PRIDE AND PREJUDICE BY JANE AUSTEN

My challenge today is to try to give a fresh, new review of Pride and Prejudice.  Let's look at P&P from a courtship and seduction angle, shall we?

In Jane Austen's 1813 novel, Pride and Prejudice, the reader is treated to a delectable main course of 19^th century courtship. There is no better place to begin a tale of courtship than in the Bennet home with Mr. and Mrs. Bennet discussing the arrival of a young, single neighbor and the future of their own unwed daughters. Mrs. Bennet appeals to her practical husband to visit Bingley as soon as possible as “The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news."  Upon finding out that Mr. Bennet did indeed visit Bingley, Mrs. Bennet exclaims, “But I knew I should persuade you at last. I was sure you loved your girls too well to neglect such an acquaintance.”  It is here that the modern reader of Pride and Prejudice is first introduced to the idea of courtship as it existed in the 19^th century. 

The reader soon learns that 19th century courtship is truly all in the family.  Bingley's sister perhaps says it best when speaking of the possible connection between Jane and Bingley:  “I have an excessive regard for Jane Bennet, she is really a very sweet girl, and I wish with all my heart she were well settled. But with such a father and mother, and such low connections, I am afraid there is no chance of it” 

Even the great and fearless Darcy, upon asking Elizabeth to dance, decides he “had never been so bewitched by any woman as he was by her. He really believed, that it were not for the inferiority of her connections, he should be in some danger."  

Will the Bennets prevail in securing excellent connections for their unwed daughters or will the Bingley/Darcy party succeed in their own well-laid plans?  If this were the only theme that Austen wrote in Pride and Prejudice, we could probably choose a side and get on with the read.

However, like the pot simmering on the back of the stove, Austen's minor theme of seduction heats up the entire story of Pride and Prejudice. Every cook knows that if not watched, the simmering pot on the back burner will boil over. Yet, this is precisely where Austen places her theme of seduction in this novel. While the reader is being entertained by the courtship plot served up by Mr. and Mrs. Bennet and the Bingley/Darcy party, there quietly simmers the unwatched pot of Wickham who “had all the best part of beauty, a fine countenance, a good figure, and a very pleasing address."   Although Wickham only appears in a few scenes, he makes good use of his time in this story. He first meets the Bennet girls in town. He draws the attention of the Bennets' wild child, Lydia, as well as Elizabeth.  Unfortunately for Wickham, his tastes run expensive and his paycheck runs low. Mr.Wickham is a playboy through and through and the seduction of pretty and wealthy girls is his game.

 

Here's where Austen shows her genius in my opinion.  She not only surprises the entire cast of characters with Wickham's seduction of Lydia, but surprises the reader as well. No one sees it coming. Although Austen hints at the possibility that something is awry by alerting the readers that Lydia is corresponding in code with Kitty, the reader already has her mind full of Jane's woes as Bingley seems to have forgotten her and Elizabeth's visit to Darcy's estate, Pemberley. There is not time to worry about the wild child, Lydia, who will likely find mishap anywhere and everywhere. 

 

And then Austen ties it all up with a pretty bow of a moral lesson.  Wickham is caught up in his own game of seduction. Although he never intended to marry Lydia, “a woman without some money”, the rules of courtship force marriage upon him after he runs away with Lydia. 

THE MORAL:  “We may draw from it this useful lesson; that loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable – that one false step involves her endless ruin – that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful – and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behavior towards the undeserving of the other sex."

 

Ahhh.... Jane Austen will never get old.