Essay Pride and Prejudice Minor Character - Charlotte

Austen compares Elizabeth and Jane to show how differently they are viewed by society. Austin shows that simply being pretty, patient and kind does not guarantee happiness. While Jane was tortured awaiting Mr. Bingely, Elizabeth was chasing her own happiness. Elizabeth wasn’t the prettiest or the sweetest, but certainly was no damsel in distress. Lizzy broke through the restraints of a proper, societal woman in which her sister followed to a tee.

Elizabeth Bennet and Charlotte Collins in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice epitomize the two type of women of the era. Elizabeth is strong willed, independent, and wants to marry for love. Charlotte is the opposite. She is easily swayed by a man’s pocket and uses marriage as a way to move up in social status. Elizabeth and Charlotte are foils of each other.

Elizabeth becomes acquainted with and attracted to a young officer named Wickham who tells her of how he and Darcy used to live under the same house because the late Darcy was his guardian. Wickham explains that Darcy cruelly cheated him out an inheritance. This information makes Elizabeth despise Darcy’s character even more than before. Meanwhile, Mrs. Bennet eagerly waits for Mr. Bingley to visit them like he said he would, however, Jane suddenly receives a letter in the mail from Miss Bingley informing her that the Bingleys and Darcy have returned to London for the winter. Jane is sad but does her best to hide it. Meanwhile another shock arrives for Elizabeth when Charlotte Lucas tells her that she is engaged to Mr. Collins. Charlotte explains that she is getting old and needs security and a comfortable home and that she is not looking for love in a marriage. Elizabeth does not believe that Charlotte will be happy but agrees to visit her and Mr. Collins after they are married. Jane travels to London with her aunt and uncle, the Gardiners, to get away from the family and the countryside and also in hopes that she will see Mr. Bingley. However, Miss Bingley visits her and behaves very rudely, reassuring Jane that Miss Bingley never intended to be her friend in the first place, and that her friendship with Mr. Bingley is beginning to look very unfortunate. Later in the spring, Elizabeth visits her best friend Charlotte Lucas, who is now known as Mrs.

This stands in stark contrast to what Miss Elizabeth Bennett wants. Mrs Bennett wants her daughters to marry because it’s thea only way for them to solidfy that they will have food on their plates and a roof over their head. Mr. Collins is Mr. Bennetts brother and is set to inherit his estate when he dies. He comes to visit in the middle of the book and his main intentions are to ask on of the daughters to marry him and to observe what he will in time own. Mrs. Bennett says in response to all this “Oh! Single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousnd a year. What a fine thing for our girls!” (57, Austen) The single man she speaks of his Mr. Collins, the Bennett kids uncle. Austen describes Mr. Collins as a self retious kind of man who thinks he is above the Benntt’s just because he is set to inherrit their estate. This gives him a villeness quality. Austen is commenting on the blindness of Mrs. Bennett to the qualitys of Marraige. She only shes Mr. Collins as money but Elizabeth sees him as a bad person to spend the rest of her life with and theirfore turns down his marraige purposal. Which causes trouble between her and her mother. This is the best example of the contrast in what the two women see as the meaning of Marriage.

Most importantly, due to his religious duty. As she told her friend, Elizabeth, about accepting a proposal from Mr. Collins, Elizabeth full of of shock replied, “Engaged to Mr. Collins! My dear Charlotte, -- impossible” (Austen, 122). Elizabeth’s shock is because she believed he would not be the right person for her. However, Tony Tanner agrees that Charlotte views her marriage strictly as a “preservative from want” (Bloom, 66). This symbolizes Charlotte marries Collins because she did not want to be a load for her family especially her mother who went through difficulties to find her a mate Marrying Collins helps Charlotte than it did for him because she received advantages such as financial, security, and unburden to her family as well as getting a higher rank. She coldly admits to Elizabeth, “…I am not romantic, you know; I never was. I ask only a comfortable home; and considering Mr. Collins 's character, connection, and situation in life, I am convinced that my chance of happiness with him is as fair as most people can boast on entering the marriage state" (Austen, 123). Charlotte’s train of thought is Mr. Collins is her last option of marriage to have her own life instead of living with her parents. Their marriage is based on societal norms and she agrees to marry him, even with the knowledge that they have different personalities. She marries Collin in disregards of her self-respect and his undurable personality.

“... [N]o sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she hardly had a good feature in her face, then he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying. Though he had detected with a critical eye more than one failure of perfect symmetry in her form, he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and pleasing; and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those of the fashionable world, he was caught by their easy playfulness” (Ch. 6). In the early nineteenth century, women were seen as objects of marriage to their male counterparts, only if they were considered wealthy and agreeable to society’s standards. In the novel Pride and Prejudice, the reader sees the main character, Elizabeth Bennet, as a paradox to this concept of how women were supposed to be. Throughout the entirety of the novel, Jane Austen portrays early nineteenth century ideals that society standardized in a satirical manner through Elizabeth’s defiance of them.

