Jane Austen 's Pride And Prejudice
1766 WordsOct 17, 20158 Pages
The social world of Jane Austen’s, Pride and Prejudice is one in which women’s rights were limited due to society’s patriarchal point of view. In Jane Austen’s world, women suffered on the account of their gender in a class pretension society making it only possible to increase social mobility through the mean of marriage. Austen depicts marriage as an economical business, needed to rescue women from succumbing to a life of poverty and disgrace. In a society that affirm the principle values of marriage as a social institution, Austen shows the many sides of marriage and satirizes marriage that base love on appearances, wealth and class by showing that it only leads to shame, unhappiness, and misery while true love leads to happiness and…show more content… Beginning with the ironic statement that a successful single man needs a wife reflects the mindset of some women who want to marry a man and who believe they know a man better than he knows himself. The satirical relationship of the Bennet’s, the Gardiners and the Lucas relationship becomes the backdrop to the romance of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy’s relationship as a tool of mocking societal ideal of marriage.
Mrs. Bennet best demonstrates the obsession in the novel. She spends most of her time looking for newcomers in the city: “the business of her life was to get her daughter married” (4). In her youth, Mrs. Bennet had beauty and Mr. Bennet was captivated by it. Now that Mr. Bennet youth has fades and her beauty gone, Mr. Bennet feels a lack of companionship. Mr. Bennet married his wife based on her physical appearance, which overshadowed her lack of intelligents. Mrs. Bennet cannot talk intelligently to her husband, being busy with balls, fashions and the glorifying her daughters’ beauty. Mrs. Bennet’s extra attention and affection toward Jane and her “handsomeness” show the similarity that resides between the two: their love based on attractiveness. Mr. Bennet’s comment on Wickham as “his favorite [son-in-law]", reinforces the parallelism (248). Furthermore, the continuous bickering and disagreement between the Bennets regarding their consent to their daughters’ marriage to wealthy