CHANAKYA NATIONAL LAW UNVERSITY

Final Draft in the fulfillment of course work in

LEGAL ENGLISH

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE BY JANE AUSTEN

Submitted To –Mr. Pratyush Kaushik Submitted By-Vibhuti

Faculty Of Legal English Roll No - 1772

Course – BA.LLB

Semester – 2nd

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank my faculty Dr. Pratyush Kaushik whose assignment of such relevant and
current topic made work towards knowing the subjects with a greater interest and enthusiasm
and moreover she guided me throughout the project .

I owe the present accomplishment of my project to my friends who held me immensely with
sources of research material throughout the project and without whom I couldn’t have
completed it in the present way.

I would also like to extend my gratitude to my parents and all those unseen hands who helped
me out at every stage of the project.

Vibhuti

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DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the work reported in the BA LL.B (Hons.) Project Report entitled
“James Boyd White on Law And Literature” submitted at Chanakya National Law University,
Patna is an authentic record of my work carried out under the supervision of Dr. Pratyush
Kaushik . I have not submitted this work elsewhere for any other degree or diploma. I am
fully responsible for the contents of my Project Report.

Vibhuti

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Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT...........................................................................................................................2
DECLARATION........................................................................................................................................3
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES..........................................................................................................................6
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY...................................................................................................................6
HYPOTHESIS...........................................................................................................................................6
TENTATIVE CHAPTERISATION.................................................................................................................6
INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................................7
ABOUT THE AUTHOR.............................................................................................................................7
PLOT OVERVIEW....................................................................................................................................8
THEME OF THE STORY.........................................................................................................................10
STYLE...................................................................................................................................................12
CONTEXT..............................................................................................................................................13
MAIN CHARACTERS.............................................................................................................................14
CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................................................15
BIBLIOGRAPHY.....................................................................................................................................15

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AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

 To study about the novel Pride and Prejudice of Jane Austen.

 To study about the societal construct and hierarchy in the early 19th Century.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

In this project Doctrinal Method of Research is used. Doctrinal Methods refer to Library
research, research or processes done upon some texts writings or Documents, legal
propositions and Doctrines, Articles, Books as well as Online Research and Journals relating
to the subject. This project is an intensive one so this method is sufficient to address the
findings and to arrive at concrete conclusions.

HYPOTHESIS

The researcher is of the viewpoint that, in society of the early 19 th century, where women
were not allowed to step outside alone without a male companion, the protagonist being
Elizabeth, is portrayed a rebel and defying the expectations of the society and living her life
in a bold way. This secretly shows Jane Austen secretly rebelling against the patriarchal
society and that’s why she created independent female characters like her.

TENTATIVE CHAPTERISATION

1. Introduction
2. About the Author
3. Plot overview
4. Theme of the novel
5. Style
6. Context
7. Major Characters
8. Conclusion

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INTRODUCTION

Pride and Prejudice is a romantic novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story
charts the emotional development of the protagonist, Elizabeth Bennet, who learns the error
of making hasty judgments and comes to appreciate the difference between the superficial
and the essential. The comedy of the writing lies in the depiction of manners, education,
marriage, and money during the British Regency period. It has long fascinated readers,
consistently appearing near the top of lists of "most-loved books" among both literary
scholars and the general public. It has become one of the most popular novels in English
literature, with over 20 million copies sold, and paved the way for many archetypes that
abound in modern literature.1 For more than a century, amateur and professional dramatic
adaptations, print continuations and sequels, and film and TV versions of Pride and
Prejudice have re imagined the original novel's memorable characters and themes to reach
mass audiences.2 The 2005 film, Pride & Prejudice, starring Keira Knightley and Matthew
Macfadyen is the most recent Hollywood adaptation of the book.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jane Austen (1775-1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels,
which interpret, critique and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th
century. Austen's plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage in the pursuit of
favourable social standing and economic security. Her works critique the novels of sensibility
of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century literary
realism.3 Her use of biting irony, along with her realism and social commentary, have earned
her acclaim among critics and scholars.

1Monstersandcritics.com. (last retrieved 14 April, 2018)

2 Looser, Devoney (2017). The Making of Jane Austen. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
p. 76. ISBN 1421422824.
3 Litz (1965), 3–14; Grundy (2014), 195–197; Waldron (2005), 83, 89–90; Duffy (1986), 93–94.

