THEMES

Major Themes

The pivotal theme is that marriage is important to individuals and society. Throughout the novel, the author describes the various types of marriages and reasons behind them. Marriage out of economic compulsions can be seen in Charlotte's marriage to Collins. Marriage due to sensual pleasure can be seen in Lydia's marriage. The marriage of Jane and Elizabeth are the outcome of true love between well-matched persons.

Another major theme is that pride and prejudice both stand in the way of relationships, as embodied in the persons of Darcy and Elizabeth respectively. Pride narrows the vision of a person and causes one to underestimate other mortals. Prejudice blinds the vision and leads to false perceptions about others. Darcy's pride and Elizabeth's prejudice come in the way of understanding each other and keep them apart. Only when Darcy becomes more humble and Elizabeth becomes more accepting can they relate to one another and find happiness together.

Minor Themes

A minor theme found in the novel is appearance versus reality, with Austen stressing that a person cannot be judged by his/her outer being. During the course of the book, several characters are not properly judged, for good conduct does not necessarily mean good character, just as a pretty face does not indicate a pure soul.

Another theme stressed by the author is that in order to display good sense, a vitally important characteristic, a person must possess intelligence, sensitivity, and responsibility. Each of the major characters in the novel is judged against these three important criteria.

MOOD

The mood throughout the novel is formal and realistic to its nineteenth century setting. Even though it is a novel about love and marriage, it is not romantic and emotional, but realistic and practical.

Jane Austen - BIOGRAPHY

Jane Austen was born in 1775 at Steventon, Hampshire in southern England, where her father was a minister. She was the sixth child in a family of seven children. The family was very close, and Jane had a particular closeness to her sister Cassandra. Although she attended boarding school for a short while, she was mostly educated at home. Both she and Cassandra were attractive and attended country parties; neither of them married, although Jane had several proposals. Much of Jane's life is captured in the letters that she wrote to her sister, but Cassandra cut out any references there might have been about Jane's intimate, private life and her innermost thoughts. In spite of the missing information, the letters retain flashes of sharp wit and occasional coarseness.

Jane began to write at a young age. Pride and Prejudice, her most popular novel, was the first to be written, although not the first published. She wrote on it for several years and finally completed it as First Impressions in 1797. It, however, was not accepted for publication until 1813, when it appeared with its current version with its new title. As a result, Sense and Sensibility was published first, in 1811. Her other four novels, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion were all published between 1814 and 1818. She also wrote six minor works and one unfinished novel. Because she wanted to avoid attention, most of her work was not published under her name.

When Mr. Austen retired in 1801, the family moved to Bath, where they lived until Mr. Austen's death. The family then moved to Southampton in 1806, to Chawton in 1809, and then again to Hampshire. A few days before her sudden death in 1817, she lodged in Winchester.

SOCIAL AND CULTURAL BACKGROUND

A general knowledge of the social and cultural setting in which a novel is written is important, for most novels mirror the customs and values of a particular society, often criticizing it. The Hertfordshire country town where the greater part of the novel is set is Longbourn, only a mile from the market town of Meryton and 24 miles from London. The neighborhood around the Bennets is large, for they dine with twenty-four different families, only three of which are named. The Bennet's society is drawn largely from Meryton (which is the mother's background) rather than from the country (which is the father's), for she is more sociable than her husband. Mrs. Bennet, however, is without social ambition except for her desire to have her daughters marry rich men.

Pride and Prejudice is, thus, set among the rural middle and upper classes who are landowners. None of the major characters works, for these moneyed classes live entirely on their income from rents and inheritances. There are, however, petty distinctions among the landed classes, determined by the amount of wealth possessed by the members. For instance, Miss Bengali and her sister look down on the Bennets because they are not as wealthy. Class distinctions in Jane Austen's time were in fact very rigid. The land-owning aristocracy belonged to the highest rung of the social ladder, and all power was in their hands. Next in rank came the gentry. The new, prosperous industrialists and traders (like Mr. Gardiner) were gradually rising as a class, but had still not won the right to vote. The lowest in English society were the workers and laborers.

For the women of the time, life was largely restricted to the home and the family. For the poor and the lower-class women, there was ample work in the home and in the fields to keep them busy. But for the ladies of the landed upper-classes, life was one big round of dances, dinners, cards, and visits to friends and relatives. They were not required to do any household work. "Ladies," thus, lived a life of ease and leisure, mainly concerned with society, children, and marriage. By the nineteenth century, the upper classes no longer arranged marriages. Instead, a girl was introduced to society (and eligible bachelors) at a reception hosted by a married woman who had herself been presented. Generally, a girl "came out" only after her elder sister was married. (No wonder Lady Catherine is shocked when she hears that all of Elizabeth's sisters have started dating before she is wed.)

Women's education in the nineteenth century was restricted to the daughters of a few families of the upper classes. In most cases, it was thought to be a waste of time to educate girls. Rich and noble families (like that of Lady Catherine de Bourgh) engaged governesses for educating their daughters or sent them away to boarding school, but most women were self-educated at home.

Traveling in Jane Austen's time was accomplished in horse-drawn carriages, and a family's social status was determined by its kind of carriage. Because carriages were slow, travel was limited. Communication of mail and news was also slow, and there were no daily newspapers. As a result, the outside world does not play a part in Austen's novels. Instead, she turns her attention in entirety to the things she knew: family and values.

THE LITERARY BACKGROUND

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice appeared on the English literary scene in 1813. The author had worked on its realistic style and content for more than fifteen years, for she was a perfectionist in her approach to writing. Her first novel was unlike any of the hundreds of others written at the time, which were mainly Romantic (filled with emotion and passionate) or Gothic (filled with horror). Austen was the first novelist to portray realistic characters by using the direct method of telling a story in which dialogue and comment take an important place. She used the method to dissect the hypocrisy of individuals and the society in which they played their games of love and courtship.

From the beginning, Austen's literature centered on character studies, where a person's common sense (or lack of it) was developed in detail. The chosen setting was always limited to a small social group of the upper classes and composed of a few families. Family life was always central to her works. Her novels also portrayed traditional values and a belief in rationality, responsibility, and restraint. But she often viewed the human condition, with its many weaknesses, through humor, irony, and sarcasm, with her undesirable characters portrayed as ignorant, proud, or silly human beings, not evil villains.