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Compare the Presentation of Love in Shakespeare to Pride and Prejudice

Decent Essays

‘Romeo and Juliet’ and ‘Pride and Prejudice’ are the two of English literature’s most celebrated and loved stories. In both cases, the theme of the story is love between a young man and women and the lovers are the main characters about which the rest of the cast or characters in the story revolve. Although both are romances, in the literal sense of the word, there are numerous differences between them; this essay intends to examine the similarities and differences between the two works, specifically in the way that the idea of love is presented.

‘Romeo and Juliet’, written by the Stratford-Upon-Avon–born playwright William Shakespeare, was first performed on a London stage around 1594, although the actual date cannot be given for …show more content…

The main character is a young middle-class woman of marriageable age (20 turning 21) called Elizabeth (Lizzy), who is one of five daughters, all of whom are brought up to believe that “a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife”. The second half of this opening sentence of the novel reveals that the “universal truth” that it proclaims is nothing more than a social assumption. When claiming that a single man "must be in want of a wife", Jane Austen reveals that the reverse in also true; a single woman may be in desperate want of a husband. However, being the second daughter in the family, Lizzy is unable to marry in a “respectable” way until her elder sister, Jane, has already done so. She is repelled by the attention of the pompous minister, Mr. Collins; by contrast, she attracted to the youthful, but dangerous, cavalry officer Mr. Wickham. Although mostly a peripheral character to begin with, Mr. Darcy is the best friend of the rich young man, Mr. Bingley, who Jane falls in love with. When their relationship fails to develop as hoped, Darcy is blamed by Lizzy for turning Bingley against her sister. Despite his reservations, which she interprets as arrogance, Darcy is attracted to Lizzy, but she cannot see him as anyone other than “the man who has been the means of ruining, perhaps forever, the happiness of a most beloved sister.” Shocked by her refusal of his offer of

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