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Austen's plots highlight women's traditional dependence on marriage to secure social
standing and economic security.4 As an art form, the 18th-century novel lacked the
seriousness of its equivalents from the 19th century, when novels were treated as "the natural
vehicle for discussion and ventilation of what mattered in life" 5 Rather than delving too
deeply into the psyche of her characters, Austen enjoys them and imbues them with humour,
according to critic John Bayley. He believes that the well-spring of her wit and irony is her
own attitude that comedy "is the saving grace of life". 6 Part of Austen's fame rests on the
historical and literary significance that she was the first woman to write great comic novels.
Samuel Johnson's influence is evident, in that she follows his advice to write "a
representation of life as may excite mirth.7

PLOT OVERVIEW

The news that a wealthy young gentleman named Charles Bingley has rented the manor of
Netherfield Park causes a great stir in the nearby village of Longbourn, especially in the
Bennet household. The Bennets have five unmarried daughters—from oldest to youngest,
Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia—and Mrs. Bennet is desperate to see them all
married. After Mr. Bennet pays a social visit to Mr. Bingley, the Bennets attend a ball at
which Mr. Bingley is present. He is taken with Jane and spends much of the evening dancing
with her. His close friend, Mr. Darcy, is less pleased with the evening and haughtily refuses to
dance with Elizabeth, which makes everyone view him as arrogant and obnoxious. At social
functions over subsequent weeks, however, Mr. Darcy finds himself increasingly attracted to
Elizabeth’s charm and intelligence. Jane’s friendship with Mr. Bingley also continues to
burgeon, and Jane pays a visit to the Bingley mansion. On her journey to the house she is
caught in a downpour and catches ill, forcing her to stay at Netherfield for several days. In
order to tend to Jane, Elizabeth hikes through muddy fields and arrives with a spattered dress,
much to the disdain of the snobbish Miss Bingley, Charles Bingley’s sister. Miss Bingley’s
spite only increases when she notices that Darcy, whom she is pursuing, pays quite a bit of

4 MacDonagh (1991), 66–75; Collins (1994), 160–161

5 Bayley (1986), 24
6 Bayley (1986), 25–26
7 Polhemus (1986), 60

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attention to Elizabeth. When Elizabeth and Jane return home, they find Mr. Collins visiting
their household. Mr. Collins is a young clergyman who stands to inherit Mr. Bennet’s
property, which has been “entailed,” meaning that it can only be passed down to male heirs.
Mr. Collins is a pompous fool, though he is quite enthralled by the Bennet girls. Shortly after
his arrival, he makes a proposal of marriage to Elizabeth. She turns him down, wounding his
pride. Meanwhile, the Bennet girls have become friendly with militia officers stationed in a
nearby town. Among them is Wickham, a handsome young soldier who is friendly toward
Elizabeth and tells her how Darcy cruelly cheated him out of an inheritance. At the beginning
of winter, the Bingleys and Darcy leave Netherfield and return to London, much to Jane’s dismay. A
further shock arrives with the news that Mr. Collins has become engaged to Charlotte Lucas,
Elizabeth’s best friend and the poor daughter of a local knight. Charlotte explains to Elizabeth that
she is getting older and needs the match for financial reasons. Charlotte and Mr. Collins get married
and Elizabeth promises to visit them at their new home. As winter progresses, Jane visits the city to
see friends (hoping also that she might see Mr. Bingley). However, Miss Bingley visits her and
behaves rudely, while Mr. Bingley fails to visit her at all. The marriage prospects for the Bennet girls
appear bleak.

That spring, Elizabeth visits Charlotte, who now lives near the home of Mr. Collins’s patron,
Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who is also Darcy’s aunt. Darcy calls on Lady Catherine and
encounters Elizabeth, whose presence leads him to make a number of visits to the Collins’s
home, where she is staying. One day, he makes a shocking proposal of marriage, which
Elizabeth quickly refuses. She tells Darcy that she considers him arrogant and unpleasant,
then scolds him for steering Bingley away from Jane and disinheriting Wickham. Darcy
leaves her but shortly thereafter delivers a letter to her. In this letter, he admits that he urged
Bingley to distance himself from Jane, but claims he did so only because he thought their
romance was not serious. As for Wickham, he informs Elizabeth that the young officer is a
liar and that the real cause of their disagreement was Wickham’s attempt to elope with his
young sister, Georgiana Darcy.

