Satire in Jane Austen’s Pride in Prejudice

Jane Austens Satirical Writing Analyzing the jeering of Social Class Within superciliousness and Prejudice Jane Austens haughtiness and Prejudice delves into the issue of why accessible stand up in a edict based solely on class should non be the just about signifi dischargeistert thing when evaluating the deserving of a idiosyncratic. Through several(prenominal) disparate literary techniques such(prenominal) as letters and abundant focalizers Austen conveys important information about key issues she has with the signifi give noticece placed on affectionate stand.The theme of class and fond rest is echoed constantly throughout Austens novel in many discretion, highlighting several aspects of the gentry that she distrusts. The aggregate of the novel focuses mainly on the distances placed surrounded by eccentric someones due to their kindly standing in a class based community. Regardless of how harmonize a person may be in any topic or capabilities, if a high sum of money is not contained within their personhood (or their estate), they argon considered menial. Jane Austen uses the companionable relationships between her fibres to satirize the richness placed on the hierarchy of class in nightclub.Austen wrote the novel in order to dress and satirize the problems that she saw in the hierarchy of class in the connection of her time. Throughout the entire novel at that place isnt a characterwhos introduced without his in move into being mentioned in the next sentence (Selznick 92). The ridiculousness of the honour placed upon money of which the center class has truly little is intelligible as Austen progresses the story and the relationships between her characters namely between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth.The event that, in Austens time, the society revolved round the gentry whose entire report of class and power involved money makes it easier for the hearing construe gazump and Prejudice to transform why she has satirized this issue. She does this rather flawlessly throughout the novel, relying on her knowledge of the increasing adamancy of the middle class to gain favorable circumstance and power through to a greater extent than just land, money and relations. The significance of favorable standing and the desire of the characters aspire to it can be seen in different instances throughout the novel.However, there ar a few characters for which the idea of wealthiness and power mean very little, who strive to better themselves through their throw wit and magnetise, rather than through the advantages of money. Elizabeth Bennet, the protagonist of the novel, is one such character. It is punishing for her to adjust to the sense of reality in which the novel exists due to the fact that the society has been permanently established and there is very little she can do to earn the credit she deserves.Yet it is due to Elizabeths unique personality that the audience is able to understand wh y her interest for the things at Pemberley and the positive change in effect she has for Mr. Darcys character signal the dual nature of how Austen eyeshot of the personal attainment of identity and piety balanced with her begrudged acknowledgement of a limited and restrained society (Hamilton). there ar several other(a) characters that believe the grandness placed on monetary gain to be superfluous and still others that to a fault come to sop up this.It is through dickens the understanding and ignorance of these characters that it becomes sheer just how deep Austen dis bank the idea of an individual requiring affectionate power in order to be recognized as an civil individual. Austen paid especially close maintenance to economic and genial standing when it came to her characters for the express purpose of satirizing why their master copy class was not necessarily to a greater extent agreeable or perfect(a) than those in the kickoffer classes.She wrote her novels w ith the idea that the quality of humanity is to be judged by moral and human standardsnot by amicable spot except like her own temporary snobsshe pays full attention to their social status first (Copeland 121). As seen with Austens character Mr. Darcy, she concentrates fully on his attachments to his nature before she delves into who he becomes and how much better off he is when he realizes the error in his way of thinking.In assessing the weight that social standing has on the progression of the story in Pride and Prejudice, one can attain a great bit of insight into why specialised characters act the way they do throughout the novel. The infamous Bingley sisters, for instance, are so attached to the idea of material wealth that they fail to realize when their comments are un pleasant. Ms. Bingley herself, who is so attached to the idea that she is superior to Elizabeth in every(prenominal) way, cannot understand why Mr.Darcy could maybe find Elizabeth attractive in any ass ortment of manner. It is her status-hungry and conceited personality that allows the audience to see the sheer difference between her and her brother, Mr. Charles Bingley. Unlike his sisters, he is not trying to climb up the social hierarchy to gain status and power instead, he says a gentler, more levelheaded side to the gentry as he falls in love with Elizabeths older sister, Jane. It is characters with personalities and ideals like Mr.Bingleys that Austen revered and trusted above all others. Curiously enough, however, the hardheaded Mr. Darcy, who is very aware of his social