Kirstie's review
Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen
Never, ever thought of Pride and Prejudice as a feminist novel. By all means do not seek one in this; instead look to the above critic's suggestions, I guess....
"I think Jane Austen is somewhat evil actually because she's perpetuated the subconsciousness of thousands of women that these things (and men) matter more than their own identities."
I completely disagree with this statement. I think Jane Austen was trying to say the opposite. She was trying to say that women don't want to be dependant on a man they don't love so that they can be financially secure. Elizabeth is very much her own person, and refuses to marry anyone she doesn't love, and who doesn't love and respect her. I think this shows that she values her own identity. The fact that she improves her character and ends up marrying a man does not take away from this. Everyone needs somebody. No one can be truely independant, they would be disfunctonal. What is wrong with needing a man? In truely good marriage the man helps the woman maintain her identity and improve herself. The woman, in turn, does the same thing for the man. Elizabeth's marriage was a triumph because she was able to maintain her identity through standing up to Lady Catherine, and marrying Mr. Darcy the man she loved and wanted to marry. The last chapter even further proves that she keeps her identity because it tells us how shocked Georgianna is at Elizabeth's teazing of Mr. Darcy after they were married. I think this shows that her identity and personality stayed intact, and she found happiness to boot.
I felt like it showed her in a way that with the eyeglasses of progress on makes her look more like someone who plays games, isn't sure what she wants, is emotionally immature even for most of the book. I think the problem is that the book dissolves into mere frivolity for me in many spots. If Austen has wanted to be truly progressive, she would have created a female character who, like her, was a writer. maybe even one who had no need for the class system in place. Perhaps, one who was an adventurer-maybe even a woman that didn't exist at the time. She could have been more creative and imaginative.
Basically, it's not just that every story I've come across of hers in literature or in film ends the same predictable way. It's also that the behavior of both men and women is in turn excruciatingly predictable. She wrote what she observed in most cases instead of hoping to inspire a different way.
She didn't seem too critical of the class system, either, atleast that I've seen. (You can correct me if you think I'm wrong) And I think that kept both men and women enslaved in many ways. No, to me, Jane Austen is all about putting on a pretty dress and going off to the ball and hopefully the women will have a nice handsome man to look at. Let's hope their corsets aren't too painful.
I think you are right that Elizabeth wasn't sure want she wanted, and was a little emotionally immature. Let's cut Elizabeth some slack though since she was not even 21. She was still trying to crystalize her identity. That doesn't mean that she didn't have one. She knew at least enough about herself to not be bullied into marital situations that she did not want for herself. And when she did marry it was because she wanted to. By that point she was much more mature. This book is about growth.
I don't think Austen wanted to have the women of her books be great adventures and writers and mavericks. She wanted characters that people of the time period could relate to.
I dissagree that the book dissolves into mere frivolity. Jane Austen was very subtle. Every scene has some kind of meaning. You could argue perhaps that you could cut some of them out and still have a cohesive book. However, I don't think that events in the book are there for mere frivolity. She was trying to be discriptive in an entertaining way. Also, some of the scenes probably had more relevance then because it discribed what life was like. Balls, parties, etc. is where all the action was. She didn't want to write a book about people sitting around at home all the time.
I agree with you that your teacher was incorrect that Jane Austen was a feminist. However, her ideas for her time period were progressive. To ask her to have written a book up to modern day feminist standards is unfair. It would have been nearly imposible for her to come up with modern feminist ideas in her time period and situation all by herself. Jane Austen was not trying to be a feminist. She was merely obeserving society and quietly arguing against certain aspects of it that she thought should be changed. She wasn't asking for an entire upheaval of society. However for her time period she was pretty foward. Women didn't write novels in her time period; she was one of the few. She did what she could. You cannot change society in one night and I honestly don't think that she wanted to change it entirely.
I think you are right when you said that she wasn't too critical of the British class system. British people TODAY still have a class system. As a whole society, they don't want to get rid of their nobility. Her arguement wasn't necessarly with the class system. (However, I do agree with you that class systems are not cool and did enslave people. But we cannot expect Jane Austen to have held American ideals.) Here are a couple of her most important arguements:
In Sense and Sensibility she argues that it is unfair that property was passed through the male line. (I think in some cases it was passed to females, but mostly through the male line of the family). This caused a lot of problems when the property was left to a male heir who wouldn't take care of the women in the family. In Sense and Sensibility the girls' father dies and the property and fortune go to the their half brother who does not take care of them financially because he is selfish. Leaving the girls "penniless"--(okay they weren't really penniless, but still they were significantly less well off). This would have happened to the girls in Pride and Prejudice had their father died (and if Mr. Colins decided to be ungenerouos). However, the girls marry and are taken care of. Unfortunately in that time period marriage was a thing of financial security. Without marriage women were financially helpless. This obviously bothered Austen, but what was she to personally do about it? She wrote books to try to promote the cause of women.