This letter causes Elizabeth to reevaluate her feelings about Darcy. She returns home and acts
coldly toward Wickham. The militia is leaving town, which makes the younger, rather man-
crazy Bennet girls distraught. Lydia manages to obtain permission from her father to spend
the summer with an old colonel in Brighton, where Wickham’s regiment will be stationed.
With the arrival of June, Elizabeth goes on another journey, this time with the Gardiners, who
are relatives of the Bennets. The trip takes her to the North and eventually to the
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neighborhood of Pemberley, Darcy’s estate. She visits Pemberley, after making sure that
Darcy is away, and delights in the building and grounds, while hearing from Darcy’s servants
that he is a wonderful, generous master. Suddenly, Darcy arrives and behaves cordially
toward her. Making no mention of his proposal, he entertains the Gardiners and invites
Elizabeth to meet his sister.

Shortly thereafter, however, a letter arrives from home, telling Elizabeth that Lydia has
eloped with Wickham and that the couple is nowhere to be found, which suggests that they
may be living together out of wedlock. Fearful of the disgrace such a situation would bring
on her entire family, Elizabeth hastens home. Mr. Gardiner and Mr. Bennet go off to search
for Lydia, but Mr. Bennet eventually returns home empty-handed. Just when all hope seems
lost, a letter comes from Mr. Gardiner saying that the couple has been found and that
Wickham has agreed to marry Lydia in exchange for an annual income. The Bennets are
convinced that Mr. Gardiner has paid off Wickham, but Elizabeth learns that the source of the
money, and of her family’s salvation, was none other than Darcy.

Now married, Wickham and Lydia return to Longbourn briefly, where Mr. Bennet treats them
coldly. They then depart for Wickham’s new assignment in the North of England. Shortly
thereafter, Bingley returns to Netherfield and resumes his courtship of Jane. Darcy goes to
stay with him and pays visits to the Bennets but makes no mention of his desire to marry
Elizabeth. Bingley, on the other hand, presses his suit and proposes to Jane, to the delight of
everyone but Bingley’s haughty sister. While the family celebrates, Lady Catherine de
Bourgh pays a visit to Longbourn. She corners Elizabeth and says that she has heard that
Darcy, her nephew, is planning to marry her. Since she considers a Bennet an unsuitable
match for a Darcy, Lady Catherine demands that Elizabeth promise to refuse him. Elizabeth
spiritedly refuses, saying she is not engaged to Darcy, but she will not promise anything
against her own happiness. A little later, Elizabeth and Darcy go out walking together and he
tells her that his feelings have not altered since the spring. She tenderly accepts his proposal,
and both Jane and Elizabeth are married.

THEME OF THE STORY

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  LOVE

Pride and Prejudice contains one of the most cherished love stories in English
literature: the courtship between Darcy and Elizabeth. As in any good love story, the
lovers must elude and overcome numerous stumbling blocks, beginning with the
tensions caused by the lovers’ own personal qualities. Elizabeth’s pride makes her
misjudge Darcy on the basis of a poor first impression, while Darcy’s prejudice
against Elizabeth’s poor social standing blinds him, for a time, to her many virtues.
(Of course, one could also say that Elizabeth is guilty of prejudice and Darcy of pride
—the title cuts both ways.) Austen, meanwhile, poses countless smaller obstacles to
the realization of the love between Elizabeth and Darcy, including Lady Catherine’s
attempt to control her nephew, Miss Bingley’s snobbery, Mrs. Bennet’s idiocy, and
Wickham’s deceit. In each case, anxieties about social connections, or the desire for
better social connections, interfere with the workings of love. Darcy and Elizabeth’s
realization of a mutual and tender love seems to imply that Austen views love as
something independent of these social forces, as something that can be captured if
only an individual is able to escape the warping effects of hierarchical society. Austen
does sound some more realist (or, one could say, cynical) notes about love, using the
character of Charlotte Lucas, who marries the buffoon Mr. Collins for his money, to
demonstrate that the heart does not always dictate marriage. Yet with her central
characters, Austen suggests that true love is a force separate from society and one that
can conquer even the most difficult of circumstances.

