Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice was published in 1813.From 1809 until her death in 1817 Austen

published four of her major novels. Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice

(1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816). During that time Britain invaded

France after Wellington’s success at Battle of Vitoria. Napoleon was defeated and

exiled to Elba. In 1815 he escapes and is finally defeated at battle of Waterloo and

exiled to St. Helena.

Pride and Prejudice has delighted generations of readers with its unforgettable cast

of characters, carefully choreographed plot and a hugely entertaining view of the

world and its absurdities. With the arrival of eligible young men in their

neighborhood, the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet and their five daughters are turned

inside out and upside down. Pride encounters prejudice, upward-mobility confronts

social disdain, and quick-wittedness challenges sagacity, as misconceptions and hasty

judgements lead to heartache and scandal but eventually to true understanding, self-

knowledge and love. In this supremely satisfying story, Jane Austen balances

comedy with seriousness and with observation with profound insight. If Elizabeth

Bennet returns again and again to her letter from Mr. Darcy, readers of the novel are

drawn even more irresistibly by its captivating wisdom.

The careful pairing of characters produces contrasting perceptions of the action as

Jane’s tranquil temperament is set off by Elizabeth’s witty intelligence, Bingley’s

general sociability and by Darcy’s reserve and discrimination.

The Bennets (the couple) offer endless entertainment with their well-timed

disagreements. Later in the novel we learn that Mr. Bingley had married a woman

whose weak understanding and illiberal mind, had very early in their marriage put an

end to all real affection for her.

Mrs. Bennet’s “business” may be matrimonial ambition, but it is a business

complicated by emotional ties, self-perception and personal experience. Marriage has

brought her status and material comfort but no long-term security. Her obsession with

finding suitable husbands may thus be driven partly by a desire for permanence. Mr.

Bennet’s marital experience, on the other hand, has led to a rather more cautious

attitude towards his daughter’s suitors.

For example Mr. Collins proposal offers an answer to Mrs. Bennet anxieties of her life

(a husband for one of her five daughters and thus a preserver of the family home). For

Mr. Bennet, the young man presents a threat to the lifelong happiness of his favorite

child: ”An unhappy alternative is before you Elizabeth. From this day you must be a

stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not

marry Mr. Collins and I will never see you again if you do”. With Darcy things are

very different: ”Lizzy…what are you doing? Are you out of your senses, to be

accepting this man?”……………

and as he articulates these anxieties, his own experience seems to ring in the

background: ”I know that you could be neither happy nor respectable, unless you truly

esteemed your husband; unless you looked up to him as a superior”

Lady Catherine, like Mr. Bennet is alarmed by the prospect of Darcy marrying

Elizabeth. Like Mr. Bennet, she apposes the match on the grounds of its inequality.

But where Lady Catherine regards equality purely as, a question of rank and status,

Mr. Bennet’s scale of values is based on intelligence, vivacity and good humour. The

letter from Mr. Darcy provokes a range of feelings to Elizabeth: Amazement, anger,

pain, apprehension, even horror gradually give way to embarrassment, humiliation,

and regret. Anyone who has gone along with the notion that the pride highlighted in

the title of the novel is embodied in Darcy now has to contend with the discovery that

both this quality and its pair are being attributed to Elizabeth: she who has “pride”

herself on her discernment has it seems been “blind, partial, prejudiced, absurd”. At

this crucial point the central character is left bewildered but even more fascinatingly

human:”Till this moment, I never knew myself”. Once again, truth becomes evident

as existing. Knowledge dissolves; and from the midst of the ensuing confusion comes

clarity. Mr. Darcy’s love is evidently “a real, strong attachment”.

OTHER WRITERS OF THE SAME AGE

The play of Friedrich Shiller was revolutionary for that period of time because in

almost half of them he turned against the countiers by showing to their world their

intrigues, with which they created the criminal life of the world. Some of his

characteristic novels are "The conspiracy of Fiesko" and "Sobeme and Love". Beside

these he also wrote some novels with subjects inspired from the highly artistic area

like "Mary Steward" and "Don Carlos".

