Pride and Prejudice

1
Pride and Prejudice

• Conclusion
• Extension

2
Outline

• Your Questions?
• Structure
• Theme Marriage Love, Money, Class and
  Manners/Breeding
• Pride and Prejudice and Jane Austen
• Pride and Prejudice vs. Some 19th-Century Texts
• 1. Marriage Money/Class The Bride Comes to
  Yellow Sky The 1,000,000 Bank Note
• 2. Woman She Walks in Beauty
• 3. Art Nature? Pemberley vs. Ozymandias or
  Grecian Urn
• Pride and Prejudice in Todays World

3
Why is Darcy's first name "Fitzwilliam"?

• "Fitzwilliam" was Darcy's mother's surname (she
  was known as "Lady Anne Fitzwilliam" before her
  marriage to Darcy's father, and "Lady Anne Darcy"
  afterwards), and at the time it was rather common
  to give a son his mother's maiden surname as his
  own first name, especially if his mother's family
  was in some way prominent or distinguished (or
  sometimes another prominent family surname
  different from his own surname). This explains
  why Darcy's first name is the same as his cousin
  Col. Fitzwilliam's surname. (source)

4
More Questions and Comments

• Why are there names with ---
• A realist tradition (seemingly to hide the
  identities of the real persons and places).
• 2. How old is Darcy?
• Such I was, from eight to eight and twenty and
  such I might have been but for you, my dearest,
  loveliest Elizabeth! (p. 282) (see a list of
  the characters and their ages here.)
• 3. Re. Charlottes views of knowing one before
  marrying him or her.
• we only need to know the general part of the
  personality since the more you realize, the more
  disappointed you get.

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More Questions and Comments

• Why is Ms. Darcy not prejudiced against
  Elizabeth?
• Not all aristocrats are arrogant.
• Ms. Darcy is shy, but not exceedingly proud.
• Elizabeth is good-mannered and intelligent. She
  makes Ms. Darcy feels less embarrassed after Ms.
  Bingleys mentioning Wickham.

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Structure Pattern Contrast
Vol 1 (1) Marriage and Family -- 3 Match-Making Attempts (Mrs. Bennet-Janes, Collins, Charlottes) (2) 3 Balls
Vol 2 (1) Marriage and Individuals -- 3 Sisters Trips (climax Darcys proposal? change letter readings)
Vol III (1) Jane Elizabeths changes vs. Lydias lack of them. (2) Marriages a choice of individuals while the family factors cannot be ignored.

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Structure Pattern Contrast

• Proposals
• Collins first and 2nd proposal Darcys first
  proposal and 2nd proposal
• Collins response to being rejected Darcys.
• Laughter
• Elizabeths way of laughter vs. Lydias (e.g.
  when being invited by Mrs. Forster Lydia
  laughing and talking with more violence than
  ever her letter)
• Pride vs. vanity or different kinds of pride.
• Prejudice, wrong judgment, lack of judgment, lack
  of moral principles.
• Different kinds of letters.

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Themes Marriage Factors to Consider (1) Love
First Impressions

• Appearance sex natural attraction, not to be
  trusted.
• Respect and understanding of each other
• ? discussion of Charlottes case
• More . .. Family connections, money and class
  background

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Marriage Factors to Consider (2) Money

• Daughters and young sons no inheritance
• ? Charlottes practical considerations.
• ? Mrs. Gardiners suggestion to Eliza.
• ? Colonel Fitzwilliam's remark on his marriage
  considerations.
• Wickhams fortune-hunting.
• Younger sons profession clergyman, military
  officers
• Women are not supposed to work limited choices
  of work e.g. governess. Therefore, for survival
  they mostly depend on marrying a husband or on
  the (meager) inheritance their parents settle for
  them.

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Marriage Factors to Consider (3) Class

• Appendix 1
• The novels focus the rural elites in a country
  community with their subtle class differences
• traditional gentry such as Darcy (with inherited
  land)
• Pseudo gentry (or lesser gentry p. 300) (e.g. Sir
  Lucas and Bingley) ? Austen is more interested in
  those in the lower part of this society, since
  she herself is not from a rich family of
  traditional gentry (her father is a clergyman).

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Marriage Factors to Consider (3) Class

• Elements of class distinction (in our novel)
  furniture, number of servants, whether one has a
  cook or not, a governess or not. (Appendix)
• The other elements (Minma 53) descent and
  connections, the length of its residence, wealth
  and its source, occupation.
• Those elements subject to change income,
  official position and marriage (or no marriage).
• ? a fixed order as a point of reference, never
  fully realized (Minma 53) a society on the brink
  of radical changes.