 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. Stepping outside the social
norms makes her vulnerable to ostracism. This theme appears in the novel, when Elizabeth
walks to Netherfield and arrives with muddy skirts, to the shock of the reputation-conscious
Miss Bingley and her friends. At other points, the ill-mannered, ridiculous behavior of Mrs.
Bennet gives her a bad reputation with the more refined (and snobbish) Darcys and Bingleys.
Austen pokes gentle fun at the snobs in these examples, but later in the novel, when Lydia
elopes with Wickham and lives with him out of wedlock, the author treats reputation as a
very serious matter. By becoming Wickham’s lover without benefit of marriage, Lydia clearly

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places herself outside the social pale, and her disgrace threatens the entire Bennet family. The
fact that Lydia’s judgment, however terrible, would likely have condemned the other Bennet
sisters to marriageless lives seems grossly unfair. Why should Elizabeth’s reputation suffer
along with Lydia’s? Darcy’s intervention on the Bennets’ behalf thus becomes all the more
generous, but some readers might resent that such an intervention was necessary at all. If
Darcy’s money had failed to convince Wickham to marry Lydia, would Darcy have still
married Elizabeth? Does his transcendence of prejudice extend that far? The happy ending
of Pride and Prejudice is certainly emotionally satisfying, but in many ways it leaves the
theme of reputation, and the importance placed on reputation, unexplored. One can ask
of Pride and Prejudice, to what extent does it critique social structures, and to what extent
does it simply accept their inevitability?

 CLASS

The theme of class is related to reputation, in that both reflect the strictly regimented nature
of life for the middle and upper classes in Regency England. The lines of class are strictly
drawn. While the Bennets, who are middle class, may socialize with the upper-class Bingleys
and Darcys, they are clearly their social inferiors and are treated as such. Austen satirizes this
kind of class-consciousness, particularly in the character of Mr. Collins, who spends most of
his time toadying to his upper-class patron, Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Though Mr. Collins
offers an extreme example, he is not the only one to hold such views. His conception of the
importance of class is shared, among others, by Mr. Darcy, who believes in the dignity of his
lineage; Miss Bingley, who dislikes anyone not as socially accepted as she is; and Wickham,
who will do anything he can to get enough money to raise himself into a higher station. Mr.
Collins’s views are merely the most extreme and obvious. The satire directed at Mr. Collins is
therefore also more subtly directed at the entire social hierarchy and the conception of all
those within it at its correctness, in complete disregard of other, more worthy virtues.
Through the Darcy-Elizabeth and Bingley-Jane marriages, Austen shows the power of love
and happiness to overcome class boundaries and prejudices, thereby implying that such
prejudices are hollow, unfeeling, and unproductive. Of course, this whole discussion of class
must be made with the understanding that Austen herself is often criticized as being a classist:
she doesn’t really represent anyone from the lower classes; those servants she does portray

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are generally happy with their lot. Austen does criticize class structure but only a limited slice
of that structure.

 Marriage

The opening line of the novel famously announces: "It is a truth universally acknowledged,
that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." 8 This sets
marriage as a central subject — and really, a central problem —for the novel generally.
Readers are poised to question whether or not these single men are, in fact, in want of a
wife, or if such desires are dictated by the "neighbourhood" families and their daughters
who require a "good fortune". Marriage is a complex social activity that takes political
economy, and economy more generally, into account. In the case of Charlotte Lucas, for
example, the seeming success of her marriage lies in the comfortable economy of their
household, while the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Bennet serves to illustrate bad
marriages based on an initial attraction and surface over substance (economic and
psychological). The Bennets' marriage is one such example that the youngest Bennet, Lydia,
will come to re-enact with Wickham, and the results are far from felicitous. Though the
central characters, Elizabeth and Darcy, begin the novel as hostile acquaintances and unlikely
friends, they eventually work to understand each other and themselves so that they can
marry each other on compatible terms personally, even if their "equal" social status remains
fraught. When Elizabeth rejects Darcy's first proposal, the argument of only marrying when
one is in love is introduced. Elizabeth only accepts Darcy's proposal when she is certain she
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loves him and her feelings are reciprocated. Austen's complex sketching of different
marriages ultimately allows readers to question what forms of alliance are desirable,
especially when it comes to privileging economic, sexual, companionate attraction.

STYLE

Pride and Prejudice, like most of Austen's other works, employs the narrative technique
of free indirect speech, which has been defined as "the free representation of a character's

8 Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice, Ch 1.

