The effective depiction of realistic settings is essential to the success of Pride and Prejudice. This particular description is that of Hunsford Parsonage,

Authors Avatar

The effective depiction of realistic settings is essential to the success of Pride and Prejudice.

This passage (Hunsford Parsonage) of Pride and Prejudice is quite uncharacteristic of Austen, seeing as it is one of the few instances when she actually describes setting in the novel. This particular description is that of Hunsford Parsonage, where Mr Collins and Charlotte Lucas have made their home after getting married. Although she does use some description, Austen creates a microcosm of Mr Collins and Charlotte’s marriage through the description; neat and convenient, effective in a sense that it gives the description of setting more of an allegorical meaning.

Austen creates anticipation for the description of the Parsonage mainly through other characters’ reactions. Elizabeth is said to have found ‘the prospect of her northern tour’ a ‘constant source of delight’ and ‘Every eye was in search of the Parsonage’, ‘every’ being repeated as a superlative to increase excitement for perhaps a more vivid and astounding description of the parsonage itself. However, there are hints of the darker and perhaps slightly more sinister aspect of Hunsford; the ‘paling of Rosings Park was their boundary’ is mentioned, the sharp spikes of the paling possibly representing the rigidity of their marriage, and the boundary representing their isolation. In addition, it is mentioned that ‘at length the parsonage was discernable’, showing how far they had to travel just in order to reach it, again depicting their remoteness from society. The darker aspect of the setting is also shown in the description of the narrator’s house in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’. The narrator describes the house as a ‘colonial mansion’ and a ‘haunted house’, perhaps a way of both authors showing how the life of a perfect housewife in the 1800’s was not the brightest and happiest. Charlotte Perkins-Gilman also presents to idea of isolation in the narrator’s description of setting, seeing as she mentions the ‘gates that lock’, ‘hedges and walls’, ‘box-bordered paths’ as well as the fact it is ‘three miles from the village’, showing the narrator’s isolation from society in a similar way to Mr Collins and Charlotte Lucas.

Join now!

The smallness and neatness of the Parsonage is particularly emphasized in this passage. The carriage stopped at a ‘small gate’ which led by a ‘short gravel walk’ to the house and Mr Collins even points out the ‘neatness of the entrance’. The prominence of the minuteness of the house could be a way of Austen presenting how both Mr Collins and Charlotte are small minded in their approach to society and marriage, seeing financial security as the main reason of marriage. The fact that Mr Collins has to point out the neatness and ‘punctually’ repeat all his wife’s offers of ...

This is a preview of the whole essay