Pride and Prejudice one of the most well-known literary love stories, with people enjoying it either as a novel or a tv series or a film.
It’s the month of love and often Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice springs to when thinking of a classic romance novel.
Pride and Prejudice was written during the Georgian era (1714–1837) into which Jane Austen was born. It was a period of transition along with Britain’s constant warfare abroad, but it was also the beginning of the Industrial Revolution that saw the shift in arts and letters to an era of romance.
The novel displays ambiguity between Romantic writing and Victorian literature, since the characters exhibit awareness of the conditions of modernity and city life and their consequences in family structure and individual characters. The nineteenth-century novelist Anthony Trollope has said that Austen “places us in a circle of gentlemen and ladies, and charms us while she tells us with an unconscious accuracy how men should act to women, and women act to men. It is not that her people are all good; — and, certainly, they are not all wise. The faults of some are the anvils on which the virtues of others are hammered till they are bright as steel. In the comedy of folly I know no novelist who has beaten her.”
The writer Helen Fielding, whose book Bridget Jones Diary is partly inspired by Austen’s books, noted that “Jane Austen was …writing about dating, but in her day the rules were very clear.”
Austen was writing during a time when women were expected to marry in order to secure their financial security and interestingly she herself never married. The novel establishes its interest in romance and marriage, and the first few chapters make it clear how, in the early nineteenth century, it was considered essential daughters were married and financially stable.
In the novel, Mr. Bennett’s (main character Elizabeth Bennett’s father) land is left to Mr. Collins, a member of his extended family, rather than to his daughters—women were granted very little control over money. On the other hand, large country estates were bought by likes of Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley, who had property, both in the rural and urban England, symbolizing the power and wealth bestowed upon them.
A woman of the upper classes could expect to be granted a “fortune” from her family upon marriage or the death of her father, and the money would be invested in government funds to draw interest at a fixed 5 percent rate. If she is married, it would contribute to her husband’s income, or it would cover her living expenses.
During the time of Austen, having a server made it necessary to claim respect from society. 100 pounds (£) a year was the minimum income on which a small household could be kept with one maid. On £300 a year, the family could retain two servants and lead a comfortable life yet without a carriage of their own. Only if a man has above £700 a year, they could lead a more comfortable life with servants and carriage. In the novel, Mr. Bennet draws about £2,000 a year, which more than enough to lead a secured life; yet, he was burdened with providing dowries for five daughters.
Throughout the novel, Elizabeth is trying to work out what makes for a strong and sincere romantic relationship an aspect of life that occupied much attention two hundred years ago.
Pride and Prejudice was originally published in 1813. Though it was published anonymously, it was presented as “By the Author of Sense and Sensibility” while Sense and Sensibility was presented as being written, “by a Lady.” Her subsequent novels were similarly attributed to her other published works. Ever since the publication 200-years ago, Jane Austen continues to give pleasure and inspire millions of readers worldwide. The novel continues to generate versions and variations and to keep the author’s name, which was unknown in her lifetime, in the limelight.
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