Reading Report of <Pride and prejudice>
Pride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. It has consistently been jane austen's most popular novel.
Jane Austen.The english author lived from 1775 to 1817. her six novels are northanger abbey, sense and sensibility, pride and prejudice, mansfield park, emma, persuasion. her novels are highly prized not only for their light irony, humor, and depiction of contemporary english country life, but also for their underlying serious qualities. she was the founder of the novel which deals with unimportant middle class people and of which there are many fine examples in later english fiction. she is also sparing of describing the internal thoughts and emotions of male characters (thus in pride and prejudice, much of darcy's admiration for elizabeth bennet is expressed by means of convenient conversations with caroline bingley).
This book follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners,upbringing,morality,education,and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of early 19th-century England. Elizabeth is the second of five daughters of a country gentleman living near the fictional town of Meryton in Hertfordshire,near London.
I chose the book of pride and prejudice from Jane Austen. Maybe I did a improper choice that I should have read an easy and short one,I just read one third of the book.The time of taking elaborate notes of the new words and expressions and analysising the old-fashioned sentences occupied the main proportion of my reading.And now,my taking notes has been far behind my reading,I found the form of writing letters could be noticed in this book.With the increasing attention to reading those letters I have paid with,I think the form of writing letters is really important.First,it could break down the limitless from the time.For example,William Collins wrote a letter before his visiting to the Bennets.From this letter,we know more details about the background of the Bennets and that society.And we could predict some affairs that is coming to the family with only daughters.Not only could the readers review the past but look forward to the future.
Second,Letters may provide more adequate information and the background of the pertinent incidents to the characters in the book and we readers,so that the depth and the extent of the readers' pondering could increase.Both we and the characters in book could analysis the characteristics of the ones in book,We can take the same example."He must be an oddity." "There is something very pompous in his stile." We must have the similar feelings or opinions as Lizzy said.There's a mixture of servility and self-importance in his letter.
Third,generally,the author can manage to state the polts much more freely by employing the tone of the third erson,In comparison,the tone of the first person could be more intimate and nature.
In fact,the letter is the character's monologue.When Jane was in London.The indifference of Miss. Bingley would allow Jane to deceive herself no longer.The
letter which she wrote on that occasion to her sister.will prove that she felt.She knew she was incapable of triumphing in Lizzy's better judgement.
The letter could make the story more lifelike.
第二篇：Pride and prejudice人物性格分析
Abstracts
All of people are eager to get a happy marriage. Jane Austen ‘s novels are always praised as a classical works about love and marriage, especially the novel of Pride and Prejudice. The novel describing several different marriages among young women of the middle class, which reveals that love is the foundation for a happy marriage, and also should be based on a large amount of money. It is perfect for young women to enter marriage if they will get love and money at the same time. What should we choose between love and money when we can‘t choose these two things at the same time, and which style of marriage is a more perfect one. what kind of elements are required in a happy marriage.
Jane Austen ‘s ideal marriage was that we can not marry for money or regard marriage as a game. She advocated the marriage for both love and economic consideration with love playing the leading role.
Key words: Jane Austen；Love ； money and happy marriage； property ；marital viewpoint ；
Pride and Prejudice ；Sense and Sensibility ；Emma
每个人都渴望得到幸福的婚姻，简奥斯汀的小说一直被誉为爱情和婚姻的经典作品，尤其是小说
《傲慢与偏见》。这本小说描述了几段中产阶级女性之间的不同婚姻，表明爱是一个幸福的婚姻的基础，但也应该以大量金钱为前提的几个年轻妇女的不同婚姻。这是年轻女性进入婚姻的完美状态，如果她们同时得到爱和金钱。当我们不能同时拥有这两个东西时，我们应该怎样选择情感与金钱之间如何进行选择，才能使婚姻更完美。一个幸福的婚姻中需要哪些元素才算是幸福美满的湖婚姻。简奥斯汀的理想婚姻是我们不能为钱而结婚或把婚姻作为一个游戏。她主张既有爱又有经济因素方面的考虑的婚姻爱要发挥主导作用的结婚。
关键词：简奥斯汀，爱，金钱，幸福的婚姻，财产，婚姻观点，傲慢与偏见，理智与情感，爱玛
1. Introduction
Love，money and marriage is a popular topic since human beings have appared. All of people are eager to get a happy marriage. But not all people can make their dream come true. Sometimes, our dream and hope just like a bubble disappeard in the wind and just leave disappointment in our heart. What should we choose between love and money when we can‘t choose these two things at the same time,And which style of marriage is a more perfect one.Jane Austen ,as a novel writer who lived more than two hundred years ago thought about these
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questions. Jane Austen‘s view of marriage expressed in her works is actually a true portrayal of the marital status in her time, especially of women of the gentry.