9 Gao, Haiyan (February 2013). "Jane Austen's Ideal Man in Pride and Prejudice" Theory and Practice in
Language Studies: 384–388 – via ProQuest Literature Online.

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speech, by which one means, not words actually spoken by a character, but the words that
typify the character's thoughts, or the way the character would think or speak, if she thought
or spoke".10 Austen creates her characters with fully developed personalities and unique
voices. Though Darcy and Elizabeth are very alike, they are also considerably different. By
using narrative that adopts the tone and vocabulary of a particular character (in this case,
Elizabeth), Austen invites the reader to follow events from Elizabeth's viewpoint, sharing her
prejudices and misapprehensions.11 "The learning curve, while undergone by both
protagonists, is disclosed to us solely through Elizabeth's point of view and her free indirect
speech is essential ... for it is through it that we remain caught, if not stuck, within Elizabeth's
misprisions.12 The few times the reader is allowed to gain further knowledge of another
character's feelings, is through the letters exchanged in this novel. Darcy's first letter to
Elizabeth is an example of this as through his letter, the reader and Elizabeth are both given
knowledge of Wickham's true character. Austen is known to use irony throughout the novel
especially from viewpoint of the character of Elizabeth Bennet. She conveys the "oppressive
rules of femininity that actually dominate her life and work, and are covered by her
beautifully carved Trojan horse of ironic distance."13 Beginning with a historical investigation
of the development of a particular literary form and then transitioning into empirical
verifications, it reveals Free Indirect Discourse as a tool that emerged over time as practical
means for addressing the physical distinctness of minds. Seen in this way, Free Indirect
Discourse is a distinctly literary response to an environmental concern, providing a scientific
justification that does not reduce literature to a mechanical extension of biology, but takes its
value to be its own original form.14

CONTEXT
Jane Austen’s heroines have long been admired. Like Elizabeth, they are all intelligent,
independent, and strong-willed. Nevertheless, all of them have flaws. The deficiencies of
Austen’s heroines, however, are defects not of character, but of judgment. When, in the
10 Miles, Robert (2003). Jane Austen. Writers and Their Work. Tavistock: Northcote House in association with
the British Council. ISBN 0-7463-0876-0.

11 Baker, Amy. "Caught In The Act Of Greatness: Jane Austen's Characterization Of Elizabeth And Darcy By
Sentence Structure In Pride and Prejudice." Explicator 72.3 (2014): 169–178. Academic Search Complete. Web.
(last retrieved 14 April 2018)
12 Janet M. Todd (2005), Books.Google.com, Jane Austen in Context, Cambridge University Press p. 127
13 Fletcher, Angus (2013). "A Scientific Justification for Literature: Jane Austen's Free Indirect Style as Ethical
Tool". Journal of Narrative Theory : JNT. 43: 13 – via Literature Online.
14 pride, n.1". Oxford English Dictionary (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. September 2005.

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course of the novels, they come to know themselves better and to see others more clearly,
their inherent virtues are strengthened by wisdom.

With the growth of feminist criticism, however, have come new questions about Austen’s
intentions, especially where her heroines are concerned. While there is still general agreement
that Elizabeth Bennet is the most admirable, as well as the most appealing, of her female
characters, some critics argue that Elizabeth’s marriage to Darcy represents a sacrifice of her
selfhood. Even in a patriarchal society such as Austen’s, a girl whose father is as passive as
Mr. Bennet can rule her own life unless, like Lydia, she blatantly defies society. Darcy,
however, is quite a different kind of person from Mr. Bennet. It is questioned whether
Elizabeth can maintain her independence as the wife of a man who is her equal in will and
intellect and her superior in rank and wealth, especially since she will be moving in his social
circle.

Since Austen wrote no sequel to Pride and Prejudice which could settle the issue, however,
most critics continue to believe that the novel ends happily. They see Elizabeth as a woman
who will assert herself, no matter what her situation, and Darcy as a man who would never
attempt to destroy the very qualities in Elizabeth that initially elicited his admiration. Perhaps
the significance of these questions is not merely that they emphasize how repressive Jane
Austen’s environment actually was, but also that they underline her amazing achievement. In
a society dominated by males, she managed to bring to life a number of strong-willed female
characters and to produce some of the finest literary works of her era.

