This characterisation is contrasted to the characterisation of Elizabeth Bennet, who, according to Weldon, “must have upset a number of readers, changed their minds and the society they lived in” by “paying attention the subtler demands of human dignity rather than the cruder ones of established convention.” Elizabeth, unlike the more pragmatic Charlotte chooses to marry for love, rather than merely security, thus indicating Austen’s own equal valuing of the two components in marriage. The high modality of her exclamatory rejection of Mr Collins’ proposal “My feelings in every respect forbid it!” contrasts to Elizabeth’s view that Mr Darcy was “the man in every disposition of his talents most suited to her,” thus highlighting their mutual compatibility. Jane Austen’s equal valuing of love and security was unorthodox, and she was writing “out of tradition, only to break away from it.” However, ultimately Weldon upholds Austen’s novel claiming that “fiction…if it is any good tends to be a subversive element in society”. In creating an individual such as Elizabeth that lives against convention Austen created an opportunity to lead to questioning an change, as “change works from the inside out, from the individual out into the wider community.”
Austen’s legacy lives on in today’s society, as love is certainly valued as equal if not more important than mere financial benefits. Weldon’s fictional niece Alice is characterised as having a “relationship” with her “married professor,” from which there would only be emotional benefits, not the monetary ones that Austen’s conservative society so highly valued. Alice’s own promiscuous behaviour with a married man is an example of an individual acting against her society’s established conventions of love only in marriage. However, in Alice behaving in this way, Weldon is perhaps commenting on the social questioning and change occurring in her own society with the ongoing Second Wave of Feminism movement. Women with new work opportunities and less of a financial dependency on men could pursue relationships merely out of love or lust. Alice with her future university degree and Weldon with her highly lucrative book tour that frameworks the letters are examples of such women free from the patriarchal constraints of Austen’s time. However, Weldon does point out through the mercenary diction of “import” in that “here rich Australian landowners import their Asian wives”, that some women still do marry out of financial need. However, in creating characters such as Alice and Elizabeth that act in such unorthodox manners, both writers stretch the limitations placed on women and cause society to question their values, and change from within.
A comparative study of both texts illuminates readers to the capacity of literature and the letter-form to cause society to question and change their beliefs and values. Weldon through her “better novels theory” explicates that by merely introducing individuals or readers to new ideas through literature, this would be enough to cause change. The repetition of “enlighten” in “enlighten individuals and you enlighten society” emphasises the faith she has in the power of literature to transform peoples’ opinions as a whole. She uses the powerful extended metaphor for the City of Invention to embody a place, which upholds the tenets of superior literature. The highly positive ethereal connotations of it being a “celestial city” label it as intrinsic to humanity. In Austen’s time literature is equally important as Darcy claims that an “accomplished woman” would “add something more substantial to the improvement of her mind by extensive reading”. The diction of “improvement” suggests that individuals may be introduced to new and enlightening ideas that would better them as a whole. It is literature that Weldon feels would cause tension between the individual and society and cause a questioning not only of society, but also of self.
The letterform in Weldon’s text is, not only a homage to the “popular form of fiction at the time” of Austen and the 27 letters boasted in her novel, but also acts as a powerful framework where the conversational style engages with Alice to change her as a person. The second person personal pronoun, authorial tone and italics used in “You must read Alice” denote Weldon as a member of a society that encourages younger generations to read, and thus attempt to transform her from a girl with “spiky green hair” to an educated person. However, it is Alice’s individuality and refusal to listen when her aunt tells her to “get on with your studies” that receives the final respect, as she becomes a “best-selling author” Similarly, Darcy’s reprimanding of Elizabeth in his apologetic letter to her causes a moral tension within herself, and the exclamation “How despicably I have acted!” followed by a cummulation of her faults, acts to convey the change within her character. This in itself also conveys one of Weldon’s tenets of superior literature as the best novels have a “happy ending…through moral development.” In listening to the behavioural demands of her society and relinquishing her own narrow-mindedness Elizabeth is able to grow as a person, and reflects the capacity to literature to catalyse positive changes.
In reading Austen and Weldon’s texts, Pride and Prejudice and Letters to Alice together, readers are enlightened as to the changes through the contexts and values, especially in regards to the role of women. It can ultimately be seen that the tension between individuals and society, both embodied in various ways and forms in literature, is what leads to questioning and change, which can ultimately reshape meaning and values across contexts.