Our Interest in the Parallels Between Pride and Prejudice and Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen Is Further Enhanced by Consideration of Their Marked Differences in Textual Form.
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Our interest in the parallels between Pride and Prejudice and Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen is further enhanced by consideration of their marked differences in textual form.
Evaluate this statement in light of your comparative study of Pride and Prejudice and Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen.
The parallels of social ideologies between the past and the present continue to be of interest to the contemporary reader within the bounds of individual contexts. The study of Fay Weldon’s Letters to Alice: On First Reading Jane Austen enhances the reader’s understanding and interest of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and presents new perspectives on the original text. The changing values and attitudes towards education, the importance of literature, marriage and the position of women in society are explored through the marked differences in textual form.
A reader’s interest in the parallels of the importance of education and literature between the past and the present are enhanced by considering the differences in textual form. Using her writing to explore the significance of reading and writing towards a good education, Fay Weldon uses Austen’s Pride and Prejudice to address the craft of writing and the power of language through the use of didacticism and the epistolary form throughout Letters to Alice. The epistolary framework of Weldon’s text attempts to differentiate between literature and the nature of writing itself, stressing that “Fiction, thank God, it not and need not be reality”. By directly addressing the reader, through Aunt Fay’s desire to persuade Alice to read not just any “thrillers and romances” which are “temporary”, the reader is placed in a similar position to Alice, and we are essentially being educated on the importance of literature. Weldon’s idea of literature being the “essence of civilisation” can be seen through the use of an extended metaphor to describe literature as a “City of Invention”. This complex metaphor...
Evaluate this statement in light of your comparative study of Pride and Prejudice and Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen.
The parallels of social ideologies between the past and the present continue to be of interest to the contemporary reader within the bounds of individual contexts. The study of Fay Weldon’s Letters to Alice: On First Reading Jane Austen enhances the reader’s understanding and interest of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and presents new perspectives on the original text. The changing values and attitudes towards education, the importance of literature, marriage and the position of women in society are explored through the marked differences in textual form.
A reader’s interest in the parallels of the importance of education and literature between the past and the present are enhanced by considering the differences in textual form. Using her writing to explore the significance of reading and writing towards a good education, Fay Weldon uses Austen’s Pride and Prejudice to address the craft of writing and the power of language through the use of didacticism and the epistolary form throughout Letters to Alice. The epistolary framework of Weldon’s text attempts to differentiate between literature and the nature of writing itself, stressing that “Fiction, thank God, it not and need not be reality”. By directly addressing the reader, through Aunt Fay’s desire to persuade Alice to read not just any “thrillers and romances” which are “temporary”, the reader is placed in a similar position to Alice, and we are essentially being educated on the importance of literature. Weldon’s idea of literature being the “essence of civilisation” can be seen through the use of an extended metaphor to describe literature as a “City of Invention”. This complex metaphor...