Her novels always praised as a classical works about love and marriage, especially the novel of Pride and Prejudice. It mainly describes the development of the relationship between Elizabeth Bennet, an intelligent young woman and the daughter of a country gentleman, and Fitzwilliam Darcy, a rich and haughty aristocratic landowner. Many people believe that a happy marriage must be based on true love. However, marriage included many things, which were property, personality and rating.
Jane Austen had told us that women should insist on independent personality and dignity in their marriages and analyzed Jane Austen‘s view of marriage was from sight of culture.
[6] In my opinion, Austen‘s view of marriage influenced by her biographical background, her class, her religion, her love and so on. These elements were very important in her marriage concept. Jane educed her concept of marriage, which is ―It is wrong to marry for money, but it was silly to marry without it‖. love is the foundation of marriage, while property is the protection of happy marriage. [She expressed well her view of marriage in Pride and Prejudice which considered as a banner that advocated people should get married for love instead of only for money.（15褚爱平 杨建发） The title of the novel told us Jane Austen‘s rational attitude. To a certain extent, Pride and Prejudice was the writer‘s hope. The actress Elizabeth was the incarnation of Austen. Elizabeth and Darcy‘s marriage was an ideal marriage in Jane‘s heart and also in many people‘s. Jane described some other styles marriage to show fully us her view of marriage.Jane Austen‘s novels such as Pride and Prejudice and so on transferred a message which exist in people‘s heart at all time. That‘s a hope to get a happy marriage.
2. Briefly introduce Jane Austen’s whole life and her main works
2.1 Jane Austen’s whole life and her experience
Jane Austen (1775 - 1817) ,who was born in the village of Steventon in Hampshire,was one of the famous nineteenth century British women writers. She brought the English novel to its maturity and her satirical fictions marked the transition from the 18th-century neoclassicism to the 19th-century romanticism in the English literature. Although her novels focused on courtship and marriage, Jane Austen never married and never entered a formal school and well educated by 1
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her family at home with her sisters. She did a fair amount of reading and passed her life very quietly,cheerfully.Her lifelong companion and bosom friend Was her older and only
sister,Cassandra．Both women never married，but their dozens of relatives and friends widened Austen‘s social experiences beyond her immediate family．The Austens frequently staged theatrical amateur and they were devoted readers of novels.They also provided a delighted
audience for Jane‘s youthful comic pieces,and later for her novels. She began to write at the age of 19 or 20. Her first novel, Sense and Sensibility, appeared in (1811). Her next novel Pride and Prejudice, which she described as her ―own darling child‖ received highly favorable reviews in (1813). Mansfield Park was published in (1814), then Emma in (1816), Northanger Abbey (1818), and Persuasion (1818).（8 刘炳善）
Since the Industrial Revolution in the second half of the 18th century, the English social
structure underwent rapid changes. The industrial capitalists began to control not only the
economic but also the olitical power and thus the struggle between the workers and capitalists also became more and more sharp. Under such a social and literary environment, Jane Austen exerted her transitional role in English literature. Austen focused on middle-class provincial life with humor and understanding. She depicted minor landed gentry, country clergymen and their families, in which marriage mainly determined women's social status. She was well connected with the middling-rich landed gentry that she portrayed in her novels. In Chawton she started to write her major works, among them Sense andSensibility,the story of the impoverished
Dashwood sisters, Marianne and Elinor, who try to find proper husbands to secure their social position. Jane Austen died in Cassandra's arms in Winchester at the age of 41 on July 18, 1817 at Winchester.（1傅俊3-9）
