Elizabeth Bennet
Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice follows a linear story from Elizabeth Bennet, the protagonist. The primary conflict revolves around her struggle to find a suitable husband. Despite her lack of self-awareness and social conventions creating barriers, she meets several antagonists who create barriers between her and a happy marriage. Readers can classify the antagonists into two groups.
The first group of antagonists is the characters who try to prevent Darcy’s marriage to Elizabeth, especially Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Miss Bingley. The second group of antagonists is characters who threaten Elizabeth’s future happiness by trying to persuade her to marry the wrong man. They include Mr. Collins trying to convince Elizabeth to accept a marriage that will never be satisfied; Mrs. Bennett does not understand the kind of marriage her daughter wants.
She also considered Elizabeth to have lowered her standards. At such a moment, Elizabeth is the antagonist in the story. Her incompetence and stubbornness in understanding that Darcy would be a perfect match distance her from her goal of happiness. First, Austen publishes the book in three volumes. In the first volume, the initial events focus on Jane’s crush on Bingley.
Subplots
It chronicles Darcy’s interactions with Elizabeth and his gradual attraction to the function as a secondary incident; the major conflict centers on whether Bingley and Jane will ever be able to marry. Because the sister’s Darcy and Bingley are determined to keep them apart, the other quarrel arises when Mr. Collins starts pursuing Elizabeth. Forcedly, she refuses him. Both conflicts provide a final resolution in the first volume.
The ending ends when the Bingleys leave Netherfield to return to London, and Mr. Collins accepts defeat and marries Charlotte Lucas. In the plot, the moment marks a low point. The Bennet sisters didn’t have much chance at marriage; most people marry for status and money. Lucidly, the main plot of Elizabeth’s path to marriage intersects closely with the subplots. It focuses on the love lives of other female characters.
The ascending story focuses on a possible match between Darcy and Elizabeth. Elizabeth’s visit to Mr. Collins and Charlotte creates new opportunities for her to interact with Mr. Darcy. It made him propose to her. Roughly speaking, the proposal takes place in the middle of the story and serves as the climax of the attraction Darcy has been trying to resist since he first met Elizabeth.
Focus Shifts
Her rejection of his proposal paralleled her previous rejection of Mr. Collins. At such a point, Elizabeth believes that Darcy is a bad guy. She would not accept marriage to a man she didn’t love. Intensively, no matter what he offers her, Elizabeth and Darcy’s relationship storyline increases after she rejects him. It makes him reveal new information and question his perception of himself.
The plot discloses the growing affection between Elizabeth and Darcy, giving birth to a new conflict as Lydia’s elopement. The story’s focus shifts to Jane’s storyline after the narrative concludes Lydia’s storyline. After Reuniting with Bingley, she quickly became engaged. It resolves a conflict that has been going on since the beginning of the book. In the final strife, the plot explores Lady de Bourgh’s attempt to prevent Elizabeth from marrying Darcy.
With the characters finally overcoming all odds, the climax occurs when Darcy proposes a second time until Elizabeth accepts him. In short, Pride and Prejudice were influential in showing that domestic struggles and everyday events can be as exciting as more sensational stories. In the same way, we experience events like characters without special narrative techniques. The structure helps make the events in the book relatable.
Consensus of Interpretations
Titled First Impressions at first, Pride and Prejudice is the second of four novels Austen published during her lifetime. Despite those who have criticized the book for its lack of historical context, the character’s existence within a social bubble where events outside seldom penetrate depicts the closed social world in which the author lives. With satire and unwavering accuracy and with all his narrow prejudices and pride, Austen describes such a world.
At the same time, she puts at its center as her prime actor and most critical perspective. Characters we understand readers so well can’t quite grip onto the story and hope for a happy ending. Ultimately, Austen’s novels remain popular because of Elizabeth and the enduring appeal to women and men of the love stories Austen tells so well. It may seem only astute at such times to question the usefulness of description or its essential validity in the face of a long-standing consensus of interpretations.
However, all expositions and their derivatives denote a sociological abstraction, a tradition, a set of laws, or an institution. In reverse, Austen referred to society as having a very different meaning.
Undermining Society
In such examples, society has no connection with traditions, laws, or conventions. Likewise, social does not mean of or relating to social institutions but friendly or gregarious. Apart from abstractions, society always suggested to Austen the presence of other individuals with whom it was a pleasure or a duty to associate. We can object that criticism has no limitations on its universal city vocabulary.
