preview

Satire Of Jane Austen 's Pride And Prejudice

Better Essays
Open Document

One of the most notable aspects of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, is the use of satire as a way to comment on English society in the 19th century. Austen’s satirical approach to analyzing societal norms gives the novel a comedic and lighthearted tone, while also educating the reader on faults in the social class in which she was raised. Mrs. Bennet and Mr. Collins serve as satirical objects of the society Pride and Prejudice depicts and are crucial in portraying Austen’s view on conventional attitudes towards marriage and women. Austen establishes her satirical view of these characters in the first line of the novel. The narrator states, "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” (p.1). The plot of the novel surrounds this societal assumption and provides a medium for author Jane Austen to critique society. In the classic novel of Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen uses satire as a way to critique the role of women and marriage. Jane Austen chooses to satirize Mr. Collins in order to comment on the misguided purpose of marriage. Mr. Collins exemplifies this in his proposal to Elizabeth Bennet. In his proposal, Mr. Collins says haughtily, “‘My situation in life, my connections with the family of de Bourgh, and my relationship to your own, are circumstances highly in my favour; and you should take it into further consideration, that in spite of your manifold attractions, it is by no means certain

Get Access