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Class Breeding/Manners

• The title of gentleman, and the respect and love
  of the heroine, must be earned (302).
• In other words, class distinction turns out to be
  less important that having good breeding, manners
  and intelligence.
• E. over the Gardiners
• Before introducing them to Darcy, she was worried
  over their class background (business) and
  residence (London Cheapside)
• After doing it, she finds "glory in every
  expression, every sentence of her uncle which
  marked his intelligence, his taste, or his good
  manners (III 1)

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Jane Austen her novels as her children

• An intelligent woman who is not lucky in her
  emotional life. (see clips 212 4242)
• Both Jane and Casandra stay single all their
  life (her letter to Casandra) Friday. -- At
  length the day is come on which I am to flirt my
  last with Tom Lefroy, and when you receive this
  it will be over. My tears flow at the melancholy
  idea.
• Publish four novels anonymously. The editor
  wanted to change the love scenes in PP. Austen
  "You say the book PP is indecent. You say I am
  immodest. But Sir in the depiction of love,
  modesty is the fullness of truth and decency
  frankness and so I must also be frank with you,
  and ask that you remove my name from the title
  page in all future printings 'A lady' will do
  well enough."
• Writing was her main interest in life and she was
  able to make money with selling the six novels
  however, writing novels was not considered a
  proper career for women then.

14
PP vs. Some 19th-Century Texts Marriage Class

• Three different kinds of marriage in Bank-Note
  (US), Yellow Sky (US) and PP (UKlate 18th C).
• Bank-Note the couple equally interested in
  business but not materialistic social climbing
  done easily.
• Yellow Sky the couple, who dont really know
  each other, are incompetent in the Pullman.

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PP vs. Some 19th-Century Texts Woman

• Pride and Prejudice
• But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and
  his friends that she had hardly a good feature in
  her face, than he began to find it was rendered
  uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful
  expression of her dark eyes. To this discovery
  succeeded some others equally mortifying. Though
  he had detected with a critical eye more than one
  failure of perfect symmetry in her form, he was
  forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and
  pleasing and in spite of his asserting that her
  manners were not those of the fashionable world,
  he was caught by their easy playfulness.

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PP vs. Some 19th-Century Texts Woman
1. Praised as perfect and elevated to the
position of goddess SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY, like
the night          Of cloudless climes and
starry skies          And all that's best of
dark and bright   Meet in her aspect and her
eyes        Thus mellow'd to that tender
light        Which heaven to gaudy day denies.  
2. Still an object of love.
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PP vs. Some 19th-Century Texts Art vs. Nature
Piano a ladys accomplishment Pemberley It was a large, handsome, stone building, standing well on rising ground, and backed by a ridge of high woody hills -- and in front, a stream of some natural importance was swelled into greater, but without any artificial appearance. Its banks were neither formal, nor falsely adorned. The portraits tell of family history.
Ozymandias wrecked by time out on a desert? futility of human ambition. Grecian Urn -- frozen pictures of ordinary people and their lives. ? Art and Ambition put in broader historical perspectives.

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PP in the Present World

• Both film versions
• (melo-)dramatize it e.g. letter-reading, proposal
  scene of Wrights version.
• foreground the sexual attractions of the
  characters. (e.g. Darcys swimming in the BBC
  version, Elizas bare shoulders in Wrights
  version.)

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Bridget Joness Diary PP

• Bridgets mother // Elizabeths
• Mark Darcy Daniel Cleaver // F. Darcy
  Wickham Mark Darcys house, the setting of
  Pemberley house
• Difference Bridget Lonely, straightforward,
• more sexually explicit in language and
  behavior.

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Bridget Joness DiaryConfessions at a party

• e.g. E.g. M. Darcy I realize that when I met you
  at the turkey curry buffet, I was unforgivably
  rude, and wearing a reindeer jumper. I don't
  think you're an idiot at all. I mean, there are
  elements of the ridiculous about you. Your
  mother's pretty interesting. And you really are
  an appallingly bad public speaker. And, um, you
  tend to let whatever's in your head come out of
  your mouth without much consideration of the
  consequences... But the thing is, um, what I'm
  trying to say, very inarticulately, is that, um,
  in fact, perhaps despite appearances, I like you,
  very much. Just as you are.
• Bridget You once said you liked me just as I am
  and I just wanted to say likewise. I mean there
  are stupid things your mum buys you, tonight's
  another... classic. You're haughty, and you
  always say the wrong thing in every situation and
  I seriously believe that you should rethink the
  length of your sideburns. But, you're a nice man
  and I like you. If you wanted to pop by some time
  that might be nice... more than nice.

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Whats Unchanged?

• Pride what does it mean?
• Prejudice caused by
• lack of understanding or education,
• class and cultural differences
• Human need for both money and love

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Reference

• Minma, Shinobu. Self-Deception and Superiority
  Complex Derangement of Hierarchy in Jane
  Austen's Emma Eighteen Century Fiction 14. 1
  (Oct, 2001) 49-65.