MAIN CHARACTERS

 ELIZABETH BENNET

She is the second of the Bennet daughters, she is twenty years old and intelligent, lively,
playful, attractive, and witty – but with a tendency to judge on first impressions. As the story
progresses, so does her relationship with Mr. Darcy. The course of Elizabeth and Darcy's
relationship is ultimately decided when Darcy overcomes his pride, and Elizabeth overcomes
her prejudice, leading them both to surrender to their love for each other.

 MR. FITZWILLIAM DARCY

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The wealthy friend of Mr. Bingley. A newcomer to the village, he is ultimately Elizabeth
Bennet's love interest. Mr. Darcy is the wealthy, twenty-eight year old owner of the renowned
family estate of Pemberley in Derbyshire, and is rumoured to be worth at least £10,000 a
year. While being handsome, tall, and intelligent, Darcy lacks ease and social graces, and so
others frequently mistake his aloof decorum and rectitude as further proof of excessive pride.

 MR. BENNET

A late-middle-aged landed gentleman of a modest income of £2000 per annum, and the dryly
sarcastic patriarch of the now-dwindling Bennet family (a family of Hertfordshire landed
gentry), with five unmarried daughters. His estate, Longbourn, is entailed to the male line.

 MRS. BENNET

The middle-aged wife of her social superior, Mr. Bennet, and the mother of their five
daughters. Mrs. Bennet is a hypochondriac who imagines herself susceptible to attacks of
tremors and palpitations ("[her] poor nerves"), whenever things are not going her way. Her
main ambition in life is to marry her daughters off to wealthy men. Whether or not any such
matches will give her daughters happiness is of little concern to her.

 JANE BENNET

The eldest Bennet sister. Twenty-two years old when the novel begins, she is considered the
most beautiful young lady in the neighbourhood and is inclined to see only the good in
others. She falls in love with Charles Bingley, a rich young gentleman recently moved to
Hertfordshire and a close friend of Mr. Darcy

 CHARLES BINGLEY

a handsome, amiable, wealthy young gentleman who leases Netherfield Park, an estate three
miles from Longbourn, with the hopes of purchasing it. He is contrasted with Mr. Darcy for
having more generally pleasing manners, although he is reliant on his more experienced
friend for advice. An example of this is the prevention of Bingley and Jane's romance because
of Bingley's undeniable dependence on Darcy's opinion.15 He lacks resolve and is easily
influenced by others; his two sisters, Miss Caroline Bingley and Mrs. Louisa Hurst, both
disapprove of Bingley's growing affection for Miss Jane Bennet.
15 No love for Lydia: The fate of desire in Pride and Prejudice Allen DW 1985

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CONCLUSION

Jane Austen presents a witty and varied range of opinions on love and marriage in the early
nineteenth century. The men have by far the greater range of choices, while younger women
must remain constrained in mostly female company, awaiting rare opportunities to encounter
eligible young men. The fact that the women are so easily interchangeable in the eyes of men,
and so often resigned to their fate, highlights their role as little more than items of property in
this patriarchal society.

Each of the types of marriage outlined above are presented as viable choices for the Bennet
sisters. The novel focus on Elizabeth, however, and the more interesting and nuanced path
toward marriage that she travels, suggests that this alliance of two highly intelligent and
moderately rebellious characters may well represent the ideal marriage from a nineteenth
century upper class perspective. The novel plays with stereotypes in the minor characters, and
stretches the limits of acceptable masculinity and femininity in the two main characters. Thus
the novel challenges some, but not all, of the prejudices of the time and leaves the reader with
a detailed and nuanced overview of love and marriage in this period.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Austen, J. (1918) [1813] Pride and Prejudice.

2. Macpherson, S. (2003) Rent to Own: Entailed in Pride and Prejudice.
Representations 82 (1), pp. 1-23.
3. Zimmerman, E. (1968) Pride and Prejudice in Pride and Prejudice. Nineteenth-
Century Fiction 23 (1), pp. 64-73.
4. Weinsheimer, J. (1972) Chance and the hierarchy of marriages in Pride and
Prejudice. ELH 39 (3), pp. 404-419.
5. Howells, W. D. (1918) Introduction to Pride And Prejudice. New York: Scribner.
6. Butler, M. (2001) The Juvenilia and Northanger Abbey. In S. Regan (Ed.), The
Nineteenth-Century Novel: A Critical Reader. London: Routledge, pp. 136-143.

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