Compare and Contrast how Jane Austen Represents Social Class In Emma and Pride and Prejudice
Compare and Contrast how Jane Austen Represents Social Class In ‘Emma’ and Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen’s 'Pride and Prejudice' and 'Emma', share many obvious traits. Both are classed under the genre ‘comedy of manners’, both centre around life and love in regency England, and both can teach us a great deal about the complex class structure of the time. Although Austen had neither the great wealth and status of Emma Woodhouse, nor the need to marry for financial security of Elizabeth Bennet, I believe it is safe to say here interpretation of life in her novels could be pretty close to actuality. It is this I am going to investigate further in this essay, how Austen represent the class structure of her day in her writing and how these two novels in particular compare in regards to this theme.
Central to each novel is it’s heroine’s position in society. Of Emma, We learn that their village, Highbury ‘afforded her no equals. The Woodhouses were first in consequence there. All looked up to them'. (chapter1, page 9) From her we see life through the eyes of the most privileged. She doesn’t need to marry herself so take’s great pleasure in match making her friends. On the other hand, we are made aware of the necessity of marriage to Elizabeth, and the other Bennet sisters, straight away, through conversation between Mr and Mrs Bennet, which serves as the opening chapter of 'Pride and Prejudice'. Of the arrival of Mr Bingley to the village Mrs Bennet declares: 'A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!' (1,6) This set's a precedent for the character of Mrs Bennet, of whom we are told: 'The business of her life was to get her daughters married' (1, 6). Mrs Bennet’s obsession is not entirely without reason however, we learn later that: 'Mr Bennet's property consisted almost entirely in an estate of two thousand a year, which, unfortunately for his daughters was entitled in default of heirs male, on a distant relation' (7,29). Without securing a suitable husband the girls will have to work to support themselves. Austen show’s us how undesirable this would be through Jane Fairfax’s situation in ‘Emma’, Jane seems to liken being a governess to the slave trade when she says, ‘There are places in town, offices, where inquiry would soon produce something- Offices for the sale-not quite of human flesh-but of human intellect’ (35,279)
This difference in situation between Elizabeth and Emma results in the reader getting a view of regency life from two very different vantage points. In chapter 56, of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ Elizabeth is forced to defend herself and her family to Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who visits the Bennet's with the sole intention of persuading Elizabeth not to marry Darcy, saying in one of the novels most obvious displays of class prejudice that 'honour, decorum, prudence, nay, interest forbid it' (56,336), to lady Catherine’s outburst, Elizabeth retaliates 'in marrying your nephew, I should not consider myself as quitting that sphere. He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman’s daughter; so far we are equal.' To which Lady Catherine responds: 'True. You are a gentleman's daughter. But who was your mother? Who are your uncles and aunts? Do not imagine me ignorant of their condition.' (56,337). Elizabeth’s notions of social equality are obviously very different from Lady Catherine’s. Even when Darcy first proposes to Elizabeth he belittles her because of her status: ‘His sense of her inferiority-of it’s being a degradation- of the family obstacles which had always opposed to inclination were dwelt on’ (34.185)
Emma on the other hand, faces no such prejudice, in fact we often see her looking down on others because of their social status. For example, of Mr Martin she say’s 'He is very plain, undoubtedly-remarkably plain:-but that is nothing, compared with his entire want of gentility. I had no right to expect much, and I did not expect much; but I had no idea he could be so very clownish' (4,32). Even her friend Harriet is not exempt, when Emma learns her true origin she says ‘Such was the blood of gentility which Emma had formally been so ready to vouch for!- It was likely to be as untainted, perhaps, as the blood of many a gentleman: but what a connexion had she been preparing for Mr. Knightley-or for the Churchills- or even for Mr. Elton! The stain of illegitimacy, unbleached by nobility or wealth, would have been a stain indeed’ (55.451). This demonstrates how deep-rooted class prejudices were in those days's, even the heroine of ‘Emma’ who the reader has grown to like, is guilty. Is Austen showing us that these class prejudices were not merely the preserve of an overly snobbish minority, but engrained in the minds of all the gentry of the time?
