Austen, Jane - Opere

Jane Austen

Jane Austen was born in Steventon, in a village. Then her father established himself with his wife and daughters in Bath, and then returned to a cottage not far from Steventon, where she wrote many novels, “Sense and Sensibility”, which she published anonymously, “Pride and Prejudice”, “Mansfield Park”, “Emma”, “Persuasion” and “Northanger Abbey”.

The author lived in the age of Romanticism but she isn’t considered a romantic. The period in which the novel was written was a period of social and political change in England, with the Industrial Revolution and its consequences.

All her novels are set in a provincial world, and the characters generally belong to the rural middle class; they’re described in great detail. These characters live a quiet life, and there’s only one disturbance: love. Austen’s descriptions depend on dialogue and irony; she uses an omniscient third-person narrator.

Pride and prejudice

Pride and Prejudice is set in the countryside of southern England, is centred on love and marriage, and is about Elizabeth Bennet, an intelligent woman, the eldest of five sisters. The family live in Longbourn, a village. Two rich men, Bingley and Darcy, visit Longbourn. Bingley courts Elizabeth’s sister Jane, while Darcy is initially annoyed by that place because he believes in his social superiority, but then he’s attracted by Elizabeth, so he abandons his pride and tells her of his love. Elizabeth realizes she is wrong in her prejudice against Darcy, so they fall in love.

Hunting for a husband

Hunting for a husband is an extract of “Pride and Prejudice”, written by Jane Austen in 1813.

The title is very relevant to the meaning because it’s about the main theme of this text.

It’s set at the beginning of the 19th century, the period in which the author lived, and in a rural place, a village, Longbourn.

The characters involved in the situation are Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, and this last character represents the mentality of that time. Her only desire is to get one of her daughters married; especially, she wants her daughters to marry a rich man who has a good fortune.

In the first part and in the last one, we can find the narrator’s comment in the narration and descriptions of two characters’ personalities. The bulk of this text is a dialogue between Mr. and Mrs. Bennet.

The narrator is omniscient, writes in the third person and is unobtrusive. In the text there are different points of view: there is the narrator’s point of view in her comment, but she’s able to represent in the description also the point of view of the two characters. The presentation of the characters is both direct and indirect.

So the characters are round because we can know all their personalities, their faults and weaknesses.

The syntax is very simple, but where there’s narration it is more complex.

The author uses concrete and real words; there aren’t metaphors, symbols and so on, but there’s repetition of words like “marry”, “fortune” and “propriety”, which are all words referring to the main theme of the text.

The tone used by the author is sarcastic.

The theme is the mentality of the 19th century, the vision of the wedding as social mobility, as an affair for the middle classes who can receive benefits from the wedding.

The author has nothing of romantic characteristics, sensibility or imagination; on the contrary, there is an interest in society and irony, so there are themes of the Augustan age.

Hunting for a husband

Hunting for a husband is an extract of “Pride and Prejudice”, written by Jane Austen in 1813.

The title is very relevant to the meaning because it’s about the main theme of this text. The characters involved in the situation are Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, and this last character represents the mentality of that time. Her only desire is to get one of her daughters married; especially, she wants her daughters to marry a rich man who has a good fortune, but Mr. Bennet seems not to agree with his wife. He has different opinions, so she pretends to be nervous and goes on with her idea. In the text there are different points of view: there is the narrator’s point of view in her comment, but she’s able to represent in the description also the point of view of the two characters.