Discuss the use Jane Austen makes of letters in her novel Pride and Prejudice

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27th April 2010

Grace Turner 10CH

Discuss the use Jane Austen makes of letters in her novel Pride and Prejudice

In the eighteen century, one form of novel that was very popular was the epistolary novel;

‘An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used. The word epistolary comes from the Latin word epistola, meaning a letter.’

It is thought that epistolary novels originated from ‘novels with inserted letters’, or, that the epistolary novel came from miscellanies letters and poetry. Miscellanies are ‘separate writings collected in one volume’ or ‘a collection of writings on various subjects. ‘The first epistolary novel was the Spanish novel "Prison of Love" by Diego de San Pedro in 1485. Other examples of epistolary authors are: Edmé Boursault and James Howell.

Although Jane Austen used the epistolary style, she adapted it to suit herself.  One of Jane Austen’s favourite author’s was Samuel Richardson He is best known for his three epistolary novels: ‘Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded’, ‘Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady’ and ‘The History of Sir Charles Grandison’.

In Jane Austen’s time, letters were a very important form of communication.  If someone was away for a large amount of time, a letter was the only way of keeping contact with them. Jane mainly wrote to her sister Cassandra who was also her closest friend. Jane Austen wrote to her sister from the age of thirty one until the age of forty, a year before her death in July 1817. The first letter to Cassandra was sent on Thursday, sixteenth of January 1796. This was Cassandra's birthday. The address to which the letter was sent was: Mr. Fowle's, Kintbury, Newbury, where Cassandra seems to have been staying with her friend Elizabeth Fowle. Jane Austen also sent letters to her niece Fanny Knight and her other niece Anna Austen Lefroy. Of course, not all of Jane Austen’s letters have survived. Some of the letters sent to Austen’s sister Cassandra were burnt by Cassandra as, presumably; she thought them private and personal. But, Fanny Knight's son Edward Hugessen Knatchbull-Hugessen saved some of them and edited them. They can now be bought in a book and the book includes about two thirds of the letters known to have survived.

In Pride and Prejudice, letters are used to fill in parts of the story that otherwise we would have no way of knowing about. For example, when Lydia elopes with Mr. Wickham and Mr. Bennet goes to London to find her, the reader needs to know what is happening, so, Jane Austen includes a letter from Mr. Bennet explaining the situation to the rest of the Bennets and the reader. If it had not been for this letter, Jane Austen would not have been able to explain efficiently what was happening. In Pride and Prejudice, there are fifty one letters. Some of these have been written in full, some are just extracts from letters, and some are just referred to. 

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Jane Austen successfully adapts the form of the epistolary novel by including a large number of letters in her novel and these have two main functions: to show significant development in the plot and to develop the reader’s understanding of the character.

One character whose personality is clearly shown through her letters is Lydia Bennet. The first reference to a letter from Lydia is on page one hundred and eighty two in Chapter Nineteen of Volume Two. Before Lydia leaves for Brighton, she promises her mother and older sister Kitty that she will write often and ‘very minutely’. Lydia does ...

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