2.2 The main different Marriages of her main works
2.2.1 The marriage in Sense and Sensibility
Marriage of Elinor Dashwood and Edward Ferrars –based on mutual pure love Jane
Austen's heroines are determined to marry wisely and well, Elinor‘s marriage-with love and same interests , Elinor, the older sister, whose advice is so effectual, possesses a strength of
understanding, and coolness of judgment. She has a gentle disposition and a strong feeling and she is good at dealing with the housework and relationships with other people. When she knows that 2
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her lover, Edward, is betrothed, there is anything wrong with her. (3 Cong lin Niu Jijun Yang161-163) ―When she is injured, she can try her best to control her feelings in order to let her mother and her sister not knows the truth. With the sober judgment and special view, she knows how to control her feelings.I could not be happy with a man whose taste did not in every pointcoincide with my own. He must enter into all my feelings; the same with books, the same music must charm us
both.Reasonable Elinor falls in love with a gentleman already engaged. "I have frequently detected myself in such kind of mistakes," said Elinor, When Marianne likes to read and express her
feelings, Elinor prefers to draw and design and be silent of his desires. Elinor is kind and can keep calm when problems arise. She also has good views about love, but has different mode of
expression. She is jealous of Edward, because of his good manners and the communication with her sisters. But she never expresses it, which may be thought as to be impetuous or clumsy. She
learned a lot from the society and elders, such as being protective towards her sisters and trying her best to balance all of the relations. She held back her emotions and thought of Lucy when Lucy told her the engagement with Edward. We could hardly conceive of the situation if Marianne
encountered such a thing. Elinor is sensible personified. She wept for joy when Edward expressed his love. She released her emotions finally for the bitterness of bearing.（10秦岚71-73）
The marriage always establishes close contact with wage, house and poverity. So we should not object the love in the situation which has not Economic base. It‘s not so easy to have main good communication between two young hearts. These have been reflected in the two heroines‘ marriage views.
While romantic Marianne of Sense and Sensibility is sensible and clever, but eager in everything; She is generous, amiable and interesting; she is doing everything perfectly but lack of prudent. When she meets Willoughby , she can‘t help falling in love with Willoughby at the first sight who is a handsome man. When he comes, many people, including Marianne pay much attention to him. she believes in first sight and passionate love, a meeting of tastes and minds; she trusts her feelings to guide her conduct. When she knows that Willoughby will part from her, she is deep in sorrow. Later the social and psychological dangers of showing feelings are excruciatingly dramatized as Marianne insists on claiming intimacy with Willoughby in a crowded ballroom. Marianne doesn‘t believe Willoughby will cheat her.（2池洁52-55）
Marianne Dashwood romantically insists on an ideal of perfect self-fulfillment in a love 3
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based on mutual feeling and shared tastes, Marianne likes to make friends with this kind of people with charming appearance and perfect personality.while Brandon is much older than Marianne. He is not active or passionate. After cheated by Willoughby, Marianne‘s attitude towards love has changed a lot. Looked after by Brandon, Marianne realizes that Brandon is a good person. He has the ability to take care of her and bring her happiness. Marianne‘s views on love has changed from sensibility to sense.
Sense and Sensibility begins with money and ends with love. At the later of the 18 th century, man has the power while woman is obedient to them. If the women don‘t have enough trousseaus, then they will not be happy. When they got married, the money they have will be occupied by their husbands. Many men often choose wealthy women. Just as Elinor said ―we must admit that we can‘t live a happy life without enough money.
