Pride and Predjudice

(1813)
Jane Austen

Finished Reading: 05.2010

This most ancient of texts (1813!) is rather enjoyable for its captivating character development and as a compelling study of human behavior. Jane Austen escorts us through the life of an English country family with five daughters. Each member of the household is remarkably different from the others and it is a wonder they get on at all.

The times were very different two centuries years ago, when gentlemen of a certain social standing owned large estates and held honorable titles. Their days were passed visiting acquaintances, playing cards and sitting with the women, who knitted or sang and talked. Awkward silences were the norm. Every once and awhile a man of particular initiative might ask an eligible young woman, with whom he had spent the afternoon in the aforementioned awkward silence, to walk with him in the garden and, taking her hand, would ask for that very hand in marriage. Beautiful, well manicured gardens were made for moments such as these - it would seem.

Mr. Bennett, a country gentleman unlucky to have no male heir, lives in a comfortable house with the six women who are his wife and daughters, avoiding his cousins and neighbors who would someday inherit his estate. He finds comfort in observing the constant silliness of his family. His wife is absolutely ridiculous and frivolous in every way, and their youngest daughter Lydia is much the same. The oldest daughters, Jane and Elizabeth are the only sensible female creatures around, as the other two, Mary and Kitty are caught up in too many books and too many parties, respectively. The Bennett's ineffectual parenting has developed a troop of daughters ranging from too sensible to senseless and all unmarried.

I enjoy Mr. Bennett's subtle observation and the amusement he finds with his family and the visitors to Hertfordshire. He quietly recognizes the ridiculousness in most of them, which brings him a chuckle, and does not find serious people to be all too useful. He has a few witty lines for his wife and daughters, and after his youngest, Lydia, finds herself in some romantic trouble, tells his other daughters that they are now under a stricter watch. "And you are never to stir out of doors, till you can prove, that you have spent ten minutes of every day in a rational manner."

Elizabeth, much like her father and admittedly his favorite, shares his propensity for witty, thoughtful remarks. While dancing solemnly with Mr. Darcy she says, "We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the eclat of a proverb."

Pride and Prejudice finds its structure in the socialization pattern outlined above, and its substance in the relationship that blossoms between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy; he being a very rich, very eligible, and seemingly very disagreeable and prideful man. I don't understand Elizabeth's change of heart from hating Mr. Darcy to loving him. Their actions towards one another change from hateful resentment and prejudice to affectionate desire, but why? The change occurs over time, as Elizabeth gets to know Darcy's character more realistically, but I don't know how she ever gave him the chance in the first place.

Secondary to the major plot line is the dynamic duo of pompous Mr. Collins and his benefactress: the spectacle that is Lady Catherine de Bourgh. I could watch their condescending, haughty banter for many more chapters than we are given. These two co-exist nicely and share a common desire to be heard, respected and talk over anyone else who has an opinion. Very much the opposite are the characters of Mr. Bennett and his daughter Elizabeth, and I can only imagine the chuckle Mr. Bennett would have upon receiving the glory of Lady Catherine's presence should she come to visit, which he seemed always to avoid.

Being an old European story, I can't help comparing Austen's work to another old story or two. Though written later in the same century, which is quite enough time to separate any two things, the works of Leo Tolstoy allow for an interesting comparison between an English female author and a male Russian. Though Tolstoy was born about a decade after Austen died, I want to think some comparisons can be made between these giants of 19th Century literature, as War and Peace is to have taken place about the same time.

This being the only work of Austen I have read thus far, but being passingly familiar with her other works, I notice Pride and Prejudice lacks a the certain male-vision of the world evident in War and Peace and Anna Karenina. The setting is entirely domestic and from the female perspective (which is to be expected from a female author of this time). Soldiers are seen only at balls and parties, gardens and large tracts of green land are kept up by an army of unseen laborers, and gentlemen in general appear out of nowhere in carriages, drive up the front lane to call for supper, and disappear as quickly as they came to places unnamed and with business unknown. What do men do all day when they are not with the ladies?

While Austen's world is interesting in itself, and allows for a great deal of character and behavioral development within a very tight circle of habits oblivious to the outside world, Tolstoy presents a much more detailed and broader view of life and of course takes four or five times more pages to accomplish it. Politics, important cultural issues of the day, and a proper description of war are all missing from Austen's idyllic tale, but it is all appropriate as told from the point of view of the beautiful Elizabeth Bennett, and so we can turn to Tolstoy for the other side of things and enjoy Austen for what it is - just one important piece to the full understanding of 19th Century Britain.