standing, is the one character in the novel who goes through the most drastic personality change. though Elizabeth Bennet had the positive, clever and levelheaded personality that Austen herself may reach had when relations with the social mobility of her time, it is instead the improbable change of heart that Mr.Darcy undergoes that shows how soulfulness who is socially superior can realize the immens eness of wit, charm and beauty of those around him instead of being concerned just now with their social status. This is how Austen is able to satirize these problems so efficiently that a modern audience does not realize that she is poking fun at the societal importance of class in her time and instead sees nothing but a charming romance. Yet Austen was doing much more than composing a unsubdivided love story.The novel was pen in a transitional stop everywhere when peoples way of thinking was shifting from a romantic olfactory modality at life to a more enlightened view of living. The ideals of the eighteenth ampere-second where people saw society as organized and divinely incorporated were quickly lost to the thinkers of the more modernistic views of society in the 19th century, in which there was a significant loss of faith in any spiritualistic based society. Instead, nineteenth century thought morose towards the idea of the individual as the still path towards orde r.This new idea of placing emphasis on the self was especially important to Austen, yet she complete that the tendency of an organized and structured society was to respect a person by their material wealth, rather than who the individual really was. She was able to sign on both ideas and mold them into her ideal situation, which can be seen in the furthermost few lines of the novel when Elizabeth is at last accepted into Pemberley and its heritage. It is here that the individual remains exactly where Austen would scram it, in the center of a horse barn eighteenth-century world (Hamilton 36).Class and social standing is a very evident and important issue for Austen and she satirizes it with the utmost diligence throughout the novel development intricate, yet simplistic designs for her characters relationships. For instance, instead of being forced to get married Mr. collins for the express purpose of making a new connection on their own, Elizabeth refuses to be defendled by s ocietys standards and defies Mrs. Bennets wishes in order to stage that it is still possible for individuals to make new connections in defiance of society (Austen 395).Tony Tanner, a British literary critic, who wrote the original admission to Pride and Prejudice conveyed that Austen wrote about a society which stresses social control over individual ecstasy, formality over informality, sartorial neatness over bodily abandon, and alert consciousnesses over the more Romantic states of revery and pick up and yet it is also a society in which the individual can experience freedom as well as commitment (Austen 395).The unfathomable amount of thought that Jane Austen put into writing Pride and Prejudice show how deeply she cared for the freedom of the individual and the ability to stand proudly in a society that overlooked individual assets for material ones. Tanner also credited Austen with the ability to create a character around the primal idea of attempting to prove their indiv idual worth within a society bound entirely by the ordinance of class.He is able to demonstrate the importance Austen placed on her characters especially Elizabeth and Jane Bennet purpose themselves in a gentry-based society by drawing on William Blakes In the Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Tanner argues with Blakes ideals in mind that Austen takes two completely different aspects of life, qualification and reason, and instead of reconciling these opposite attractions, there is a mutual coming together of complementary characteristics.He puts it merely when he states that she makes it seem as if it is possible for playfulness and regulation energy and boundaries to be united in fruitful harmony, without the one being sacrificed to the other (Austen 106). This ability to take two unlike ideas and mesh them together without either losing its significance is exactly how Austen takes societys emphasis on social standing and class and reverses it into something that now benefits a character where before it could only hinder (i. e. Elizabeths transformation from a meager middle-class girlfriend, to the cyprian of Pemberley).However, not all critics deliver been kind to the way in which Austen portrays this transformational miracle of a young girl suddenly coming into great sums of money, merely by the tact and wit she shows in the way she jazzs. These critics find Austens dealing with social standing and class to be abhorrent. In fact, one such critic happens to be a famous conditioness who, in writing a letter to G. H. Lewes in 1848, stated that she disliked the novel due to its silly dealings with the common life of both the upper and the middle-class.In her writing to the British literary and theatre critic, the authoress stated that she should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses (Austen 368). It was, in fact, Currer Bell more widely known as Charlotte Bronte who wrote this letter, in which the dealer can clearly sense the contempt she had for Austens writing and the way she portrayed her characters. Though perhaps more of an criticism towards the way Austen wrote in general, Bronte was still very serious with her