2.2.2
The marriage in Pride and Prejudice
In Pride and Prejudice, her heroines are ultimately married. In the marriage market,they always place in a desperate situation of marrying young and rich landlords or clergymen.During Austen‘s time,marriage was an only way for women to live better for her later life and obtained social recognition.Thus money had been taken much more seriously when it comes to marriage.In the novel,money in love and marriage is presented openly or indirectly,which shows that Austen has sharp insight into the aristocratic and bourgeois English society of her time.Critics accuse Jane Austen of being obsessed with money and rich relation.But both money and rich relations were a necessity in the society to which she belonged. Through five types of marriage,Austen depicts a clear picture of the relation between marriage and money and she puts forward quite advanced views on marriage:property,social status and love are interconnected.Marriage can not only depend on property and social status.She objects to marriage only for money and as well as marriage without consideration for the same background.She stresses the importance of emotional factors and advocates love and economic foundation are the basis of a happy marriage,while love should play the leading role.(10秦岚71-73).Her views bear progressive color for in Victorian Britain,money and social status were still the decisive elements in marriage selection. 4
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Elizabeth‘s Marriage—with Both Love and Money,Elizabeth is her father‘s favorite daughter, having inherited his wit and intelligence. Mr. Darcy, an extremely wealthy aristocrat, is proud, haughty and extremely conscious of class differences at the beginning of the novel. When he first meets the Bennets, he laughs them to scorn. At the ball in Meryton, where they make the acquaintance of each other, Mr. Darcy is quickly judged as ―the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world‖. because of his reserve and unwillingness to dance with anyone outside of his own party. She has pride in her ability to perceive the truth of situations and of people‘s characters. Elizabeth‘s rebukes after his first proposal to her help him to recognize his faults of pride and social prejudice. It is, in fact, precisely because Elizabeth is not so awed by his high social status as to be afraid to criticize his character that he is attracted to her. The self-knowledge acquired from Elizabeth‘s rebukes and the desire to win Elizabeth‘s love spur him to change and judge people more by their character than by their social class. For Elizabeth, when she begins to see that she judged Darcy completely wrongly, and she grows ashamed, concluding that she has been blind, partial, prejudiced, absurd, in spite of the fact that she has always prided herself on her judgment. She realizes that vanity has been the cause of her prejudice. Elizabeth realized that her complete lack of objectivity in judging Darcy and Wickham is the result of the fact that Darcy injured her pride on her first acquaintance with him and that Wickham flattered her by his preference for her.
[11]For it is Elizabeth‘s pride that leads to her prejudice, a prejudice which is so strong that she has to read the truth. It is clear that reflection on the contents of Darcy‘s letter have made Elizabeth change her feelings toward him considerably. When she visits Pemberley, she can not help thinking of what it would be like to be the mistress of such a beautiful house. She tells herself that she does not regret her refusal of Darcy‘ s proposal. Elizabeh and Darcy‘s marriage only serves to give hope to Elizabeth of Darcy‘s continued affection. In the end, Elizabeth and Darcy get married and end up happiest. (7黄敏150-152)
Jane‘s Marriage—Based on Beauty, Virtue, Fortune, Jane is a beautiful, good-tempered, sweet, amiable, humble and selfless woman. Mr. Bingley is sensible, good-humored and lively with such good manners-so much ease and with such perfect good breeding. He made a lot of money by business in the North and inherited large fortune of nearly one hundred thousand pounds from his father, moves to Netherfield in their neighborhood. Jane finds a good way out for herself by marrying Mr. Bingley, although there has been little exchange of feeling of love 5
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between them except admiration for each other. It is obvious to see that the marriage of Jane and Bingley is more or less on their good looks as they love each other at first sight.
Lydia‘s Marriage—with Neither Love Nor Money, Lydia is foolish and flirtatious, She lacks any sense of virtue, propriety or good-judgment, as seen in her elopement with Wickham, She is deceived by Wickham‘s appearance of goodness and virtue. he marries Lydia just because Darcy pays his debts of honor, purchases his commission, gives Lydia another thousand pounds.(12郭艳玲217-219) In this marriage, money plays the most important role. Austen does not appreciate their marriage. She expresses her feelings towards them through the heroine Elizabeth how Wickham and Lydia were to be supported in tolerable independence, she could not image.
