Pride and Prejudice

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                                          Pride & Prejudice

Jane Austen’s novel ‘pride & prejudice’ is like a modern day soap opera all about “men, matrimony & love”. Austen satirizes how the society of the regency period utilized marriage proposals as business transactions this is because the majority of a pragmatist & conventional woman’s wealth depended on how well she married. Austen utilizes undeniably stupid characters like Mr. Collins to portray the sheer desperation women of the genteel class faced to marry well.

However the character Elizabeth Bennet is unconventional and an idealist so this puts everything into a different perspective…

Would you marry for money?

Would you truly be happy?

Would you love him?

I don’t think so!

          Austen portrays the difficulties facing women during the regency period utilizing the character Elizabeth Bennet. Elizabeth, an unconventional idealist refuses Mr. Collins because she believes that marriage should be based on love and should not be seen as a business contract, which is the way Mrs. Bennet conveys it “a single man of large fortune” is the ideal man who could offer stability and a comfortable home. Austen satirizes the regency period in a humorous way using characters like Mrs. Bennet and Mr. Collins.

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           Some women married because it was the only legitimate route to financial security. This idea is explored when charlottes views are voiced in the novel “without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object”, she was desperate to get married even if her husband was going to be Mr. Collins! Charlotte who finds consolation in “her home & her housekeeping” is not condemned because this would have been a true dilemma in reality.

          Jane & Bingley on the other hand were supposed to get ...

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