This blog post is more for my English Literature students but interested readers who know a bit or two about the book probably will gain some insights from the extracts I am typing from two books that I borrowed. I just thought of sharing these instead of wasting paper printing out pages of pages of notes. After all, we must be environmentally-conscious whenever we can if we want to stick around on the planet.
As the outspoken champion of the perogatives of individual desire, Elizabeth Bennet should jeopardise both the social order, which demands self-denial, and the moral order, which is based on the absolute Christian principles...In fact, Elizabeth's triumph signals the achievement of the balance that characterizes Austen's mature novels, for it is the result, on the the hand, of the gradual transformation of social and pyschological realism into romance and, on the other, of a redefinition of romance.
--- From Mary Poovey, Chapter 6: Ideological Contradictions and the Consolations of Form (2) in Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice (1994); New Casebooks: pg 101
'Principles' are often merely prejudices, and prejudices simply projects one's own interests on to the shifting scene outside so as to defend and reinforce the self.
--- From Mary Poovey, Chapter 6: Ideological Contradictions and the Consolations of Form (2) in Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice (1994); New Casebooks: pg 102
Just as her father's defensive intelligence refracts and exaggerates Elizabeth's intellectual 'livliness', so Lydia's wild, noisy laughter helps clarify Elizabeth's 'impertinence'. But perhaps the most important function of Lydia's story derives from its placement. For Austen positions the annoucement of Lydia's elopement so as to precipirate the second, and most important, stage of Elizabeth's education.
--- From Mary Poovey, Chapter 6: Ideological Contradictions and the Consolations of Form (2) in Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice (1994); New Casebooks: pg 106
Individualism is not simply morally suspect, Austen suggests; it is also based on a naive overestimation of personal autonomy and power. To pretend that one can transcend social categories or refuse a social role (as Mr Bennet does) is not only irresponsible; it also reveals a radical misunderstanding of the fact that, for an individual living in society, every action is automatically linked to the actions of others.
--- From Mary Poovey, Chapter 6: Ideological Contradictions and the Consolations of Form (2) in Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice (1994); New Casebooks: pg 106
The entailed fortunte which so obviously benefits Mr Collins and so obviously restricts Jane Austen's heroine is merely the epitome of an economic privilege that is granted to men in general and of an economic restriction that is imposed on women, and the details of that privilege and restriction are explicitly recorded throughout the novel. It is the right of Austen's men to have work that pays to to rise through preference and education, and we are directly told who has had access to what.
--- From Judith Lowder Newton, Chapter 7: Women, Power and Subversion in Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice (1994); New Casebooks: pg 119
Elizabeth too must learn that simplifications are dangerous; both she and Darcy insist on what is only provisional and half-true as final. Of her complacement division of humanity into intricate and simple characters, for example, Elizabeth comes to say, 'The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of either merit or sense' (pg 135). The irony of the novel's opening sentence lies in its assurance in simplification and generalizations, it's insistence that the local perception is universal, absolute, permanent.
--- From Judith Lowder Newton, Chapter 8: Neccessary Conjunctions in Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice (1994); New Casebooks: pg 147
The shamelessness of Mrs Bennet's response is both an intellectual and a moral failing. Lydia, educated and admired by her mother, is the best example of Austen's understanding of ingratitude. Lydia...is without shame, unconscious of the suffering and inconvenience she exacts from others...Lydia's blindness is a matter of both the mind and the heart. In her letter of elopement to Mrs Forster - 'My Dear Harriet, You will laugh when you know where I am gone' (pg 291) - she reveals a numbness of preception as well as of feeling.
--- From Judith Lowder Newton, Chapter 8: Neccessary Conjunctions in Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice (1994); New Casebooks: pg 151 to 152
The world of Rosings is one of meaningless formality, of material luxury and spiritual vacancy, even of ill health. And Charlotte Lucas's life with Mr Collins is not only a 'preservative from want' but a preservative from intelligence, gaiety, and love, an embalmed safety from possibility and the requirement of morality and hope.
--- From Judith Lowder Newton, Chapter 8: Neccessary Conjunctions in Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice (1994); New Casebooks: pg 151 to 152
Marriage of course spawns other chief acts of life: birth, initiation, and, once again, mating and marriage. The first responsibility of parents is to educate and prepare their offspring for participation in his most central process so that they will harm neither themselves or others. Mr and Mrs Bennet are guilty of not preparing Lydia for mature initiation into this rite. As a result, her marriage is emotionally vacant and economically irresponsible; the narrative review of the three marriages at the close of the novel informs us that the Wickams are freeloaders.
--- From Judith Lowder Newton, Chapter 8: Neccessary Conjunctions in Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice (1994); New Casebooks: pg 151 to 152
Trade - employed, due form, collect, receipt, buy, sell, business, supply, terms, means, venture.
Arithmetric - equally, added, proportion, addition, enumerate, figure, calculated, amount, amounting, inconsiderable, consideration.
Money - pounds, credit, capital, pay, fortune, valuable, principal, interest, afford, indebted, undervalue.
Material Possessions - estate, property, owner, house, manor, tenant, substantial, establishment, provided, foundation, belongs to.
Social Integration - town, society, civil, neighbourhood, county, fashion, breeding, genteel, marriage, husband, connection.
The general directions of reference taken by Jane Austen's language, as indicated by such list as those given above, are clearly materialistic. They reflect a culture whose institutions are solidly defined by materialistic interests - property and banking and trade and the law that keeps order in these matters - institutions which determine, in turn, the character of family relations, the amenities of community life, and the whole complex economy of the emotions.
--- From Dorothy Van Ghent, On Pride and Prejudice in Pride and Prejudice: A Norton Critical Edition (edited by Donald Gray) (2001) Norton and Company: pg 305