Charlotte Lcuas‘s Marriage—with Money but Without Love, Mr. Collins is a supercilious、stupid man with exaggerated who must guard his courtship from any charm that could make a woman wish for its continuance, and Miss Charlotte, who accepts him solely from the pure and disinterested desire for an establishment. Collins has become Charlotte‘s husband. In fact, they include money but no love. But Charlotte seems to have found some of satisfaction and happiness in her marriage without any love. Charlotte‘s pitiful fate is not cause by herself. First, the development of social economy and her own social status determine that she has no other choice but to depend on her husband to ensure food and clothing for the second half of her life. Second, another important fact is that Miss Lucas is at the age of twenty-seven, without having ever been beautiful.,which is quite intelligent,but not very lively or pretty and her little dowry determines that she is unlikely to get a better,or indeed any other,offer of marriage.Therefore,she accepts the offer immediately.Charlotte wants a―comfortable home‖from marriage.Her motiveswhen she accepts Collins is that this is a compromise between love and comfortable living.Charlotte might be materialistic,and from another angle,it was the misfortune of the marriage market for the women in Austen‘s day. [15]
2.2.3 The marriage in Persuasion
In Persuasion, Austen‘s last complete novel, which is written with a rare understanding of the constancy of human heart and of true ending love,Marriage of Anne Elliot and Wentworth—Based on Understanding, Respect, Trust and Love, As a young girl of nineteen years old, Anne had loved and been loved by Wentworth, an impecunious naval officer. But she 6
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unwisely followed the advice of her godmother and ended the engagement. Wentworth went off to sea angrily, was promoted and, through various successful naval engagements and the capture of enemy vessels, acquired a handsome fortune. What is unique about this novel is that the hero Wentworth is the first hero in Austen‘s novels who makes his fortune by himself without inheriting a legacy. When Anne was 19 years old she accepted Lady Russell‘s ―persuasion‖, and broke off her continuous love for and engagement to captain Wentworth. But Anne thinks it is not a merely selfish caution because ―had she not imagined herself consulting his good, even more than her own, she could hardly have given him up. She possesses not only rich and profound feelings but also a resolute and generous character. He should not judge her by the past impression, for she has grown mature in life. Eight years later, Anne and Wentworth meet again, at Lyme Regis. Finally he is able to say, I must learn to be happier than I deserve. And Anne gloried in being a sailor‘s wife.
Marriage of Mr. Croft and Mrs. Croft— Based on Balance, Respect
Mrs. Croft can be considered a new type of woman , It is obvious that Mrs. Croft‘s life style‘s is quite different from that of the genteel-class woman of her time. she spends most of her time tossing together with her husband on the sea. The Croft couple is particularly attached to each other and happy. No wonder Anne admires them very much, for knowing their feelings as she did, it was a most attractive picture of happiness to her when she sees them. When the husband goes off to sea, Mrs. Croft accompanies him, leading a wandering life on the sea for fifteen years. When the husband is going to rent the Kellynch Hall, Mrs. Croft asked more question about the house, and terms, and taxes than the admiral himself, and seemed more conversant with business. When the husband has conversations with his old friends from the navy, Mrs. Croft looks as intelligent and keen as any of the officers around her. In brief, Mrs. Croft is an elegant and virtuous lady. Only in this way can the couple keep the balance and stability of a family. Such marital life and family model based on the mutual respect and the equality between men and women represent Austen‘s view of ideal marriage. It forms a sharp contrast with those marriages mainly based on economic conditions.
2.2.3
The marriage in Emma 7
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As we can see, marriage is the main theme in Emma, and the marriages in the novel are not the duplicate of each other. The novel begins with a marriage, that of the Westons. As the novel develops, much of the plots springs from Emma‘s attempt to arrange a marriage for Harriet Smith. The Elton‘s marriage is kind of trade, with the husband marrying for money and the wife for upgrading social status; Miss Bates offers a sad example of an unmarried woman; the John Knightleys have a marriage which based on mutual tolerance instead of mutual respect. The two matches, that of Emma- Mr. Knightley‘s and Frank – Jane Fairfax‘s, which stand at the central of the novel, will be discussed in more details in this article.In Jane Austen‘s point of view, the choice of a marriage partner is perhaps the most important and serious decision that an individual undertakes. She explores the social and economic as well as the psychological basis of marriage in her time. At Austen‘s time, the educated single woman had two professions open to her—the stage and teaching. The former offered few opportunities and enormous risks; the latter was arduous, and little respected. There was also, of course, literature but writing, since journalism was not yet open to women, did not offer a stable livelihood. Unless, like Emma Woodhouse, a woman had a private income, happy matrimony was the only way of life in which middle-and upper-class women could normally hope to find themselves satisfied, esteemed, and secure. Economically, women were therefore a dependent class: if they married, they were supported by their husbands; if they were single, they remained dependent in their family.
