Jane Austen focuses her novel on the middle class people at the time and the role of women within that particular society. This is probably because she is middle class and she knew what other people and herself thought about the issue; therefore she focused her novel on them. Although Elizabeth is the main character, there are many other important women in the novel. The Bennet sisters represent a typical middle class family at the time. The mother is trying to get her daughters to marry rich men and Elizabeth thinks that the idea is wrong, hence she is representing Jane Austin’s opinions and ideas.
A woman’s role in the time of Jane Austen’s time was considered to be more concerned with domestic than public life. The men at the time sort of owned the women, this meaning that the men felt as though they were more important than the female, therefore, more dominant than the woman. They had the money and they decided whom to marry. Men owned everything and all the women wanted to marry men with money because that is all that they wanted. Her father or husband directed a woman’s role and they could not inherit money. When the novel was published, many people thought that women didn’t have their own individual opinions but this novel proved them wrong.
Women’s education at the time was also inferior to that of men. They were not allowed to go out by themselves and they had to be accompanied. This happened throughout their life as they were chosen by a man to be his wife and so they had to be. Also, middle class women couldn’t wear fancy clothing or anything and not a lot of make up. The excitement of getting at the time was incredible. Almost every woman wanted to get married as quickly as possible to the richest man they could find. This would ensure they’re financial state in the future and Jane Austen’s novel demonstrated this within the Bennet family. Jane Austen is critical in the novel of the role of women and her view is given by the character Elizabeth Bennt. Although her sisters portray the stereotypical view of women at the time, Elizabeth is the opposite.
The role of women in society was often inferior to that of men. Jane Austen criticises the stereotypical view of women a lot. A lot of women in the novel who aren’t so intelligent, all want to get married to rich men and what she is trying to say is that women at the time who married for money were stupid and didn’t know the difference between right and wrong. Charlotte showed this in the novel. She wanted to marry a man who didn’t make her happy only because he had money.
Jane Austen also gets her view out via Lydia. Lydia lacks moral issues and it is as if she wants to disgrace her family, she elopes with Wick ham and this wasn’t seen as a good moral thing to do and this was what Jane was trying to promote. Mrs Bennet feels that her job in life is to marry her daughters with rich men. She seems desperate to get her daughters married and Jane Austen tries to make this sound as ridiculous as possible to ridicule the society at the time. Mrs Bennet takes her daughters to parties, dances etc all in a big effort to try and get them a rich husband and as soon as she hears about a rich man coming to town she gets excited.
Jane Austens emphasises how men dominated society. Jane Austen ridicules the idea of entailment at the time and she does this by a single character, Mr Collins. Mr Collins is seen as an arrogant unintelligent man in the novel and Jane Austen is trying to say how unfair it was that money was being inherited by men instead of women and Jane Austen emphasises this by portraying Collins as a stupid person rather than a person who deserves the money/estate. Jane Austen is also trying to say that this was a major reason why women were marrying men for money because they were not inheriting it so they had to marry men.
Many women at the time found that they needed to gossip. In the novel the Bennet sisters seem to gossip about money and men and Mrs Bennet tries to make her daughters thinks that marrying for money was a good idea. Mrs Bennet is a very arrogant and vain character. She is a silly woman and being silly, she promotes silly ideas. This was what Jane Austen was trying to say about Mrs Bennet and how her ideas weren’t so clever.
I think that Jane Austen is very clever how she writes the novel and uses literacy devices very well. She represents a lot of different opinions and roles of women at the time and she makes sure that Elizabeth’s ideas are portrayed cleverly so that the readers will understand them and what Jane is trying to say. The novel was written in a clever way and although it is for entertainment value, it is very educational and full of facts and opinions.
Jake Gallop