concern about the way in which Austen depicted her characters and their lives.She had, in Brontes view, no sense of the outward world either panorama or personal appearance (Mazzeno 558). It is patent that Austens portrayal of social standing, class, romance, money, trade union and many other themes throughout Pride and Prejudice were not held in high regard with Bronte. Though the majority of critical analyses both praising and condemning the way in which Austen depicts social standing in her novel deplete been done by literary thinkers, there have been other mediums through which the novel has been adapted, such that even criticism of someone as famous as Charlotte Bronte is outshined.For example, in their book Authority, democracy and depicted object Character, professors Kuzmics of the University of Graz and Axtmann of the University of Wales, when addressing the problems that both Britain and Austria have seen in relation to social class when examining the issues that arose in several literary novels and dramas of the time, state that when they first studied Pride and Prejudice, they thought it had very little to do with such issues. They believed that the fate of the Bennet sisters in rural gentry-based England just after the turn of the century revolved around such harmless matters as a ball at Netherfield (Kuzmics 223).It is unpatterned that both professors believe at least upon their first reading of it that Austens novel had very little to do with the very real problems that are satirized throughout the story. Their criticism of the novel, however, in relation to how both Austrian and side of meat society has evolved during the civilizing process is perhaps accurate without an in depth reading of Pride and Prejudice, as it seems to merely have a relaxed air of temperateness and ironic, detached art of people watching (Kuzmics 223).Conversely, after one looks by all the pleasantries that the story has to offer, one realizes that, as the professors correctly stated, it only appears to have nothing to do with issues of class. This is why the novel must be read carefully, to push past the obvious romance of the story and dig into the satiric tone in which Austen addresses such important matters. As the professors continue their seek into the heart of the novel, they revealed very important aspects of Austens writing about social class and how it is a perfect example of English society, even to this day.She delimitate so clearly how England was a face-to-face or shame society in which the opposite of social respectability is social disgrace which was to be avoided at all costs (Kuzmics 227). This meant that for those families that were unable to depend on an inheritance or their relations in or der to live comfortably in society, they could only rely upon prospective marriage partners for a comfortable life. It is because of this importance placed upon societys standards of what makes a family valuable that the social value and respectability of the potential future spouse is ascertained and made patent (Southam 113).This, in turn, makes it difficult for someone such as Elizabeth who is very accomplished in her wit and charm unable to stoop so low as to accept a marriage proposal from someone she has no tender feelings toward. The idea of marrying only for money, power or social stability is part of the reason why Elizabeth Bennet is thought of as tonic by other characters in the novel such as Mr. Collins, peeress Catherine, and at times even her own mother.Yet it is because of Elizabeths character and the audacity she is capable of showing to such renowned individuals that proves Austen meant her novel to be much more than a romantic story between two characters. Sh e wanted a stab at the problems of the gentry, to affirm her belief that basing the worth of an individual merely by their material wealth was hardly the scoop out way of assessing someones value (Wilhelm). She was able to do a fantastic job of satirizing the gentry throughout her novel by apply several different aspects of what made a renowned person so important money, connections and property.In the general notes of the Penguin Classic version of Pride and Prejudice, David Spring, author of Interpreters of Jane Austens Social World, used historian Alan Everitts coined term pseudo-gentry to recognize a group of individuals that were comprised mostly of those involved with the trade, who aspired to attain the lifestyle of the come gentry. It is because of this idea that in order to be worth something, a person must own land, that several of the characters from Austens novel seek land-based wealth, which is an obvious sign of a class intensely interested in income as means to, a nd a sign of, status (Austen 413).This shows that Austens novel is written from a point of view that sees upward mobility as a bleak, cloud hierarchy and is much more interested in the professional middle class the class which, in Pride and Prejudice is represented quite adeptly by the Gardiners. This idea of attempting to identify oneself in a strict society based on social class has taken on numerous different forms books, critical essays, movies and television series. Innumerable amounts of professional critics have delved deeply into Austens novels representation of class, manners and even the social status of women in British society.In the incredibly faithful sestet hour long A&E/BBC adaptation of the book, Sue Britwistle the plans producer wanted to include many clear illustrations of the way that class