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Pride and Prejudice (Characters (Elizabeth Bennet (Elizabeth is an…
Pride and Prejudice
Characters
Elizabeth Bennet
Elizabeth is an extremely intelligent and witty woman who is seen by others as careless. She looks at things realistically, and is a Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth is used to show what marrying for the right reason looks like.
Jane Bingley
Jane is a kind and sweet girl who is seen by others as extremely beautiful. She sees only the best in others and marries Mr. Bingley. Throughout the novel, she finds the best in people and ignores rumors which shows her kind and loving nature. Oldest Bennet sister.
Mary Bennet
Mary is one of the Bennet daughters. She enjoys reading and playing the piano. She believes she has a lot of musical talent, whereas others disagree. Most people believe she is just unconcerned with boys, and not many people talk to her.
Mr. Bennet
Mr. Bennet seems to be rude towards Mrs. Bennet. He married in an arranged marriage and has little love for his spouse, so he is used to show what life was like for those who married without love or emotional connection. He does care about his daughters, and wishes that he saved his money earlier in life to pass onto them.
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Mrs. Bennet
Mrs. Bennet's main goal in life is to marry her daughters. She wants to find her daughters wealthy men to marry. She seems like she needs control over her daughters' marriages because the lack of control in her own arranged marriage. She is used to display Austen's critique on the woman's obsession with marriage.
Mr. Darcy
Mr. Darcy is seen to be very prejudice and prideful. He takes a while to open up to others because many people are just in want of his money. Austen uses Darcy to show a man who is looking to marry for the right reasons. He doesn't marry "up" or look for wealth in his marriage, he marries someone because he loves them.
Mr. Bingley
Mr. Bingley is an extremely kind man who likes everyone. He is a lot like Jane, he sees the best in all people. He is best friends with Darcy and does whatever Darcy says.
Charlotte Lucas
Charlotte was a sensible woman who was around age 27. She was friends with Lizzy. Many people saw her as a mess because she was in her late 20's and not yet married. She marries Collins so that she can leave her home. She marries for reasons aside from feelings, which Austen disagrees with, but she faces the pressures of society that she needed to be married at her age.
Mrs. Gardiner
Mrs. Gardiner is an intelligent and elegant woman. She was born in the middle class, as well as Mr. Gardiner but from working and having great etiquette, they seem to be high up in the social scale.Mrs. Gardiner provides a good and supportive mother figure for Jane and Elizabeth.
Lady Catherine de Bourgh
Lady Catherine is overbearing and always gets her way. She can't stand when others disagree with her and she talks nonstop. Austen uses her as a streotype oof how women and power don't mix, because as Catherine being the only single (widowed) financially stable woman, she loves to dictate people and it drives some of the other characters crazy.
Colonel Fitzwilliam
Fitzwilliam is a pleasant and amiable gentleman. He is friends with Elizabeth. Elizabeth is interested in him, but due to him being the youngest in his family he has to marry a wealthy woman. Austen uses him as an ideal man, who is trapped in societal norms of marrying for wealth.
Lydia Bennet
Lydia is used to show the societal woman, who is desperate for marriage and judges people based on their wealth and appearance. She is an exact copy of Mrs. Bennet, which makes it no surprise that she is Mrs. Bennet's favorite child. Many of the other characters find Lydia to be ignorant and immature.
Themes
Role of Women
Women in Austen's time were undervalued and had many limits on the successes and education that they could accomplish. Women only went to school up to a certain age, but had knowledge of reading and writing. Women were not measured by success, women with jobs were usually looked down upon for being "lower" than others. Success for women was determined by how you married which Austen shows throughout the novel. Marriage wasn't for love in Austen's time, it was for money which she disagreed with and showed that in her book.
Social Expectations
Throughout the novel, social classes were determined by the wealth of your family. If you made a lot of money, you were higher in the social class. If you were higher on the social scale, you were expected to marry someone that was in a high social ranking as well. Austen disagrees with this belief of society and shows that through Jane and Bingley as well as Elizabeth and Darcy
Marriage
Austen's views on marriage are completely different than those of her time. Her views were to marry who you genuinely loved and to not marry for money, but those in her time married for money and inheritance. Throughout the novel women are expected to be married in their early 20's and to marry rich. Men were expected to propose to the woman, and women married to men that could support them financially.
Literary Devices
Satire
All of Pride and Prejudice is a satire, putting a comedic and sarcastic view on marriage that Austen disagrees with. Austen used Lydia in many cases to show how desperate women were and using her she showed the satirical nature of her novel.
Irony
The most apparent use of irony in the novel is on page one where it says "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife," this is irony because throughout the novel it is women looking for men with lots of money (Austen 1).