Feminism in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Essay

Feminism in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Jane Austen, the author of Pride and Prejudice, holds feminist views and uses the novel to show her opinions about womens issues. Pride and Prejudice is a personal essay, a statement of Jane Austens feelings about the perfect lady, marriage, and the relationship between the sexes. Jane Austens characters, plot, and dialogue are biased to reflect her beliefs. The biased process and importance of marriage are introduced with the first line of the book. Jane Austen writes: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possesion of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or†¦show more content†¦The woman that achieves all of this is the perfect lady. The perfect lady is representative of the times, and Jane Austen exploits this socalled perfection to show that her society was quite the opposite when it came to the lives of women. The perfect lady was a categorization. It made the women have to be a certain person. They had to conform. ?A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, all the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner or walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved (35).? A woman herself, Miss Bingley, made this statement. Not only did women have no free will, but they were the ones that supported conformity. This did not apply to all women, but to the perfect ladies, one of which Miss Bingley is implied to be. Jane Austen juxtaposes the perfect lady and Miss Bingley in order to show that the perfect lady is really a shallow-minded conformist. With characters like Miss Bingley, Austen creates a resentment for the accomplished lady generalization in the reader?s head. This makes the reader dislike the highlight of English society, realize it?s sexism in restricting women?s free will, and favor characters that are vessels for feminist notions, such asShow MoreRelatedJane Austen and Her Feminism1158 Words   |  5 PagesJane Austen and Her Feminism ---analyzing of feminism revealed in Pride and Prejudice Introduction It is universally acknowledged that Jane Austen was a major woman novelist in English; but it is also a truth that almost as universally ignored that Jane Austen was a feminist. By intensively reading her six novels (Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion) and studying feminism, I have found some significant and fresh thingsRead MoreJane Austen s Pride And Prejudice1142 Words   |  5 PagesPride and Prejudice: Feminist Origins Jane Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice in 1813, and it is seen as an important novel. 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