However, Austen never used irony, proving to be one of the most practical terms in describing its quality of sight. In such cases, the sociological definition of society has the effect of disinfecting Austen’s books a little too thoroughly. She further eliminates the complex meaning of the social life that people live. In Austen’s critique, we emphasize the bitter and powerful feelings of others. In reality, it was too much and led to an essentially false image of the writer as a silent rebel with an unspoken hatred of society.
Despite such criticism exaggerating the case, it has the beneficial effect of reminding the reader that Austen wrote as a private individual in publicity circles. Ignoring or undermining the sense of social life, especially about other people, means missing something important in any book.
Societal Code
In Pride and Prejudice‘s case, an important historical dimension of the book is not simply lost. The abstraction of society has led to a fundamental misunderstanding of the writer’s dialectic. There is a tendency in discussions about culture and individuality when allocating Darcy and Elizabeth as the term’s representatives. Then, Elizabeth expresses respect, impulsiveness, and energy towards personal achievement that characterizes individualism.
On the other hand, Darcy represents an established social or societal code with early family connections and a sense of decency. If society was not for Austen so much against the individual as it is composed of them, she could justify them in turning such established associations on their heads. Elizabeth’s values are primarily social, gregarious, and apt in representing what she understands society; it is Darcy whose wisdom, privacy, and reserves protect the individual.
What is significant, however, is that the issues in Pride and Prejudice are much more localized and abstract than we sometimes suggest. They relate to nothing less than the personal conditions of existence in the small-town world of three or more country families that Austen is happy to explain. For example, Emma—another novel from Austen—explores a society of claims, not just, as the book learns.
Integrity, Love, and Respect
Heavy jokes and old news repetition may be the only enjoyment left to Mrs. Bates and her mother’s likes. However, the quality of society depends on the willingness of those with superior intellectual and moral qualifications to contribute to a sound. It is responsible for generosity and sanity. There are limits to sociability and sociability inherent in highly confined small-town life. Finally, as a whole, we get the plainest view of what we might call the dialectic of social participation in Austen’s books, including Pride and Prejudice.
However, Elizabeth considered herself to have very high standards of integrity; she is often disappointed and frustrated with she sees other people behaving that way. She complained bitterly to her sister that the more she saw the world, the more dissatisfied she was with it. Every day, Elizabeth confirms her beliefs about the inconsistency of all human characters. Elizabeth behaved in a way she considered consistent with her definition of integrity by refusing to marry Mr. Darcy and Mr. Collins.
Despite the pressures of achieving economic security, she thinks it is momentous to marry only men she respects and loves. At the end of the book, Lizzy’s commitment to integrity pays off.
Overcoming Class Boundaries
She married a partner who would make her happy. Besides realizing that she can be too judgmental and rigid too quickly, she initially misunderstands Darcy and Wickham’s ethics and character. The book supports the crucial role of integrity in society. However, it also reminds us not to be too quick to judge who doesn’t have it and who doesn’t. Integrity reflects the nature of life that governs the middle class strictly.
Society strictly draws class lines; The Bennets can socialize with the upper-class Darcys and Bingleys, who are middle class. They are their social inferiors, and Austen herself insinuates such class consciousness. For instance, she satirized the character Mr. Collins often spent most of his time in obedience to his high-class patron, Lady Catherine. Despite offering extreme examples, he is not the only one with such views.
Mr. Darcy adheres to the conception of the importance of class, believing in the dignity of his lineage. His sights are explicit and extreme. However, the insinuation from Mr. Collins, more subtly Austen, directs all conceptions and social hierarchies to the truth. Austen shows the power of happiness and love in overcoming prejudice and class boundaries.
Discrepancies
As such, it implies that such prejudice is unproductive, callous, and empty. The entire discussion we have to make with the understanding that people often criticize Austen as a classist. She truly represents anyone from the lower classes. However, she criticized the class structure even though it was only a tiny part of the structure. Austen’s ironic style is foremost in the book for many reasons.
The manner adds interest and passion to relatively painless plot events. However, the ironic yet witty way of writing Pride and Prejudice has always been an utmost part of its appeal. Therefore, an appreciation of the author’s style is principal for an appreciation of the book. However, characters in novels often misinterpret behavior and events, and such confusion tends to occur due to frequent discrepancies between actual and literal meanings.
Bibliography
- Brownstein, R. (2011). Why Jane Austen?. In Why Jane Austen?. Columbia University Press.
- Newton, J. L. (1978). Pride and Prejudice: Power, Fantasy, and Subversion in Jane Austen. Feminist studies, 4(1), 27-42.
- Page, N. (2013). The Language of Jane Austen. Routledge.
- Sherry, J. (1979). Pride and Prejudice: The Limits of Society. Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, 19(4), 609-622.