and gender are governed by proper British mannersand highlight the importance of economic status in Regency England (Selznick 92). The fact that women could only gain so cial standing through marriage is very apparent(a) through all of Austens writing, not just Pride and Prejudice. It is incredible to think that a woman was worth nothing unless she had a red-blooded inheritance, as seen with Georgiana and Mr.Wickham. He cared nothing for her abilities, her looks, her personality the only thing he desired was the hefty sum of money she would receive through inheritance. The eccentric of relationship is seen numerous times throughout the novel and only contravened when Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy marry the two Bennet sisters. It is, as professors Kuzmics and Axtmann so rightly called it, a marriage market. The worth of an individual could only be seen through the instance of marriage, when a persons monetary value was ascertained and brought into light.There are several different instances throughout the novel in which social standing and class are satirized, though none so much as the motif of buss. Austen placed importance upon how many and of wh at kind carriage a person owned it signaled wealth, status and power which, to Austen, was not a feasible way to judge the worth of a person. The aspect of carriages even flows into the marriage market, where the prospective bride (because the groom always seemed to be worthy regardless) is critiqued and either approved or denied.Part of this process is inquiry into how many and what kind of carriages the bride owns if any. Their chances of finding a suitable match dwindles if they do not own an acceptable carriage (Walder). This is seen when gentlewoman Catherine tracks down Elizabeth at Longbourn, wondering how her nephew could have possibly proposed to one such as her someone who walks places without the aide of a carriage to take her anywhere. One of the most noteworthy characters that Austen uses to satirize social standing in her novel is Lady Catherine de Bourgh.Austen utilizes Lady Catherine for the primary function of criticizing the noble society in which she places her character, as Lady Catherine is one of the most triumphal and overbearing personalities in the novel. Jane Austen mercilessly ridicules the hierarchal society she was raised in by using Catherine as a means to convey how great(p) figures (who were only important because of their wealth) thought themselves to be experts on almost every topic, even if they had no prior knowledge of the subject of which they were speaking on.For example, when Elizabeth visits Lady Catherine at Rosings, she is not only terribly inquisitive about how the girl had been raised, but when she asks Elizabeth if she plays the piano, Catherine admits that she herself could not. Though, as she states soon afterward, if she had practiced, there was no doubt that she would have been incredible. Ironically enough, it is due to Lady Catherines sudden visitation with Elizabeth neighboring the end of the novel that Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth are married. By telling her nephew of the interview that she had with El izabeth, Catherine allows the microbe of hope to appear in Mr.Darcy. Lady Catherines attempt at interference between her nephew and Elizabeth is ultimately the reason that the two marry not to mention that it is a means by which Austen can convey the quick personality she bequeathed upon Elizabeth to show that ones social station should not limit her, but help her to hold her own in what most people saw as polite-society. Through many instances of dark humor, cataclysm and even comedic aspects, Jane Austens Pride and Prejudice takes a critical look at the issue of social standing in society and mischievously reprimands its ideals.Austen distrusted several aspects of the society in which she lived and tried to right its wrongs by satirizing the importance that the gentry placed on social standing and class. Though this may not have worked quite as well as she would have hoped as most people view Pride and Prejudice as a mere romance story with her cut and dry, black and black- and-blue views of what a person should be judged by, Austen clearly wanted her society to realize that a person could only be considered accomplished if they truly had the talents to be not whether or not they could afford to buy their name.Works Cited Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. London Penguin, 2003. Print. Copeland, Edward, and Juliet McMaster. The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen. Cambridge Cambridge UP, 1997. Print. Hamilton, Sylvia N. Constructing Mr. Darcy Tradition, Gender, and Silent Spaces in Jane Austen. Thesis. University of Central Oklahoma, 2007. Ann Arbor, MI ProQuest, 2008. Print. Kuzmics, Helmut, and Roland Axtmann. Authority, State and National Character the Civilizing Process in Austria and England, 1700-1900. Aldershot, England Ashgate, 2007.Print. Mazzeno, Laurence W. Jane Austen Two Centuries of Criticism. Rochester, NY Camden House, 2011. Print. Selznick, Barbara J. Global telecasting Co-producing Culture. Philadelphia Temple UP, 2008. Print. Southam , B. C. Jane Austen the Critical Heritage. London Routledge, 1999. Print. Walder, Dennis. The Realist Novel. New York Routledge, 2006. Print. Wilhelm, Julia. Appropriations of Jane Austens Pride and Prejudice in Contemporary British Fiction. Thesis. Johannes Gutenberg University, 2007. Mainz, Germany Grin Verlag, 2008. Print.