However, these caricatures do not just provide humour. They also point out unsuitable behaviour. Furthermore it is, of course, this improper behaviour and outright breach of social propriety which makes them so comic to begin with. Thus by also pointing out flaws in people and society, though admittedly exaggerated, Austen adds shade to Pride and Prejudice. Mary is shown to warn of spending too much time learning from books rather than reality, Lady Catherine displays all the selfishness and hypocrisy of the upper class and Mrs Bennet, described as ‘a woman of mean understanding, little information, and an uncertain temper’, displays all the foolishness of a high obsession with both marriage and class.
Indeed Austen’s perception of her own lack of ‘shade’ can be directly contradicted when considering some of the extremely serious issues dealt with. Charlotte Lucas is a character through which Austen brings little humour. Furthermore Charlotte is mocked by the characters, ‘ Charlotte the wife of Mr Collins was a most humiliating picture!’ but never by the omniscient narrator. Through her Austen examines the awful position of women at that time who could not support themselves and so were forced to marry to avoid becoming an old maid and burdening their family. The subject is removed from Mrs Bennet’s comic level of obsession by the omniscient narrator’s statement of, ‘ without ever thinking highly of either men or matrimony marriage had always been her object’. The lexis is more sophisticated than that associated with Mrs Bennet and the slow pace mimics contemplation suggesting Charlotte’s deep consideration of both the pros and cons of marriage. The lines ‘happiness in marriage is purely a matter of chance’ and ‘it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life’ seem to possess no humour or irony. Indeed they reveal the sheer horror of the situation Charlotte is facing and undoubtedly add shade to the novel.
Whilst other serious issues are accompanied with ‘sparkling’ humour and irony, the shady subtext is immiscible. Perhaps on face value Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is ‘light’ and ‘bright’, however, in the subtext is a dark portrayal of a society with many flaws. The opening line, ‘it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man, in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife’ is truly comic in its irony that of course the want is purely reversed. Yet, it points to the unfairness of the woman’s inability to openly desire marriage herself. It also points to the frenzied obsession in society and when combined with ‘he becomes the rightful property of one or another of their daughters’ it is revealed how marriage is likened to a business arrangement with the exchange of ‘property’ rather than the joining of two people. Hypocrisy is also displayed, predominantly through Mr Collins. Indeed the line, ‘the death of your daughter would have been a blessing in comparison to this’ is comic but it also makes a judgement on pious Christians who are no more moral underneath than the people they judge. More revealing is that this comment is taken from a letter. Lodge says ‘ a letter, unlike a journal, is addressed to a specific addressee whose anticipated response conditions the discourse and makes it rhetorically more complex, interesting and obliquely revealing.’ In other words, Collin’s words offer the impression he wants people to have of him – he is oblivious to the obvious hypocrisy in ‘you should of course forgive them as a christian, but never again allow them in your sight.’
The Bildgunsroman element helps to add shade to the novel. Lodge says that novels are ‘essentially about the passage from innocence to maturity’. In the fact that some characters recognize their flaws and adapt, ‘till this moment I never knew myself’ whilst others continue blindly, ‘especially when he was least expected’ a varying degree of growth is revealed to us. All though it is comic that characters keep their flaws it also makes the detrimental point that some people are doomed to pass life by in foolishness. The growth of other characters ensures our awareness that whist their faults were humorous they were wrong. This need for change adds shade.
Finally we might note that the end seems to lack shade far more than the beginning of the novel. Marian Cox said, ‘couples are brought with indecent authorial haste and apparent authorial indifference to the altar and the brink of supposed wedded bliss.’ This suggests a lack of care in the end as if Austen is only interested in the growth and not the conclusion. The end acts as a summary and consequently. The lack of dialogue removes the reader from the narration as they lose access, It also seems very perfect and lacking of flaws, ‘ Elizabeth and Jane and all possible happiness were within 20 miles of one another.’ However, this excess of ‘light, and bright, and sparkling(ness)’ might reference to the fact that a marriage did not just affect the couple but everyone. Hence Darcy’s original hesitation over marrying Elizabeth and getting a ‘charming mother in law’ and hence Charlotte’s family’s relief when she marries Collins. The happy tone mimics the happiness and relief in society though the hyperbole, ‘all possible happiness’ might point to the falseness and underlying issues still in need of fixing.
However, it seems apparent that Pride and Prejudice is brimming with shade. Admittedly this shade is underlying the ‘light, and bright’ humour but in Austen’s time it would have been improper to directly and openly attack society. Humour is rarely used without an accompanying moral statement or judgement, and some serious issues are dealt with to such a high degree that it appears impossible to argue, as Austen does, that Pride and Prejudice is too ‘light, and bright, and sparkling’.
