Who and what are the targets of Jane Austens satire in Pride and Prejudice and is it effective?

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Who and what are the targets of Jane Austen’s satire in Pride and Prejudice and is it effective?

Jane Austen was born in Hampshire in 1775 into a time where social class, decorum, wealth and marriage ruled.  Men were the high beings and higher up then women and most importantly, so was their money. Since they were seen as more important than women, marriage dominated nearly every woman’s life. If you did not have a good marriage with wealth, you had hardly anything at all. Austen believed in marriage for love not for wealth, like some characters in her novel, e.g. Lizzy and Jane. Jane Austen herself turned down many marriages, which led to a single life and was compensated by her brothers.

Austen’s life was very much similar to those of her characters. She was of middle class in the social chain and would have attended many balls, social parties and events. Since it was frowned upon that women worked, Austen’s first novel ‘Sense and Sensibility’ was published by ‘a lady’, so her name would not be put to shame.

Pride and Prejudice is a prime example of Georgian society life, consisting of status, wealth and marriage. In this essay, I am going to analyse ‘who and what are the targets of Jane Austen’s satire in Pride and Prejudice and how effective this is’. I will focus on the main targets of the satire that are: Mrs Bennet, Lydia Bennet, Mr Collins, Lady Catherine de Bough and Ms Bingley. These characters represent aspects of Georgian society who Austen satirises.

Mrs Bennet is an ideal example of Jane Austen’s use of satire. This is because, as discussed in the introduction, marriage, money and social status were very much important and Mrs Bennet plays the pushy mother who only cares about getting her five daughters married off, including to a wealthy man and thrives on gossip. We hear of Mrs Bennet at first in the start of the book, with news of a wealthy businessman who has rented accommodation at Netherfield Park:

‘Oh! Single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!’

This relates to the beginning of the book, where Jane Austen playfully uses the role of the authors voice to show Mrs Bennet’s point of view:

‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife’.  

We know that Jane Austen does not have this view because this is the first example of satire towards mothers at the time with this view, she is criticising them for this, as she believes this is wrong. Jane Austen is effective in satirising through Mrs Bennet here because Austen disagrees with the view taken by most people of her time about the male focus on Georgian society and that women were second-class and needed a wealthy husband to survive. Not only does she satirise to get the point of the wider Georgian comment across, but also to amuse the reader.

Another example of how Austen satirises is through use of characters. For example, Mr Bennet is used to constantly have a dig or wind up Mrs Bennet. We can see that Mr Bennet has taken the role of the author’s voice. An example of this is on page 3:

‘…You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion for my poor nerves’.

‘You mistake me, my dear. I have high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least’.

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In this quote, Mr Bennet takes the role of the author’s voice to be cynical towards Mrs Bennet, who represents those elements of Georgian society who had similar views as Mrs Bennet. This is effective because it shows the total stupidity of Mrs Bennet and Austen uses Mr Bennet and a vehicle to highlight Mrs Bennet’s highly strung character.

Another quote that Jane Austen uses to satirise the Georgian society at the time is:

‘Why, my dear, you must know, Ms Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England’

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