Analysis of Pride and Prejudice - Essay Example

The novelist, Jane Austen is one of those people who have helped in popularizing the novel as a form of literature. Austen’s literary heroines are some of the best loved characters in literature and she is famous for having made her women characters very important. In Pride and Prejudice, it is the heroine of the novel, Elizabeth, who is the center of the novel and it is she who directs most of the action of the novel rather than the other characters in the novel who are sometimes reduced to the level of mere spectators.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”- the very first sentence of the novel is laced with irony and indicates the theme of the novel (Austen, 1). This line prepares the reader for the theme of marriage and courtship that develops during the course of the novel. The opening line seems to be almost what a character like Mrs. Bennett would say; the sentiments are those of a society that looks upon a man as nothing more than a catch and a woman as nothing more than a burden to a family.

This view of men and women is more insulting to women. It is, however, at the same time, insulting to men as well. Woman in this scheme of things are looked upon as mere vessels for procreation. Men, on the other hand are looked upon as nothing but providers of social and economic security. This can be seen in the best possible manner in the way in which the marriage between Mr. Collins and Charlotte Lucas happens. While neither of the two falls in love with the other, both enter into the relationship of marriage as a result of their needs. Mr. Collins is ordered by his benefactress to enter into a matrimonial relationship while Charlotte Lucas was desperately looking for a husband so as to not end up as an ‘old maid’.

The very crude ways in which the biological functions of men and women are all that is considered while negotiating a marriage is something that Austen critiques in the novel. Another aspect of the novel is the manner in which the military is portrayed. Much of the information that the reader gets regarding the military is from the character of Wickham and thus, the image that one receives of the military is not very flattering. This may be because of the adverse opinion that existed following the inception of the military.

The military was supposed to be essential following the French Revolution. Following this momentous event in world politics, the aristocracy of England became very worried as to their fate should such an uprising happen in England. To add fuel to the fire, there were many in England who were supporters of the French Revolution. The military, however, brought a new class of men into existence; men who hadn’t inherited any wealth under the system of primogeniture. This class of men destabilized the existing order of things and this was unacceptable to the aristocracy of England.

They thus, looked down upon the army, even though their very existence depended upon its presence. The army was seen as a unit of society that was morally not very upright. Wickham embodies all the negative qualities that are associated with the army and the heroine’s movement from being the love interest of the foot-soldier to that of the aristocratic male protagonist of the novel, Darcy, is accompanied by a moral and financial elevation. The novel also reveals the social churning that England