Pride and Prejudice
- Novel
- social realism
What It’s About
The Romantic Comedy Model
Jane Austen’s popular novel Pride and Prejudice is an inversion of the classic love-at-first-sight cliche: Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet meet at a ball. Darcy isn’t amused; Elizabeth detests him immediately. Only after a slew of misunderstandings and a triumphant victory over pride and prejudices, do the two of them finally fall in love. Austen paints a detailed portrait of society in her place and time. She brings into sharp focus the limited world of the English landed gentry and merchant class in the Georgian period at the start of the 19th century – targeting the hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness of her contemporaries with wit and irony. Yet, she also shows a great deal of empathy for the desperate situation of women whose only chance in life was to marry well. Austin, a clergyman’s daughter, faced this dilemma herself. She never married. Jane, her widowed mother and her sister lived in strained circumstances. Finally, she found security in her brother’s home, where she could write, though she was not known as an author until after her death. Her charming works have provided the blueprint for many of today’s romantic comedies, rivaled only by Shakespeare’s plays as a source of popular entertainment. This unique achievement is testimony to how well she mastered superbly entertaining her readers.
Summary
About the Author
Jane Austen was born in Seventon, Hampshire, on December 16, 1775. She was the seventh child of rector George Austen and his wife Cassandra. Jane and her elder sister Cassandra, with whom she had a close relationship, received a basic education for five years and then continued to educate themselves through ample reading in their father’s extensive library, as well as learning painting and piano. Jane began to write at the youthful age of 12. In this period, she developed numerous early works. Between 1795 and 1799, she began the initial versions of her novels which were published more than a decade later after a number of revisions. Her contemporaries described the young Jane as an avid dancer and theater lover. While having a few suitors, she didn’t seem to be particularly interested in marriage, remaining single like Cassandra. When their father died in 1805, the sisters and their mother became financially dependent on Jane’s brothers. They moved repeatedly between Bath, London, Clifton, Warwickshire and Southampton, and briefly stayed with various relatives. In 1809, the three women finally settled in Chawton village, Hampshire, where they lived in a large cottage. Stability reawakened Jane’s creative forces. She prepared Sense and Sensibility (1811) as well as Pride and Prejudice (1813) for publication. In 1814, she released Mansfield Park, followed by Emma in 1816. At this point, Austen was a widely-read, albeit anonymous, author. She died at 41 on July 18, 1817, possibly of Addison’s disease, the cause of which is unknown and which was untreatable at the time. Her novels Persuasion and Northanger Abbey were published posthumously in 1818. Only then did Jane’s brother Henry make the authorship of all six works publicly known.
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