Austen obviously was against marrying for purely financial reasons. If Elizabeth would have cared too much about being financially secure she would have married Mr. Colins or Mr. Darcy the first time she was asked and compromised her individually by doing so because she didn't want to marry them. However, in that time period preserving her individuality would have come at a high price. If she would have never married, when her father died Elizabeth's home and all of her fortune would have gone to Mr. Colins and she would have finanically been at his mercy. These balls and parties were not frivolous. Women needed them so that they could catch a man so that they could financially survive, and hopefully the man they caught would be a descent, caring man. Therefore, through all this, Austen is arguing that women be able to make a living for themselves indepedent of men and still be considered respectable in society. That doesn't mean that women shouldn't want to get married. Just that if they are in financial straights they can take care of themselves if needed. (Women can now own property and making a their own living in Britian without the abolishion the class system).
These books do have an element of fun and may appear frivolous in some instances, however, the issues I have brought up were very serious to women of the time period.
As to her not being imaginative, well no she wasn't. She wasn't trying to be imaginative, so we can't fault her for being unimaginative. The endings are predictable, but who wants to read a novel about a relationship and have it come to nothing. Like it or not most women want to have a healthy relationship with a man. Jane Austen probably wanted the same. So she wrote books about topics, marriage being a big one, relevant to the day and allowed the characters to triumph by having healthy marriages. As to your last comment, just so you know, women didn't wear very restrictive corsets in that time period. They did before and after it, though. In Jane Austen's period the people drew inspiration from ancient Greece in matters of style and dress. The Greeks believed in the natural human form therefore the undergarments of Austen's day were much less restrictive. ;)
Kirstie's review
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Kirstie's review
rating:
recommended for: people interested in frivolity
I've been thinking about this one now and then since I read it, First, I thought back to it while reading Nafisi's novel Reading Lolita in Tehran as it is one of the Western books put on trial by the class. Most recently, I considered it while reading Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own in which she speaks of early female writers.
I had a Major British Writers teacher at university who was easy for me to like immensely. He lived in a world where television was an anathema and where he watched films like Naked and read everything from Coleridge to Irvine Welsh. His one true flaw? He also loved Jane Austen. Over the course of our class, he tried in earnest to get me to realize that Austen was a feminist writer. I disagree wholeheartedly and the only reason why this gets two stars from me is because it was written during a time when it was difficult for women to write especially publicly. I also think that Jane was a fairly keen observer of the high society that was taking plac...more
I had a Major British Writers teacher at university who was easy for me to like immensely. He lived in a world where television was an anathema and where he watched films like Naked and read everything from Coleridge to Irvine Welsh. His one true flaw? He also loved Jane Austen. Over the course of our class, he tried in earnest to get me to realize that Austen was a feminist writer. I disagree wholeheartedly and the only reason why this gets two stars from me is because it was written during a time when it was difficult for women to write especially publicly. I also think that Jane was a fairly keen observer of the high society that was taking plac...more
Never, ever thought of Pride and Prejudice as a feminist novel. By all means do not seek one in this; instead look to the above critic's suggestions, I guess....
"I think Jane Austen is somewhat evil actually because she's perpetuated the subconsciousness of thousands of women that these things (and men) matter more than their own identities."
I completely disagree with this statement. I think Jane Austen was trying to say the opposite. She was trying to say that women don't want to be dependant on a man they don't love so that they can be financially secure. Elizabeth is very much her own person, and refuses to marry anyone she doesn't love, and who doesn't love and respect her. I think this shows that she values her own identity. The fact that she improves her character and ends up marrying a man does not take away from this. Everyone needs somebody. No one can be truely independant, they would be disfunctonal. What is wrong with needing a man? In truely good marriage the man helps the woman maintain her identity and improve herself. The woman, in turn, does the same thing for the man. Elizabeth's marriage was a triumph because she was able to maintain her identity through standing up to Lady Catherine, and marrying Mr. Darcy the man she loved and wanted to marry. The last chapter even further proves that she keeps her identity because it tells us how shocked Georgianna is at Elizabeth's teazing of Mr. Darcy after they were married. I think this shows that her identity and personality stayed intact, and she found happiness to boot.
I felt like it showed her in a way that with the eyeglasses of progress on makes her look more like someone who plays games, isn't sure what she wants, is emotionally immature even for most of the book. I think the problem is that the book dissolves into mere frivolity for me in many spots. If Austen has wanted to be truly progressive, she would have created a female character who, like her, was a writer. maybe even one who had no need for the class system in place. Perhaps, one who was an adventurer-maybe even a woman that didn't exist at the time. She could have been more creative and imaginative. Basically, it's not just that every story I've come across of hers in literature or in film ends the same predictable way. It's also that the behavior of both men and women is in turn excruciatingly predictable. She wrote what she observed in most cases instead of hoping to inspire a different way.
