Random notes: Pride and Prejudice
KS Sivakumaran
Virginia Woolf
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These notes are primarily meant for Lankan teenagers to persuade them
to enjoy and understand literatures in English at a basic level.
First, let us take a novel like Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, a
classic, which is being studied at various levels from General
Certificate of Education (GCE) Advanced Level (A/L) to the Degree and
Post-Graduate level.
As we know the primary characters in this novel are Darcy and
Elizabeth. Their relationship is revealed through many minute details.
These details look trivial, but when we finish reading the novel we
could feel their significance. During their walk in Netherfield Park,
Mrs Hurst leaves Elizabeth for Darcy to take the latter’s arm. This
Darcy did not like. Again at the Rosings while Elizabeth was playing the
piano Darcy was near Elizabeth standing.
If we were to find whether the characterization in the novel is near
realistic, we must acknowledge the fact that Jane Austen was a
psychological realist. She studies her characters sympathetically and
objectively. They are almost perfect characters, but they are all
paragons of neither virtue nor total villains. They are average human
beings with pleasant or disgusting traits. At the same time some of her
minor characters are flat, but her major characters are subject to
change and gradually become matured. In a way they reveal that the
characters are complex and dynamic.
The women characters have ego, vanity and even over-confidence but
show capability to in their understanding their follies. By being
disillusioned they begin to grow.
Jane Austen
George Elliot |
As we read the novel, we begin to realize that there are ironical
situations in the novel. Darcy and Elizabeth are intricate characters
and there is depth in their personalities. But paradoxically their
dominant characters had been Pride and Prejudice. On the other hand Jane
and Bingley are simple and this turns out to be a virtue. Another
ironical situation: When Elizabeth was almost mesmerized by Wickham,
Collins proposes to her and Darcy too proposes to Elizabeth exactly at
the moment when she dislikes him most.
Again it is ironical that the bad characters Wickham and Lady
Catherine were responsible for uniting Elizabeth and Darcy. As one
critic put it correctly, “Jane Austen uses irony to shake her major
characters of their self-deception and to expose the hypocrisy and
pretentiousness, absurdity and insanity of some of her minor
characters.”
Jane Austen did not much know about the lower classes. She could
write only about the small section of society, the upper middle class.
She understood the social relationship among them.
Pride and Prejudice |
Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice has negative treatment of some of
her characters. She disapproves of Mr Collin’s pomposity, Mrs Bennett’s
silliness, Lady Catherine’s snobbishness, Mary’s self-absorption and
above all Wickham’s selfish opportunism and deceit. All these characters
are commented on adversely, sometimes openly, sometimes by implication.
On the other hand Elizabeth and Darcy are admired for their ability
to learn. They are rewarded with happiness and wealth.
When we look for the meaning of the word 'Prejudice,' we will learn
that it is to form a judgment too hastily. By her description the
novelist introduces Wickham as an irresistible man of good appearance.
She makes Elizabeth falls for him. But she does not show us the real
character of Wickham at the beginning. Her purpose was to prejudice us
in his favour so that we understand how her heroine Elizabeth is
prejudiced. Later we discover that Wickham is not what he appears to be
and that is part of the meaning of the novel.
We notice that at the beginning of the novel Mrs Bennett had not met
Bingley, but she could speak about his status and his willingness to be
pleased and take immediate action and his significance for other
characters. Mr Collins is introduced through a letter he sends to Mr
Bennett.
To understand Jane Austen and her novels we should read our own
academic critic Yasmine Goonratne and Arnold Kettle, both of whose
writing I thoroughly enjoyed.
There are film versions of this classic, but it are nothing like
reading the novel ourselves and relishing the language she uses for her
narration and description.
It is true present day writers write differently and the modern and
contemporary novels incorporate many complex themes and simple style and
yet, novels like Pride and Prejudice have withstood time as good
literature. That is one reason why her book also continues to be
prescribed for public examinations.
Among the earlier British women writers I like Emily Bronte, George
Elliot, and Virginia Woolf
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