The families of Elizabeth and Charlotte play a very important part in their lives, and in the prospect of their future companions. Elizabeth’s family are more prone to exposing themselves and being ridiculous , and it is partly down to her family that Mr. Darcy is so adamant on Mr. Bingley not marrying her sister Jane. However, unlike her family, Elizabeth is socially graceful, sensitive and conscious of her appearance in the eyes of others. This leads to her acute awareness of the social failing of some members of her family, particularly her mother and youngest sister.

The marriage of Charlotte Lucas and Mr Collins is one that Austen sees as an average one.  It is similar to some of those at the time.  It is most certainly a marriage of convenience.  Charlotte is very cynical about marriage and love.  She believes that "happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance" Jane Austen criticises Charlotte's lack of romance and idealism, through Elizabeth but underlying that we know she understands her motives for marriage. Charlotte also says that a woman must let a man know that she's interested to make sure she snags him.  She advises Elizabeth that Jane does this to ensure a marriage to Bingley.  Charlotte is obviously not speaking from experience, because at 27 year old, she is practically an old maid and on the shelf.  Nobody wants her, and soon she will be forced to become a governess if she can't find a husband soon.

  In her novel, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen portrays Elizabeth Bennet as "strong and intelligent, yet bewitching in a completely feminine way". Elizabeth's possession of these attributes: strength of character and moral integrity, great intelligence, and an attractive personality, make her an admirable person. Yet Elizabeth has faults, which makes her more human. Austen's portrayal of Elizabeth is realistic and masterful, often juxtaposing her with characters lacking her attributes to heighten our appreciation of her.

is like no other woman in the book or indeed of her time and by

Charlotte Lucas did not marry Mr. Collins because it was her only choice, she married him because she had the choice to do the right thing. In this novel, Jane Austen considers what it means to have a “good marriage” in the 19th century. Marrying into a good family and to someone with a steady income are some of the things that parents want for their children when they grow up. Charlotte Lucas has modern views on marriage for the time when the book was written which can be considered in the following lines: “Charlotte’s marriage was the outcome of a deliberate “scheme” carried along by anxiety about her economic future and a conviction that marriage was a social necessity for young women” (Page?#). Charlotte acknowledges that because she is

In some novels, women either have a trivial role or contribute to the overall meaning of the work. In some fashion, women have an obvious or underlying hand in the grand scheme of the storyline. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is centered around the character of Elizabeth Bennet. Elizabeth’s character in itself is the embodiment of independence and non-conformity. In every aspect and trait of Elizabeth’s being, she constantly goes against the grain of what society perceives to be proper and correct. Through the use of Elizabeth’s appearance, adherence to social status, and concept of marriage, Jane Austen paints a character that has enough strong-will to challenge the strict social rules.

Charlotte is a neighbour and friend of Elizabeth, who is older and unmarried at the beginning of the story. She is simple in her values and does not question a women's role in society. Charlotte's main achievement in the story occurred when she was able to secure a proposal of marriage from Mr. Collins after he had been rejected by Elizabeth, who asked why she accepted. Charlotte explained "I am not a romantic you know. I never was. I only ask for a comfortable home; considering Mr Collins's character, connections, situation in life, I am convinced that my chance of happiness with him is fair, as most people can boast on entering a marriage state" By this Charlotte is questioning Elizabeth's values, believing she is over her head in her ideas. She is simply happy with what she has been dealt

The woman that achieves all of this is the perfect lady. The perfect lady is representative of the times, and Jane Austen exploits this socalled perfection to show that her society was quite the opposite when it came to the lives of women. The perfect lady was a categorization. It made the women have to be a certain person. They had to conform. ?A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, all the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner or walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved (35).? A woman herself, Miss Bingley, made this statement. Not only did women have no free will, but they were the ones that supported conformity. This did not apply to all women, but to the perfect ladies, one of which Miss Bingley is implied to be. Jane Austen juxtaposes the perfect lady and Miss Bingley in order to show that the perfect lady is really a shallow-minded conformist. With characters like Miss Bingley, Austen creates a resentment for the accomplished lady generalization in the reader?s head. This makes the reader dislike the highlight of English society, realize it?s sexism in restricting women?s free will, and favor characters that are vessels for feminist notions, such as

Elizabeth’s snobbish pride hinders her from understanding her friend Charlotte Lucas’s best interests in regard to her desire to marry Mr. Collins. Elizabeth “prides herself on being a perceptive “studier of character,” as Mr. Bingley calls her, but how well does she really know her very good friend Charlotte…” when she “responds with amazement and horror” upon hearing that Charlotte wants to marry a man who is “dull”, “pompous” and “physically unattractive”. Elizabeth’s excessive pride blinds her from recognizing that Charlotte is “not much interested in men and very much interested in marriage” (Moler, 26). Elizabeth could have ruined the prospects of Charlotte’s marriage because of her self-importance in the way she