MARGINALISED LITERATURE – FEMINIST WRITINGS

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE by Jane Austen

          One of the world's most popular novels, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice has delighted readers since its publication with the story of the witty Elizabeth Bennet and her relationship with the aristocrat Fitzwilliam Darcy. Similar to Austen's other works, Pride and Prejudice is a humorous portrayal of the social atmosphere of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century England, and it is principally concerned with courtship rituals of the English gentry. The novel is much more than a comedic love story, however through Austen's subtle and ironic style, it addresses economic, political, feminist, sociological, and philosophical themes, inspiring a great deal of diverse critical commentary on the meaning of the work.

          Jane Austen, the author of Pride and Prejudice, holds feminist views and uses the novel to show her opinions about women’s issues. Pride and Prejudice is a personal essay, a statement of Jane Austen’s feelings about the perfect lady, marriage, and the relationship between the sexes. Jane Austen’s characters, plot, and dialogue are biased to reflect her beliefs. The biased process and importance of marriage are introduced with the first line of the novel. Jane Austen writes, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering the neighborhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.

          This implies that the man wants a wife and the woman is not in a place to turn him down. The man becomes her claim, and for him she fights with other women. It seems as if women are plentiful and men are rare. The man has freedom and the option to choose any girl that he wants, while the women are desperate and fight for whichever man they can get. Jane Austen points this out and shows how dependent the woman is on a man in her English society. This dependence is viewed as a necessary part of upper class England by most and was not criticized. If Jane Austen had written a book simply about English society, these sentiments would not have showed up. The fact that they are introduced and expressed again and again in Pride and Prejudice means that Jane Austen held feminist ideals and expressed them in this piece of writing.