Marriage And Love In Mary Poovey's The True English Style

Texts and their adaptations are significant when comparing the paradigms in place in their respective time periods. Throughout history, there has been a drastic change of belief on the importance of marriage. When Frank Churchill, in Emma by Austen, finally announces his hidden engagement to Jane Fairfax, there is a considerable uproar for many reasons. Personally, to Emma, she felt deceived as she thought she was beginning to develop real feelings for Churchill. Although, to everyone else in the town, this engagement was seen as a scandal; particularly as he was seen as much worthier status and finance than his fiancé. Also, this kind of ‘reckless’ behaviour is accentuated by valued character, Mr Knightley, who comments with high modality, “This is very bad. He had induced her to place herself, for his sake, in a situation of extreme difficulty and uneasiness”. With this negative response from the Highbury community,

Jane Austen’s novel 'Emma' and Amy Heckerling’s Clueless, as significant and satirical reflections of Regency England and postmodern America respectively, indicate how the transformation process can shape and improve literacy, intertextual and logical importance. The transformation is evident in the compositions Jane Austen’s ‘Emma’ and Amy Heckerling’s ‘Clueless’ enabling us to investigate the assortment of logical subjects. Regarding ‘Emma’ the perspective throughout the Regency time frame examines the strict values of love and marriage inside the inflexible social hierarchy. Austen’s advances the significance of etiquette throughout the text. Austen reveals a neo-women’s activist perspective, shown in the female protagonist revealing the female protagonists’ scholarly capacity and social equity in an otherwise patriarchal society. However, the close resemblance of the story; ‘Clueless’, Heckerling composition conveys entirely transformed values, reflected through the actions of the current upper-working class of contemporary Los Angeles. The critical analysis of commercialism in the informal social class system of modern America reiterating social expectations of gender and social characterisation within the microcosm of the typical American educational system. The transformation in attitudes of Austen, reveals an exhaustive utilisation of setting, a close examination of dialect and various artistic procedure.

The novel's limited scope of action gives us a strong sense of the confined nature of a woman's existence in early- nineteenth - century rural England. Emma possesses a great deal of intelligence and energy, but the best use she can make of these is to attempt to guide the marital destinies of her friends, a project that gets her into trouble. The alternative pastimes depicted in the book — social visits, charity visits, music, artistic endeavours — seem relatively trivial, at times even

Fay Weldon’s ‘Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen’ (1984) through the form of an epistolic novel, serves to enrich a heightened understanding of the contemporary issues of Jane Austen’s cultural context. In doing so, the responder is inspired to adopt a more holistic appreciation of the roles of women inherent in Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ (1813). Due to the examination of the shift of attitudes and values between the Regency era and the 1980s, the reader comes to better understanding of the conventions of marriage for a women and the role education had in increasing one’s marriage prospects. Weldon’s critical discussion of these issues transforms a modern responder’s understanding of the role of a woman during the 19th century.

Upon a comparative study of the texts Emma and Clueless, we can see that the quality of relationships in society bears strong similarities, despite their different contexts. Emma is set in 16th century England, where the rigid social structure dominated social interaction. This is contrasted to Clueless, which is set in 1990’s Beverly Hills where popularity was integral to determining a relationship. Being integral to modern society, relationships were used as medium to secure wealth and to find purpose in one’s life, in different contexts. Additionally, the restrictive nature of relationships has changed over the course of time despite still existing in a different sense. The strict class based society of the Regency Era limited relationships in Emma while social groups at school dictated the dynamics of relationships in Clueless. However, the popularity of marriages has decreased, with many teens opting to settle with dating before any further commitment. By discussing the different purposes and changes in relationships over the two texts we can develop clear ideas about the quality of relationships in society.

