The Presentation of Female Characters in Pride and Prejudice and the Yellow Wallpaper
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- Category: English: Authors
- Date Submitted: 02/19/2012 04:03 AM
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'Female characters are often represented as being constrained by their
societies.’
Explore the presentation of female characters in the light of this statement.
In your response, you should focus on Pride and Prejudice to establish your argument
and you should refer to the second text you have read to support and
develop your line and argument.
Jane Austen successfully depicts the intricacies of Regency era society in her novel Pride and Prejudice. The novel makes a conscious statement about womanhood; it argues that poor, single women have an extremely limited range of choices: either poverty or marriage. Pride and Prejudice offers us a look into this rather intensely feminine world of courting, marriage decisions, and social realities. To a certain extent, some of Austen’s female characters are indeed represented as being constrained by the society they live in. Austen’s female characters are portrayed as being deeply aware of their conventional roles in society- as mother, daughter or wife- and their different responses to the roles they are supposed to play; some defiant, others submissive.
The heroine of the novel, Elizabeth Bennet, is held up as an alternative role model for females. By providing a female character who is bold, independent, honest, and forthright, Austen criticizes the social construction of female identity in early 19th century England. Elizabeth Bennet is fully aware that she has no other option but to get married to secure her livelihood. However, she sees that marriage is also a direct ticket to unhappiness, as seen in the relationship between Mr and Mrs Bennet. Elizabeth- unlike Charlotte Lucas, her close friend- is not prepared to accept marriage proposals from someone who is unlikely to make her happy in marrying him. In Chapter 19, Elizabeth rejects Mr Collins’s proposal – much to the derision of her mother, Mrs Bennet - saying ‘”My feelings in every respect forbid [accepting]…Do not consider me now as an elegant female,...
societies.’
Explore the presentation of female characters in the light of this statement.
In your response, you should focus on Pride and Prejudice to establish your argument
and you should refer to the second text you have read to support and
develop your line and argument.
Jane Austen successfully depicts the intricacies of Regency era society in her novel Pride and Prejudice. The novel makes a conscious statement about womanhood; it argues that poor, single women have an extremely limited range of choices: either poverty or marriage. Pride and Prejudice offers us a look into this rather intensely feminine world of courting, marriage decisions, and social realities. To a certain extent, some of Austen’s female characters are indeed represented as being constrained by the society they live in. Austen’s female characters are portrayed as being deeply aware of their conventional roles in society- as mother, daughter or wife- and their different responses to the roles they are supposed to play; some defiant, others submissive.
The heroine of the novel, Elizabeth Bennet, is held up as an alternative role model for females. By providing a female character who is bold, independent, honest, and forthright, Austen criticizes the social construction of female identity in early 19th century England. Elizabeth Bennet is fully aware that she has no other option but to get married to secure her livelihood. However, she sees that marriage is also a direct ticket to unhappiness, as seen in the relationship between Mr and Mrs Bennet. Elizabeth- unlike Charlotte Lucas, her close friend- is not prepared to accept marriage proposals from someone who is unlikely to make her happy in marrying him. In Chapter 19, Elizabeth rejects Mr Collins’s proposal – much to the derision of her mother, Mrs Bennet - saying ‘”My feelings in every respect forbid [accepting]…Do not consider me now as an elegant female,...