JANE Austen, who was born in 1775 and lived only into her early forties, is considered by many to be one of the finest novelists of the English language. She wrote six novels in all, and each of them is about courtship and marriage. The recent screen and television adaptations of some of her novels have focused only on the courtship plots and the early nineteenth century setting. What has been missing from these versions is Austen’s sharp social critique. Literary critic Mark Shorer says that Pride and Prejudice and Austin’s later novels "should make all fools tremble, and, if listened to, would disrupt the societies that fools even (perhaps especially) in small masses, construct."

What in particular has been missing from these popular adaptations of her novels is Austen’s scathing dissection of the economic underpinnings of social relations, especially marriage. With great irony and wit Austen shows how the tenderest human feelings interact with and are influenced by financial considerations.

Pride and Prejudice is a comic novel; the marvelous ironic opening sentence sets the tone, outlines the plot and states the underlying theme of social criticism: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." A blunt restatement of this sentence would read, "it is an acknowledged truth in our particular society that a single woman without a fortune must need a husband who has one." In the world of this novel, marriage is a market, and the young women are its merchandise.

It is Mark Shorer who points out that this theme, so apparent in the story line, is reinforced by the very language Jane Austen uses. "The stylistic base...is derived from commerce and property, the counting house and the inherited estate." Throughout the novel Austen uses "words that suggest number or money, physical size or material value. ...When moral and emotional situations are persistently expressed in economic figures, we can hardly escape the recognition that this is a novel about marriage as a market, and about the female as marketable." The comedy of this novel of manners lies in the discrepancy between these harsh social realities and the world of social convention, sentiment and pretension.

The novel concerns itself with the Bennet family who live in a small rural village. In this lovely world of good manners, balls, social visits, servants and elegant clothing, the young women operate under a ruthless imperative: they must marry. Underneath the elegant manners is a ferocious competition for the "best," i.e. richest, men of the appropriate class, with all the attendant rivalry, veiled cattiness and gossip that such competition generates. This is the world in which Elizabeth Bennet must operate, Lizzy, who has been called one of the loveliest heroines in all of English literature. The problem that Jane Austen sets up in this novel is how is Lizzy to maintain her integrity and find happiness in this savage environment, and on a thematic level, how is love possible in a ruthless, money-and-status-oriented society?

For various reasons Elizabeth and her four sisters operate under a considerable disability on the marriage market. Elizabeth, however, rejects mercenary and crude class considerations and scorns subterfuge and design; her intention is to remain true to her best self by being guided by her heart and by her good sense. In choosing (or rather accepting) a husband, she will remain true to her feelings and her considerable intelligence. Jane Austen’s point, however, is that the heart and the feelings must be educated. The course of the novel presents the education of Elizabeth’s feelings as she negotiates the marriage market.

Early in the novel Elizabeth meets two attractive, eligible young men and forms an immediate opinion of each, based on their response to her. Fitzwilliam Darcy, an enormously wealthy feudal lord, offends Elizabeth at a ball by making a rather disparaging remark about her appearance to his friend in her hearing. She heartily dislikes him and his aloof manner and class-based pride. She also thinks, not unreasonably, that he dislikes her. This opinion is so firmly rooted that she fails to notice when his attitude towards her begins to change. Her prejudice blinds her to the reality of his developing passion for her.

On the other hand, Elizabeth is very much attracted to George Wickham, a charming, handsome young man, who at social gatherings singles Elizabeth out among all the young women who are attracted to him. She is naturally flattered by this attention and charmed by his friendly, open manner. She even wonders if she is falling in love with him. Her favorable first impression (prejudice) causes her to make excuses for certain behavior on his part that might be considered questionable. Part of the education of Elizabeth’s feelings comes from learning just how blind she has been to Wickham’s real character; it turns out that he is a completely immoral, mercenary, irresponsible, dishonest scoundrel.

Elizabeth’s first marriage proposal comes from Mr. Collins, who is a complete fool. His proposal lays out in the crassest terms the realities of the marriage market. Pompous, shallow, ignorant, boring and self-satisfied, Mr. Collins, in terms of his financial position and Elizabeth’s prospects, is a "good catch."

If marriage were solely a business transaction, Mr. Collins would be correct, as he lists all the economic and social considerations that lead him to disbelieve Elizabeth’s rejection of his proposal. But feelings do count, and Elizabeth is not bullied by her mother’s pressure or Mr. Collins’ practical importunities.

One of the sadder aspects in this comic novel is the case of Elizabeth’s neighbor and best friend, Charlotte Lucas. Mr. Collins came to town to buy a wife. When Lizzy refuses him, he goes next door, where Charlotte, who is quite intelligent, but not very pretty or lively, takes the one chance she has for marriage. "Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honorable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want." It is as Elizabeth thinks, "Poor Charlotte," a sad casualty of the marriage market.

The center of the novel and the turning point in the action occurs when Darcy proposes to Elizabeth. It is here that they both receive the shocking jolts to their egos that precipitate them into journeys of self-understanding and begin the education of their hearts. It is by far the funniest, most delightful marriage proposal scene I have ever read. Both characters are very angry, and the combination of high feeling and great wit is exhilarating. While an altogether different sort of person than Mr. Collins, Darcy makes the same conventional assumption. He thinks his proposal to Elizabeth will be accepted because of their relative positions and fortunes. He is wrong. With "an expression of mingled incredulity and mortification," he hears her say:

From the very beginning, from the first moment I may almost say, of my acquaintance with you, your manners impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form that ground-work of disapprobation, on which succeeding events have built so immoveable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be induced to marry.

Elizabeth’s jolt comes the next day when she receives a letter from Darcy explaining his justified reaction to some members of her family and a complete disclosure of Wickham’s behavior and character. Her perusal of the letter is "mortifying:"

She grew absolutely ashamed of herself..."How despicably have I acted!" she cried. ..."How humiliating is this discovery –- Yet, how just a humiliation!...Till this moment I never knew myself."

Ginger Grab is managing editor of The Living Pulpit.
 

Actualizado en 2000 por José Antonio Hernández Pérez