Poovey exhibits a nice pace in her essay by following up her thesis with an immediate example breaking down Emma Woodhouse’s view on marriage and love. Poovey states that Emma’s reluctant nature to marry is her awareness that based off her current social status marriage couldn’t give her anything she already has

England has always had a rich history of interesting cultural traditions but arguably none as prevalent as marriage. Marriage, the union of two people with emotional ideals and expectations, are brought on by many different factors that include: for love, for money, for climbing social status, escapism, survival, etc. In Jane Austen’s novels, she focuses on the importance of marriage in her world because she wanted to emphasize how marriage is the most important life event of a woman as this would determine her place in society. Persuasion shows readers good and bad examples of marriage: the amiable Crofts and other couples such as Sir Walter & Lady Elliot and the Smiths. Jane Austen uses the Crofts to support the importance of marriage

that she is humoured by the idea that every young an who has a large

Through the use of literary devices, Pride and Prejudice reveals Jane Austen’s attitude towards the novel’s theme of true love through the actions of the suitors; the process of courtship in the 1800s articulates characterization, foreshadowing, and irony. The novel opens with the line, “it is a truth acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of wife,” (Austen 1) which foreshadows the conflict of finding a significant other . During the Victorian age, men and women courted others of the same education, wealth, and social status; it was considered uncommon for someone to marry beneath them or to marry for love. Jane Austen uses Elizabeth Bennett’s encounters with different characters of varying

Today marriage is seen as an expression of deep love and respect for another person. In Austen’s time, a ‘good’ marriage was seen to be one where wealth and social status of the man and woman were socially suitable. There was very

In the nineteenth century, the question as to the foundation and purpose of courtship and marriage emanated. The basis for this analysis was whether relationships should be navigated utilizing emotion and feeling or reason and logic. The literary work of Regency era author, Jane Austen, details such a balance, as it endeavors to convey Austen’s interpretation of true affection between couples of well-examined intrinsic morality. The characters of Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice contend with the moral vices of pride and prejudice as they overcome judgements about one another and ultimately experience love.

Examine Austen’s presentation of what is called in the novel, ‘women’s usual occupations of eye, and hand, and mind’. In Jane Austen’s society, the role of women was controlled by what was expected of them. In most cases, marriage was not for love, and was considered as a business arrangement, in which both partners could gain status and financial reassurance. Though Austen opposed the idea of none affectionate marriage, many

Marriage has no always been about the love and happiness two people bring eachother; instead it was concidered to be more of a business transaction. Emma by Jane Austen takes place during the early twentieth century, this time period was completly absorabed in social classes and had a much different view on marriage than today. Through the young, bold, wealthy, and beautiful character Emma Woodhouse, Jane Austen exposes the protocol of marriage as well as the effects marriage held based on social standing during the early twentieth centuery.

Jane Austen’s ideas differed with the patriarchal system of her times. She elicited feminist concepts to contradict of the patriarchal structure; Emma’s first determined not to marry. When Harriet once asked why Emma never thought about marriage, she replied that most women were married because of insufficiently social ranking or money. She certainly had all of these privileges, so she won’t

Jane Austen’s well-known novel, Pride and Prejudice, discussed multiple social themes in the 19th century. Austen mainly criticized marriage during her era, when she says that, “it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife” (Austen 3). As she explains that it was valuable to women since it provided them with security and a social title. The author explored the diverse motives behind matrimony in her time period by using a humorous and romantic plot to discuss the social issues. For instance, Charlotte Lucas’s unreasonable marriage to Mr. Collins is a vital example of how women needed to secure a future and attain social status. To conclude, Lydia Bennet’s meaningless marriage to George Wickham shows that entering the marriage estate could have also been for mainly financial purposes. Contrastingly, Jane Bennet, the heroine’s older sister, marries Charles Bingley for love, security, and a social ranking. On the other hand, Elizabeth Bennet marries Fitzwilliam Darcy after months of misunderstandings and romantic drama for none other than true love. Thus, Austen uses her leading characters’ marriages in Pride and Prejudice to exhibit the various attitudes and reasons for marrying in the 19th century. (Lane 2015)