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Pride and Prejudice
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Pride and Prejudice

London, 1813

Literary Classic

  • 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

First Impressions

Mrs. Bennet has a problem: She has five daughters of marriageable age, but no dowry for any of them. Therefore, she’s glad to hear that a nearby property, Netherfield, has, at last, been rented. The new tenant is a young unmarried gentleman, Charles Bingley, who turns out to be a great catch. He is attractive, polite, open-minded and wealthy. At a ball, the local ladies jealously stand by as he lavishes attention on Jane, the oldest and most beautiful of the five Bennet sisters. His friend Fitzwilliam Darcy arouses mixed emotions: admiration at first, followed by aversion, since the tall, dark-haired man offends the locals with his arrogant, mocking ways. He dances only with Bingley’s female relations and disparages Elizabeth, the second oldest Bennet sister, speaking so loudly that she inevitably overhears him.

Mrs. Bennet tries everything to match her eldest with Mr. Bingley. When his sisters invite Jane for dinner, the mother arranges for her daughter to go from their home in Longbourn to Netherfield on horseback, instead of lending her their carriage. She hopes...

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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