Austen, Jane - Pride and Prejudice: plot

Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice: plot

It is a typical novel of manners, showing interaction between people. Set in Longbourn where there are Mr and Mrs Bennet and their five daughters (Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Lydia and Kitty). MrBingley, a rich man rents a property nearby their zone and MrsBennet sees this as an opportunity for her daughters, indeed he falls in love with Jane. His friend Mr Darcy, a proud aristocrat, feels attracted to Elizabeth, but she cultivates a dislike of him due to negative gossip about him. Mr Darcy proposes to Elizabeth butshe rejects and accuses him of separating Jane and Mr Bingleyamd also of ill-treating Mr Wickham, a young officer. Thsi first rejects iis a turning point of the plot becausee from this moment on Elizabeth begins to learn morre about Darcy and his realnature. \Darcy writes her a letter to reveal that Wickham is an adventurer without scruples, indeed Wickham elopes with Lydia Darcy and they marry thanks to a secret organization by Darcy. Elizabeth accepts Darcy’s renewed proposal and Bingley and Jane also get married.

Themes

The relationship between the individual and society, the conflictbetween the individual’s desires and the individual’s responsibilityto society and family. The contrast between imagination and reason. The marriages in the novel is presented from severalpoints of view: in terms of security and independence,as physicalinfatuation (Lydia and Wickham, and Mr and Mrs Bennet); containing elements of love and prudence (Jane and Bingley; Elizabeth and Darcy). Elizabeth: has a lively mind;and has a strong spirit of independence indeed she refuses to take on the roles which her family or society tries to impose on her; accusesDarcy of pride. Darcy: is selfish and unsociable; accusesElizabeth of prejudice but himself is prejudiced and disgusted by the vulgar behaviour of Elizabeth’s mother and younger sisters.
The message of the novel was the search for Balance through the gradual change of of the characters’ personality. We can find vividness of characters, use of dialogue and irony. The narration is in third-person narration with Elizabeth’s point of view. But also epistolary technique with many letters.

Late Victorian Novel

They openly criticised the ‘Victorian compromise’, refusing the optimistic view of man and the idea of progress. They were the mirror of society by a new type of realis influenced by Social Darwinism, and they focused on the growing crisis both in the moral and religious fields during the second half of the 19th century. Policemen and detectives became more visible andrespectable in society, indeed crime fiction developed as a genre.The detective was a middle-class hero: a detective, one of the protagonists of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, tried to solve the mystery of the obscure relationship between the respectable Dr Jekyll and the monstrous Mr Hyde. Characters’s name had also a precise meaning, like Mr’’hyde’’ or Dr Je’’kyll’’.