Marriage is also an important factor for the change of social status. The characters in the novel can be divided into two groups: those whose social status is fixed, and those who are mobile. In the first group are Mr. Woodhouse and Mr. Knightley, e.g. In the second group are Harriet Smith, Jane Fairfax and, and Augusta Hawkins (later she becomes Mrs. Elton).
The second group belong to the younger generation, also they are unmarried. Emma, herself, of course belongs to the second group, but she has no need to marry to secure financial security and social status. Harriet doesn‘t have any ―fortune‖, but her great point interest for Emma is that her family origins are unknown. Emma chooses to believe that Harriet is the illegitimate daughter of someone high in the social scale--a princess turned into a goose-girl. But in the end, she turns out to be ?the daughter of a tradesman‘ which puts Emma‘s romantic notion that Harriet had ― the blood of gentility‖ firmly in its place. Emma plans to marry off Harriet to a husband beyond her social expectations-- first to Mr. Elton, then (even more ambitiously) to 8
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Churchill. Eventually, Harriet‘s union with Robert Martin has nothing startling, but is suitable in every way, fitting into Jane Austen‘s standard of Marriage, which is ―aesthetically right, morally and humanly balanced, financially sound.‖
Jane Fairfax succeeds in making a marriage that raises her in the social scale: in her case, the Cinderella story comes true. She has neither wealth nor family to support her, and would have become an ill-paid and low-positioned governess, yet marries the handsome young man, Frank Churchill, who is the heir of a great family with large estates. However, she deserves it for she is pretty talented, superior to Emma in her moral scale. She genuinely loves Frank, and is indeed better than he deserves.
Her fortune has been inhabited from her father‘s business ventures, and she represents a class eager to secure the prestige of a higher social scale overnight. Mr. Elton is a clergyman of
the Established Church in a small community, and the church is the center of people‘s life. Though a vicar, he enjoys a relatively high position that bears no relation to his income. The Elton‘s match is a typical example of the mutually beneficial alliance at the time. [16] In return for his bride‘s money, which he badly needs, Mr. Elton offers her the status from his position as a vicar. As the example shows, marriage was not only the matter of personal affection, but often involved the transfer of capital and adjustment, minor or major, of social status. From which one could see that marriage, as a major theme in the novel, vividly reflecting the social and economic life.To some extent, Emma is another Frank, another spoiled child in a rich family. But she has an even better fortune: she is allowed to choose, to grow and to mature. Emma and Mr. Knightley‘s union is not achieved by opportunism but by their moral choice. At Box Hill, Emma‘s cutting insult on Miss Bates is similar to Frank‘s sneer at Jane; and Mr. Knightley‘s rebuke is parallel to Jane‘s ironic critic on Frank, wounding Emma‘s pride and strong sense of self-repect. Moreover, Emma is so hurt at losing Mr. Knightley‘s good opinion. For the kind of stitchingly painful feeling which she has never known before, she genuinely wants to change, and she really does so. Later the union of Emma and Mr. Knightley is based on the mutual respect and moral appreciation of each other, which embraces dignity and integrity.In the modern point of view, one may feel the happy endings are a kind of escapist,
unrealistic fantasy. In other words, Jane Austen is a conservative novelist, in spite of her powerful criticism of many aspects of society. In Emma, the heroine has to learn to deserve her 9
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social status by treating other people with respect to become a ?lady‘ as Mr. Knightley is a ―gentleman‘. However, her social position is not questioned: there is never a real possibility that Harriet will cross social boundaries, by marrying Mr. Knightley or even Mr. Elton. In Jane Austen‘s point of view, marriage matters greatly, preserving the fabric of society. Appropriate and happy marriage should be based on mature love, genuine understanding, financial security –and social suitability. Elton‘s marriage is kind of trade, with the husband marrying for money and the wife for upgrading social status.
