Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen

Learning Objectives Author and major works Social context of Regency England Pride and Prejudice Major characters Themes Austen’s style : irony, conversation and dialogue, free indirect speech

Jane Austen(1775-1817): Key facts Daughter of a clergyman Single, uneventful life Portraying a limited world in her novels Author of Sense and Sensibility(1811) Mansfield Park(1814) Emma(1816) Northanger Abbey(1818) Persuasion(1818)

Austen’s House Chawton The house where Jane Austen lived and wrote most of her novels; a pleasant seventeenth century house in the pretty village of Chawton in Hampshire not far from her birthplace of Steventon.

Social Context: Austen’s Time(Regency Period) Middle class gained social status Upper class: England’s established aristocracy Women, Patriarchy and Marriage Discussion: What does the opening sentence from “Pride and Prejudice” Indicate about society at that time?

Understanding the title Jane Austen’s original title for the novel was First Impressions. What role do first impressions play in Pride and Prejudice? Explain the significance of the title “Pride and Prejudice”. Who in the novel exhibit traits of pride or prejudice? What has caused the “pride” and the “prejudice”?

Flat characters vs. Round characters See more in Aspects of the Novel by E.M. Forster

Flat characters A flat character is a character that is uncomplicated and remains the same throughout the fictional work. A flat character is also characterized by only by one or two traits, who can be summed up in a sentence. Foster points out some advantages of flat characters: flat characters are easily recognized. They are also easily remembered since they don’t change. He also states that flat characters can be used best as comic characters. “A serious or tragic flat character is apt to be a bore.” 

Round characters A round character is a complex character who has many different qualities. He or she may even contradictory. Round characters often tend to be dynamic characters since they undergo a change in the novel. As E.M. Foster says, “The test of a round character is whether it is capable of surprising in a convincing way.”  A round character can surprise the readers since he or she is not stereotypical and predictable.

Darcy

Elizabeth Bennet

Mr Bennet “Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humor, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three-and-twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character.”

Mrs Bennet “Her mind was less difficult to develop. She was a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented, she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news.”

Jane Bennet

Lydia Bennet

The Bennet Family Mr Bennet Mrs Bennet Mary Bennet Jane Bennet Elizabeth Bennet Lydia Bennet Kitty Bennet

Charles Bingley

Mr Collins

Lady Catherine de Bourgh

Charlotte Lucas

George Wickham

The Gardiners

Themes Love What are the obstacles for the love between Darcy and Elizabeth? What does Darcy and Elizabeth’s realization of a mutual love imply about Austen’s views about love?

Reputation Pride and Prejudice depicts a society in which a woman’s reputation is of the utmost importance. A woman is expected to behave in certain ways. In what way does reputation impact on the women’s love and marriages in the novel? Find examples

Class Which characters in the novel show a degree of class consciousness in their behavior? What does Austen seem to suggest through the love between Darcy and Elizabeth? To what extent does Austen criticize about the class structure in her time?

Austen’s style Satire & Irony Conversation and dialogue Discuss the importance of dialogue to character development in the novel. Free indirect speech Find examples of free indirect speech from text the thoughts and speech of the characters mix with the voice of the narrator.

Dramatic irony(戏剧反讽） is achieved when the audience or reader understands more about what is happening as a result of the action than a character understands at the time Situational irony（情景反讽）is achieved when the audience is led to believe something else will happen as a result of a situation than what actually happens Verbal irony（词语反讽）is achieved when a person says something that literally means one thing but the speaker means to imply the exact opposite.

Dramatic irony Elizabeth being unaware of Darcy’s affection for her

Situational Irony Lady Catherine de Bourgh's attempted interference in Elizabeth's engagement to Darcy Lydia-Wickham episode may seem like an insurmountable barrier between Elizabeth and Darcy, but is exactly instrumental in bringing them together The departure of militia from Meryton seems to put an end to Lydia’s flirtations but it brings about her elopement

Verbal Irony : “It is truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife”. Charlotte Lucas accepts Mr. Collins “solely from the pure and disinterested desire of an establishment”.  “She is tolerable but not handsome enough to tempt me”.

Identify the characters through their style of conversation Generally serious and formal, yet simple, clear and restrained. Intelligent, with wit in speech that ranges in style from playfully humorous to argumentative to the coldly formal. sarcastic wit, negative mockery and cynicism. rapid, broken sentences, frequent exclamations and lack of coherence

“Elizabeth feeling all the more than common awkwardness and anxiety of his situation, now forced herself to speak; and immediately, though not very fluently, gave him to understand, that her sentiments had undergone so material a change, since the period to which he alluded, as to make her receive with gratitude and pleasure, his present assurances.”