She didn't seem too critical of the class system, either, atleast that I've seen. (You can correct me if you think I'm wrong) And I think that kept both men and women enslaved in many ways. No, to me, Jane Austen is all about putting on a pretty dress and going off to the ball and hopefully the women will have a nice handsome man to look at. Let's hope their corsets aren't too painful.
I think you are right that Elizabeth wasn't sure want she wanted, and was a little emotionally immature. Let's cut Elizabeth some slack though since she was not even 21. She was still trying to crystalize her identity. That doesn't mean that she didn't have one. She knew at least enough about herself to not be bullied into marital situations that she did not want for herself. And when she did marry it was because she wanted to. By that point she was much more mature. This book is about growth.
I don't think Austen wanted to have the women of her books be great adventures and writers and mavericks. She wanted characters that people of the time period could relate to.
I dissagree that the book dissolves into mere frivolity. Jane Austen was very subtle. Every scene has some kind of meaning. You could argue perhaps that you could cut some of them out and still have a cohesive book. However, I don't think that events in the book are there for mere frivolity. She was trying to be discriptive in an entertaining way. Also, some of the scenes probably had more relevance then because it discribed what life was like. Balls, parties, etc. is where all the action was. She didn't want to write a book about people sitting around at home all the time.
I agree with you that your teacher was incorrect that Jane Austen was a feminist. However, her ideas for her time period were progressive. To ask her to have written a book up to modern day feminist standards is unfair. It would have been nearly imposible for her to come up with modern feminist ideas in her time period and situation all by herself. Jane Austen was not trying to be a feminist. She was merely obeserving society and quietly arguing against certain aspects of it that she thought should be changed. She wasn't asking for an entire upheaval of society. However for her time period she was pretty foward. Women didn't write novels in her time period; she was one of the few. She did what she could. You cannot change society in one night and I honestly don't think that she wanted to change it entirely.
I think you are right when you said that she wasn't too critical of the British class system. British people TODAY still have a class system. As a whole society, they don't want to get rid of their nobility. Her arguement wasn't necessarly with the class system. (However, I do agree with you that class systems are not cool and did enslave people. But we cannot expect Jane Austen to have held American ideals.) Here are a couple of her most important arguements:
In Sense and Sensibility she argues that it is unfair that property was passed through the male line. (I think in some cases it was passed to females, but mostly through the male line of the family). This caused a lot of problems when the property was left to a male heir who wouldn't take care of the women in the family. In Sense and Sensibility the girls' father dies and the property and fortune go to the their half brother who does not take care of them financially because he is selfish. Leaving the girls "penniless"--(okay they weren't really penniless, but still they were significantly less well off). This would have happened to the girls in Pride and Prejudice had their father died (and if Mr. Colins decided to be ungenerouos). However, the girls marry and are taken care of. Unfortunately in that time period marriage was a thing of financial security. Without marriage women were financially helpless. This obviously bothered Austen, but what was she to personally do about it? She wrote books to try to promote the cause of women.
Austen obviously was against marrying for purely financial reasons. If Elizabeth would have cared too much about being financially secure she would have married Mr. Colins or Mr. Darcy the first time she was asked and compromised her individually by doing so because she didn't want to marry them. However, in that time period preserving her individuality would have come at a high price. If she would have never married, when her father died Elizabeth's home and all of her fortune would have gone to Mr. Colins and she would have finanically been at his mercy. These balls and parties were not frivolous. Women needed them so that they could catch a man so that they could financially survive, and hopefully the man they caught would be a descent, caring man. Therefore, through all this, Austen is arguing that women be able to make a living for themselves indepedent of men and still be considered respectable in society. That doesn't mean that women shouldn't want to get married. Just that if they are in financial straights they can take care of themselves if needed. (Women can now own property and making a their own living in Britian without the abolishion the class system).
These books do have an element of fun and may appear frivolous in some instances, however, the issues I have brought up were very serious to women of the time period.
As to her not being imaginative, well no she wasn't. She wasn't trying to be imaginative, so we can't fault her for being unimaginative. The endings are predictable, but who wants to read a novel about a relationship and have it come to nothing. Like it or not most women want to have a healthy relationship with a man. Jane Austen probably wanted the same. So she wrote books about topics, marriage being a big one, relevant to the day and allowed the characters to triumph by having healthy marriages. As to your last comment, just so you know, women didn't wear very restrictive corsets in that time period. They did before and after it, though. In Jane Austen's period the people drew inspiration from ancient Greece in matters of style and dress. The Greeks believed in the natural human form therefore the undergarments of Austen's day were much less restrictive. ;)
