Which class of English society is portrayed in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice?

Answer 1

Jane Austen portrays a society where there is a high importance on social status and where everyone wants to gain upward social mobility. There is also a set of socially acceptable behaviour and guidelines which people usually follows. Besides, marriage is also an important consideration in everyone's life. News and informations also spread like wildfire within the community.

Answer 2

The class of English society portrayed in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is the gentry class, which includes landowners, professionals, and wealthy individuals who were social elite but not nobility. The novel focuses on the social norms, expectations, and challenges faced by individuals within this class during the Regency era in England.

Answer 3

Jane Austen portrays a society where there is a high importance on social status and where everyone wants to gain upward social mobility. There is also a set of socially acceptable behaviour and guidelines which people usually follows. Besides, marriage is also an important consideration in everyone's life. News and informations also spread like wildfire within the community.

Answer 4

In Austen's Pride and Prejudice 18th Century England is a place of strict class structure where propriety and the social order are of the utmost importance. She delves into the issues of primogeniture and the lack of options a woman has in life. Because women are largely incapable of making a living by their own means and are not eligible to inherit, their only means of 'improvement' is through marriage, and thus the plot of her novels is about women seeking a husband. She has a slightly liberal view however, because her heroines are generally of lower class than the men that they fall in love with, and yet the social structure that she represents in her novels does not stifle them completely. They are allowed a happy ending, but only because they have other admirable qualities. Austen's 18th century is not as hopeless as others', and it is clear that she tried to convey a rather liberal view of the patriarchal society that she lived in.

Answer 5

It might be called upper middle class, but that does not really convey the class all that well.

The characters in Pride and Prejudice are all from a closely related set of classes, including land owners (Mr. Bennet and Darcy), country clergy (Mr. Collins), prosperous trades people (Mr. Gardiner, Sir William Lucas, before his elevation, and the ancestor from whom Bingley inhereted his fortune), attorneys (Mr. Phillips, aunt Phillips husband) , officers in the militia (Wickham), cadet members of aristocratic families (Col. Fitzwilliam), and their families. There is no one of the peerage, bishops, generals, and the like, nor are there any of the poorer people in agriculture or trade or servants as important characters.

The wealthiest people in the book are Darcy and Lady Catherine. Darcy is rated by income, like everyone else, and makes about 10,000 per year. We are told Bingley makes 5000, and Mr. Bennet 2000. To put this into perspective, an average agricultural worker of the time made about 50, an average attorney made about 650, and it took about 1000 to afford a carriage.

Answer 6

In the first volume of Jane Austen's novel we can draw a lot of information from reading in between the lines. Some aspects of the context of the book are quite plain to see, but others are very difficult to notice. For instance the war with the French was going on, yet this event barely seems to have rippled the surface of the Bennet's world of etiquette and proper manners. In the novel Pride and Prejudice, we only ever get to hear of what instances the ladies come across in much detail, as Jane was never permitted to see how the men acted in the times when ladies retired after dinner. No action ever happens between just the men as Jane had no idea what they talked about. This is because of division of the sexes, as the men where superior and had to talk about important things that the women could not possibly comprehend.

The first volume of the novel is based in just a few small villages with some mention of London, (always referred to as Up Town). This is because travel was very limited and walking any lengthy distance was not looked highly upon in proper society. The only form of acceptable travel was a chase car or carriage, or possibly horseback riding if you could arrive at your destination without looking scruffy. In the novel the Bingley sisters criticize Elizabeth for walking all the way to Longbourn and arriving with a dirty petticoat. They also criticized her for not arriving with a chaperone; for it was unheard of for young women to be alone without someone to keep an eye on them.

One of the most exciting events in the novel for the women are the Balls held by wealthy families. This of course was a chance to be courted by the upstanding men in the community, and a series of social protocols had to be adhered to. First, all women had to stand to the side of the room and wait to be invited to dance by a man, the women then obligated to do so, had to endure his company for the next half an hour as they exchanged polite pleasantries. In the book, the characters never falter with the pretence of politeness, even though we can plainly see the underlying sourness to there sentiments. If, while the women were standing around the dance floor, they were not asked to dance, they had to stay as a wall flower, and pretend to be unperturbed by every man's attention being drawn to someone other than you, when you were looking your finest.

Marriage was very different in the 1800s, it had more in common with a business transaction than love. Proposals were very brief and formal, and quite often for powerful connections or good social breeding or titles. It was strongly advised by all accounts from Mrs Bennet;

"The business of Mrs. Bennet's life was to get her daughters married."

The Bennet family was considered unfortunate enough to have 5 daughter, and as the house was entailed away to the closest male relative, it was very important to get one of the daughters married as soon as possible. At the age of about 17 to 18, girls were expected to "Come Out" into society, and this showed they were eligible for marriage. After the age of 30, women were considered old maids, and unfit to be married. They therefore wore a cap to show they were ineligible, and would die an old spinster. As previously mentioned, etiquette was of the up most importance, and even the married couples in the novel still refer to each other as Mr and Mrs. The daughters in the family were all called Miss, but only Jane, the eldest, was Miss Bennet. The younger girls were all Miss Elizabeth Bennet, Miss Mary Bennet ect. The daughters were expected to marry in age order, and it would be a scandal if one were to be married before her older sibling.

In addition to finding a husband, an activity which seems to occupy the majority of the younger girls time, women were also expected to be accomplished in many dignified pass-times. The very limited and uninspiring list of hobbies that where fashionable for girls to do at the time were; playing the piano, singing, reading, dancing, netting, painting, trimming hats and other such mundane amusements. Men on the other hand were expected to excel in things such as; shooting, playing cards, Fencing, horse riding and taking care of business in London. It is little wonder that the girls absorbed themselves in gossip and finding prospective husbands when there were little other things to entertain there thoughts with, there alternative options were not very fulfilling.

Answer 7

Pride and Prejudice is a novel of manners because it was written in a time when everyone was polite and kept any sort of impolite thought to themselves. People in those days took extreme offense to rudeness. Elizabeth and Darcy both come dangerously close to being uncivil and rude to each other. They walk a fine line between flirting and incivility.