3 . Her attitudes’ Influence on Modern marriage
Jane Austen emphasized that women‘s marriage should be based on the harmony of sense and sensibility, on the agreement of ideal and reality, on the equality between men and women. At the same time, Austen‘s novels tell the awakening of the feminine consciousness.From a woman‘s point of view, marriage was seen as ―the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune‖. Marriage was seen as the only way of securing a home and a decent 10
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living. If a woman wasn‘t married she would have the life of a spinster, and depend upon a family who may not always support her. The only other choice was to become a governess, where once again a woman would be dependent on a family. So, considering these options, most young women were obliged to get married. Most marriages were based on physical attraction, financial security or love and affection; of all these, financial security was the main reason for marriage. Women married for financial security because it established a secure livelihood and a definite home. Another reason for marrying a man in a higher social class was that, if the eldest sister married well, the rest of the family would be of rich.A man and a woman may freely make friends with each other.But they cannot talk of marriage until their friendship has ripened into love.In arranging their marriage,they may take other things into consideration,but they always regard love as the most important thing.This type of marriage usually brings happiness .(11冷惠玲423-427)
Many couples live a happy life because their marriage is based on true love .On the contrary,some people marry for the sake of money only,and their marriage is destined to be a failure.Jane Austen explored life of society and process of history and revealed her feminine consciousness, progressive view of marriage and profound implication through a vivid and realistic description of family life.
In the modern society, Her thought about marriage and love not only was considered as the feminine textbook at that time, but also has the practical significance to today‘s society. Although from the past until now, the feminism‘s basic idea is on the change of the women‘s social status, and on gaving the women freedom to obtain the maximum enhancement. As for women‘s marriage, they advocates the love, and the female must be independent and cannot take the male as the center in the marriage. This is also Jane Austen‘s marriage views which has the actual feasibility in the reality. In her opinion, as a female, if she is not special, she should accept the social mainstream of thought, keep a clear mind to choose her own love and the marital object. when they are young, they are lack of reason, and easily hurt both in heart and in body. So they should have the ability to know, to judge and controlling sentiment with the mind of reason in order to get the happy life.(13唐玲 白敏57-59). Today, it is reasonable that a female should have enough knowledge and the talent, the reason and the sober life. Austen is good at observing each kind of characteristic in the human nature.In the marital choice, people should take into consideration about the physical conditions and the social ethics morals.
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江西理工大学2006届本科生毕业设计（论文）
Modern society chnges unceasingly. Compared with the past, in the modern society, Great change has taken place in politics and the economy. But the traditional idea still have a deep influence on people‘s marriage and love, which makes modern people have little confidence in the love and marriage. And also the tradition idea causes them even more to long for a harmonious and stable traditional family life in their heart. When people consider the status of the male and female and choose ideal marriage, we often turn head to look at the plot which the female writers including Jane Austen described in their novels.
sometimes marriage is even not the only form for people to get together and take care of each other. However, we still appreciate the respect for others, the understanding of one‘s own heart, the correct moral principles learned by lessons and the pursuit of happiness and love which are shown by the characters in Austen‘s novels.
4.conclusion
Nowadays the marriage for love is different from Jane Austen‘s time. It needs equality and freedom in any aspect. A happy marriage should be based on true love. In modern people‘s view of marriage is that a marriage either for money or for lust is an unhappy one. Though property and social status play an important role in marriage. It is opposed to be simply for money.
This paper is to analyze the economic status and property elements that influenced their marriage and thus we can obtain a further understanding of Jane Austen‘s view of marriage. Her ideal marriage was that we can not marry for money or regard marriage as a game. She advocated the marriage for both love and economic consideration with love playing the leading role. Meanwhile, she also exposed that the essentials of bourgeois marriage were a deal of money and a combination of benefit under the patriarchy.(11冷惠玲423-427)
In the modern society, Her thought about marriage and love not only was considered as the feminine textbook at that time, but also has the practical significance to today‘s society. Although from the past until now, the feminism‘s basic idea is on the change of the women‘s social status, and on gaving the women freedom to obtain the maximum enhancement. As for women‘s marriage, they advocates the love, and the female must be independent and cannot take the male 12
江西理工大学2006届本科生毕业设计（论文）
as the center in the marriage. This is also Jane Austen‘s marriage views which has the actual feasibility in the reality.
4. Acknowledgements
I would like to take this opportunity to thank my tutor— Miss wu, who offers me
academic and constructive advice on composing this paper. Her encouragement and help are worthy of high acknowledgement. During finishing my paper,I also got a lot of help from my classmates and my friends. I would
also like to thank all my teachers who have helped me to develop the fundamental and essential academic competence. Last but not least, I' d like to thank all my friends, especially my three lovely roommates, for their encouragement and support for helping me finish it .
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