Johann Wolfang Goethe dedicated some of his work to the Ancient Greek

civilization because he was a fun of the ancient times. He also wrote plenty of poems

and novels with subjects from his personal life like "Journey to Italy" and "Gets van

Berlichigen". However, his most important play which he finished a year before his

death, was "Faust". Faust splits into two pieces. Goethe wrote this play because he

wanted to do something different, something that hadn't exist before and for this he

combined physics, religion and above all the supernatural element and created this.

Although Denis Diderot was taught everything by clergymen, he spread in all lot

his plays the spirit of Illumination atheist and materialist himself again superstition

and religionism. That's why he was a big fan of the effort for the "Encycoplaedia" to

be written after all.

Sir Walter Scott was one of the most important writers off all times. His plays

referred to the dans, which were created in Scotland and were like something unlous,

which had a huge impact to people. The main subject was the hiastorical and social

background of that age.

"Jane Austen"

Jane Austen was born on 16th December in 1775 in Stevendon, England. She was the

seventh child of the eight-children family. Her father, George , was a priest and her

mother, Cassandra Leigh, had a father who was a priest too. Jane had lived with her

family in Stevendon for the first 25 years of her life, where she learned the French and

Italian language and also her father taught her music and encouraged her to practice.

Moreover, in her leasure time she used to take part in theatrical plays with her family

as she loved to write her own theatrical plays. The latest years of her life, she was

influenced by her disease, from which she died in 1817. She had never got married

although she had a lot of proposals and she accepted only one but she changed her

mind the next day. Her quiet and strict life was enough in order to start writing and

influenced the themes of her stories. The plot of most of her books was the daily grind

of the people in England. One of her unique abilities waqs her careful and humouristic

way of presenting with every detail the life of the characters in her books. Her works

underline the dependence of women who are married in order to gain wealth and

social status. It is important to state that she wroteher books anonymously and her

books had a few positive commentaries. When a book about her life was released by

her nephew in 1870 she became known. Many films and TV series are based on her

books.

SUMMARY OF PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

The novel opens with the Bennet family in Longbourn, England and their five

unmarried daughters. The family is not rich and that's why Mrs Bennet is intends to

see her daughters married to wealthy men. When Charles Bingley arrives in nearby

Netherfield Park with his friend Mr Darcy she is excited by the prospect of

introducing her daughters to Mr Bingley. When they meet, Bingley is attracted to Jane

Bennet, the oldest of the five sisters. Darcy is proud and rude and he criticizes the

appearance of the second sister Elizabeth but as the time goes on they become closer.

Soon after, Bingley and Darcy depart for London announcing to June that they have

no intention of returning to Netherfield and that Bingley will marry another woman.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth meets Mr Wicknam. However, Wicknam soon takes up with

another woman and Elizabeth after the careful warnings of her family livew him. Jane

goes to stay in London, trying to see Mr Bingley but she is rebuced for even letting

him know she is in London and she slowly begins to accept the rejection. Elizabeth

goes to visit her friends and there runs into Darcy again who proposes marriage to her.

She flatly refuses citing his treatment concerning Jane and stating other

misunderstandings that have happened. He, however, gives her a letter explaining that

Jane had seemed largely indifferent to Bingley, so he warned against the match.

Elizabeth begins to believe him but he leaves for London again. She returns home

only to find that her sister Lydia will go to Brighton for vacation. Then, Elizabeth

spends a summer vacation in Pemberley where she once again runs into Darcy. Most

of his bad traits that she had disliked before seem to have vanished now. She is,

however, called back home quickly when it is reveciled that Lydia has run off with

Wicknam. Everyone is searching for them until Darcy finds them and helps to pay the

dowry for Wicknam to take Lydia in marriage, an act that impresses Elizabeth.

Bingley reappears in Netherfield Park for a short while and resumes courting Jane.

Darcy returns himself and reproposes to Elizabeth who now accepts. Jane and Bingley

are engaged before Elizabeth's engagement. The two are married. Bingley and Jane

move to Derbyshire while Elizabeth and Darcy live together in Pemberley. The novel

ends with everyone trying to get along after so many insults and poor relations.