Austen's Pride and Prejudice - A critical examination of Georgian Society.

   In the novel Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen holds up certain aspects of Georgian society, within which the novel is based, for critical examination. Carefully crafting her story, she uses many devices in order to persuade the reader to share her own view of society. These aspects include gender roles, status and social class, courtship and marriage. These aspects were almost laws in the way that they controlled the behavior of people within the society.

   Pride and Prejudice depicts a society in which gender roles are clearly defined and acting outside of these makes a person vulnerable to ostracism. This society is patriarchal and the role of the woman is extremely passive. Austen has created a comparison between the characters of Jane and Elizabeth, setting both of them to become the eventual heroine later in the novel. Jane is shown as a polite, beautiful and ‘gentle creature’, with a ‘sweet temperament’ and boundless innocence.  During the nineteenth century, women were expected to be this way and almost all novel heroines around the time were depicted in the same way, making the obvious, traditional choice of heroine to be Jane. Elizabeth on the other hand is far more unconventional, speaking her mind and able to make fun of her friend for wanting to marry for convenience rather than romance. By doing so, Austen has created a conflict of interest for the readers and through making Elizabeth her heroine, she persuades the reader to look at society through Elizabeth’s eyes, who undoubtedly shares the same opinions as Austen herself.

   Status and social class defined a person. Usually, only men were given the most important status, based on their earnings, titles and estates. Women were defined by the man they chose to marry and their reputation. The theme of class is related to reputation, in that both reflect the strictly regimented nature of life for the middle and upper classes in Regency England. The lines of class are strictly drawn. While the Bennets, who are middle class, may socialize with the upper-class Bingleys and Darcys, they are clearly their ‘social inferiors’ and are treated as such. Austen satirizes this kind of class-consciousness, such as in Mr. Darcy, who believes in the dignity of his lineage. His conception of the importance of class is shared, among others, by Miss Bingley, who dislikes anyone not as socially accepted as she is. The satire directed at these characters is therefore also more subtly directed at the entire social hierarchy and the conception of all those within it at its correctness, in complete disregard of other, more worthy virtues. Through the Darcy-Elizabeth and Bingley-Jane coupling, Austen shows the power of love and happiness to overcome class boundaries and prejudices, thereby implying that such prejudices are hollow, unfeeling, and unproductive.

   One of the main themes within the novel would be of courtship and marriage, introduced early on, by the very first sentence; ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man, in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife’. In saying so, Austen also implies that the reverse is true, more so in fact. That a single woman is in want of a man who is in possession of a good fortune.  Courtship takes on a profound, if often unspoken, importance in the novel. Marriage is the ultimate goal; courtship constitutes the real working-out of love. Courtship becomes a sort of forge of a person’s personality. There are traditional expectations within the society of the proper way in which to conduct yourself during each of these stages and how they should be carried out, with a most ‘proper alacrity’. Denouncing the rules of society, Elizabeth and Darcy’s relationship is formed in most unusual circumstances, where they share a mutual dislike of the other, and their journey eventually leads them to not one, but two proposals of marriage in which each understands the other far more than any other couple in the novel. Austen shows and indirectly criticizes the 18th century England's rural society and its rules through several people's marriages who are in different social positions. Through this journey of one couple, many of the characters, and therefore the readers of the time are able to differentiate between marriage for convenience and marriage for love.