Pride and Prejudice BY JANE AUSTEN

Jane Austen lived at a time when novel reading had become one of the major forms of entertainment for the middle classes. She was doing something new with the novel, that she was using it to describe probable reality and the kinds of people one felt one already knew. The narratives of her heroines play out within the realms of possible.

Describing ordinary life: They are set in Southern England, in places and landscape Austen knew well. As Scott suggested, her plots are minimal and and the adventures her heroines meet with are no more than the experiences of her readers: preparations for a dance, an outing to the seaside, a picnic. Austen used fiction to describe social reality within her own time and class(the gentry and professional classes of Southern England in the early 19th century).

By so doing, she was able to introduce something closer to real morality in describing the range of human relationships that we all are likely to encounter in ordinary life. Her subjects are the behavior of parents to their children, the dangers and pleasures of falling in love, of making friends, of getting on with neighbors, and above all of discriminating between those who means us well and those who may not.

Her social realism includes her understanding that women’s lives in the early 19 th century are limited in opportunity, even among the gentry and upper classes. She understands that marriage is women’s best route to financial security and social respect.

Combining Realism, Romance and comedy: To say that Austen is a realist as a writer is not quite the same as saying she describes society as it really is. Her novels are also romantic comedies. In her novels, love and good fortune win out and the future looks perfect for the handsome young couple whose union is finally confirmed in the closing pages.

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