Explore how Jane Austen Satirises the social standards of her time in Pride & Prejudice.

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Explore how Jane Austen Satirises the social standards of her time in Pride & Prejudice.

Jane Austen uses satire to show up the arrogance or vanity of her characters and she shows the shallow nature of the social standards of her time.  It all depended on how wealthy and what rank you were in.  If you had lots of money through inheritance you were in the high rank and were considered more superior to anyone else and these higher ranked people looked down on people of the lower ranks.

Austen satirises wealth and rank by showing how stupid the higher rank people were.  Women had to be wealthy, so wealthy men would marry them.  The more money you had the higher you were considered in society.  Austen satirises virtues by showing how conscious the higher rank people in society are, and how they even had to marry a woman or man with lots of money which implies that love wasn’t that important to some people.  Austen satirises all these areas of life back then to show how pathetic people could be just to look better than everyone else.  

Jane Austen gently satirises Mrs Bennet, by showing the constant mention of her nerves and her attempt to get all her daughters married.  Mrs Bennet is a miraculously tiresome character in the story.  Mrs Bennet got married to Mr Bennet because of her looks not because of her brains.  Mr Bennet is quite sarcastic to her; in the story when Mrs Bennet is excited about the new occupants of Netherfield estate, Mr Bennet doesn’t really seem interested.  For example “You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.”  This implies that Mr Bennet isn’t very interested in what his wife has to say, and isn’t bothered about who occupies Longbourn.

Mrs Bennet is a very dramatic woman, and her objective in life in life is to get her daughters married to someone richer, and it doesn’t bother her if they’re in love are not.  For example, when Mr. Collins asks Elizabeth to marry him, Mrs Bennet wanted her to accept as Mr Collins is quite high up in society because of his living and will have a lot of money when he inherits Longbourn after Mr Bennet passes away.  Mr. Collins proposes marriage to Elizabeth, assuming that she will be overjoyed, however she turns him down as gently as possible.  Mrs. Bennet, who regards a match between her daughter and Mr. Collins as beneficial, is enraged.  For example “that Lizzy shall be brought to reason.  I will speak to her about it directly.  She is a very headstrong foolish girl, and does not know her own interest; but I will make her know it.”  This implies that Mrs Bennet is trying to get Lizzy married because then they’ll inherit Longbourn estate so Mrs Bennet will have somewhere to live if Mr Bennet passes away before she does.

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Mrs Bennet didn’t pay any attention to Mr Collins, she didn’t realise how foolish and idiotic he actually is, all she wanted was Elizabeth to accept his hand in marriage so she will be well off in the future and live in Longbourn estate.  Mrs Bennet is a very obsessed woman about wealth and rank but it refers certain women of Austen’s time.

Jane Austen satirises the snobbish attitudes of Bingley’s sister and her friend.  Both of these two women are hypocritical because they are very judgmental of the Bennets’ position in society.  They insult the Bennets’ because ...

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