March 8, 2020
Pride & Prejudice: Is Elizabeth Bennet challenging the patriarchal society of her time?
<p>One of the world's most popular novels, Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice has delighted readers since its publication with the story of the witty Elizabeth Bennet and her relationship with the aristocrat Fitzwilliam Darcy. Similar to Austen's other works, Pride & Prejudice is a humorous and yet serious portrayal of the social atmosphere of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century England, and it is principally concerned with courtship rituals of the English gentry. The novel is much more than a comic romance, however; through Austen's subtle and ironic style, it addresses economic, political, feminist, sociological, and philosophical themes, inspiring a great deal of diverse critical commentary on the meaning of the work. So we can ask ourselves: how does Elizabeth Bennet stand up to patriarchy? </p>
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<p>Bibliography: </p>
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<p>Austen, Jane. Emma. Chapter 47. New York: Dover Publications, 2000.</p>
<p>Austen, Jane. Northanger Abbey. Chapter XXIV. London: Penguin Classics, 2003, p.216.</p>
<p>Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Chapter I. New York: Dover Publications, Dover Thrift Editions, 1995. </p>
<p>Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Chapter 38. London: Penguin Popular Classics, 1994.</p>
<p>Copeland, Edward. The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen. Chapter 4: Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice by Rachel M. Brownstein. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. </p>
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<p>Fraiman, Susan. “The Humiliation of Elizabeth Bennet” excerpted in the Norton Critical Second Edition of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. New York: Norton, 1993.</p>
<p>Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic. Chapter 4. United States: Yale University Press, Yale Nota Bene, 2000.</p>
<p>Howells, William Dean. Jane Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet in Heroines of Fiction. Volume One. New York: Harper, 1901.</p>
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<p>Morrison, Robert. Pride and Prejudice, a Sourcebook. Edited by Robert Morrison. New York: Routledge, 2005.</p>
<p>Mudrick, Marvin. Irony as Discrimination: Pride and Prejudice, in Jane Austen: Irony as Defense and Discovery. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952.</p>
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<p>Ramadier, Bernard-Jean. Pride and Prejudice: le Roman de Jane Austen et le film de Joe Wright. Mesure et Equilibre dans Pride and Prejudice. Paris : CAPES/ Agrégation Anglais, Ellipses, 2006, p.115.</p>
<p>Tanner, Tony. Jane Austen. Chapter 4: Knowledge and Opinion: Pride and Prejudice, London: MacMillan, 1987.</p>
<p>The Hamwood Papers of the Ladies of Llangollen and Caroline Hamilton. ed. Mrs. G.H. Bell. London: MacMillan, 1930, p. 351.</p>
<p>Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. London: Penguin Classics, revised edition, 2004.</p>