally one job, being housewives. The men on the other hand were the ones who earned money. In this book, Ms. Bennett stated multiple times that she wanted wealthy men for her daughters, which is shown in her multiple attempts to connect some of her daughters to men who were rather well off. The concept of marriage nowadays is very different and even though there are still some current trends rooted in history, the Victorian Era’s trends are very different to the trends for marriage that we see nowadays. Most of the families in this book are thinking about which people will benefit them the most in order to find a spouse, but not out of true love. I personally think that this whole marriage process was a bit rushed, but since most of the main characters including Elizabeth and Jane got their happy endings, these marriages might actually end up working out.
Love is one of the things in the novel that are very hard to find. What exactly is love? Well, it can mean many things. Lydia thinks she loves Wickham, but really, it was just her giving a cry of desperation, because after seeing so many people get married and find relationships, she too wanted a significant other. Then, there is true love. This comes from Jane and Mr. Bingley. They truly love each other, which is why they got married. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy had a more rushed type of love, in which they don’t really know anything about each other, but decided that they surely ‘loved’ each other, and even though they decided to rush things, I believe it will end up well since their personalities support each other very well. Love is something we don’t get to see too often in Victorian marriages, so it is very refreshing to read about some relationships that include love.
The main character of this novel was a female; Elizabeth. She portrays the image of a strong and independent person. She’s loyal since she decided to not trust Mr. Darcy because of what he tried to do with Jane’s relationship. Elizabeth put her family over love, and that is what we, as a community, now would want in a female. However, back then, the ideas and principles were very different. In a female, people wanted grace, kindness, and talent. They wanted these females to basically enslave themselves to the man in their relationships, and not to be of any use other than to clean up a house. Our protagonist has proven that females are strong and can make their own decisions, and so have many other females in the story such as Jane and Charlotte, but in their own special ways.
In conclusion, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen talks about many relationships that are all different in their different reasons, but somehow all linked together. This story depicts many themes and lessons, such as to not be prejudiced, and to not put one’s pride ahead of everything else. This is already shown in the title, but we really get to go in depth of what this means while we’re reading this story and eventually analyzing it. Pride and Prejudice is different from many novels written in the Victorian era since the relationships in the story tend to have more modern touches, but that’s what makes it unique. I believe this book will be passed down through generations, and will still continue to thrive decades from now.
Comments