Introduction
Jane Austen was an English writer, who majorly used indirect fee speech, social commentary and realism in her works, which were no more and no less affected by her place, background and time. Austen's novel plots, despite their comic nature, were in the nature of highlighting women's dependence on marriage purposely to secure both their economic security and social standing in society. The strongest impacts of her novel “Pride and Prejudice” are majorly centred on moral issues (Francus, 6). The novel follows Elizabeth Benet’s life, who happens to be a very intelligent and strong character throughout the novel. Written in the 1800s, “Pride and Prejudice” is a comedy about romance that reflects the life of a proud man and prejudice woman. In an era where for a woman to become wealthy and increase their social status in the society was dependent on their decision to get married, is the situation faced by Bennet’s family in this novel.
The fact that Bennet’s family lacks a male child and their five adolescent daughters, Kitty, Lydia, Mary, Elizabeth, and Jane, are debatably middle-class significantly influences their social behaviour. The events in this novel start with Bingly's arrival at Hertfordshire, a place where the Bennet family lived. Bennet's daughters and Bingly got introduced to each other at a dancing event, and this is the moment that Mr Bingly got likened to one of Bennet daughters, Jane. In the same event, one of Bingly's close friends, Mr Darcy was present. His unfamiliar reserved terse attitude is noticed and well understood by the social event as an inappropriate and unbecoming, especially by another Bennet daughter, Elizabeth. Ironically, Mr Darcy also begins to like Elizabeth. The turn of events led Mr Bignly falling in love with Jane, an idea that was not welcomed by Mr Darcy, claiming that Jane was just after Mr Bingly's money, hence broke them apart (Francus, 16). As a result of long periods of silence between Jane and Mr Bingly, Bennet's family gave up their hope on Jane's marriage with Mr Bingly. The most affected by this turn of events was Mr Bennet because his fundamental objective in life is her daughters' successful marriages, which happens not to be taking place any soon.
Mr Wickham and Mr Collins can be seen as villains in this novel. Their introduction comes as a big curse to the Bennet family, especially Mr Wickham who not only cheats on Bennet's younger daughter Lydia but also runs away and later comes back to demand to be paid for their marriage with Lydia to be effectuated as a way of avoiding dishonour to Bennet and his family in entirety. In these events, Mr Darcy proposes love for Elizabeth, an idea that is coldly turned down by Elizabeth due to two reasons: her hatred for him and her being ignorant of the truth.
Nevertheless, Elizabeth soon after got to know the real characters of both Mr Darcy and Mr Wickham and regretted her past prejudices and actions. In a nutshell, the story and plot of this novel are very simple, in the sense that these events are made to draw the reader's attention to the most prevalent tradition among families, women and men. "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. And, of course, a single woman in search of a good fortune must equally be in want of a husband who has one” (citation). These lines appear as the truth for all characters in this novel, be it Miss Darcy or Miss Jane.
The main conflict in this initial part of the novel is centred on whether Mr Bingly and Jane will marry each other because Bingly's sisters and Darcy appear determined to keep them away from each other. Again, a fresh conflict arises when Mr Collins starts to pursue Elizabeth, a desire that was rejected by Elizabeth on the spot. The first volume of the novel ends with some sort of solution to these conflicts when Collins concedes defeat and decides to get married to Charlotte Lucas, and the return of Bingly family to London from Netherfield.
Again, the plot of this novel arises with a differently new focus on the likelihood of a marriage between Darcy and Elizabeth. In this effect, Elizabeth pays a visit to Charlotte, which comes as an opportunity to Mr Collins to create an interaction between her and Darcy. As a result, Darcy proposes love for Elizabeth. Darcy's proposal to Elizabeth comes approximately in the middle of their conversation, perhaps at the climax of attraction, even though Darcy has all along been resisting her since their first meeting in the dance event. Elizabeth's decision to reject Darcy's proposal appears to have paralleled her previous decision to reject Mr Collins' proposal. At this point, Elizabeth is still firm that she cannot accept to be married by bad people of which she believes Darcy is one, no matter what she might be offered in return.
Nonetheless, the plotline of Elizabeth and Darcy’s relationship keeps on intensifying soon after she rejects him for the second time. The overruled love proposal leads Darcy into revealing a piece of new information that eventually makes Elizabeth question her perception for Darcy. The plot unfolds with an increasing affection between Elizabeth and Darcy, which is again interrupted with yet another conflict: Lydia’s disappearance, which dominated a bigger portion of the plot until its solution is eventually found.
After Lydia's plotline got a lasting solution with marriage to Wickham, the focus of the plot turns again to Jane's story, who happens to have reunited with Mr Bingly and soon becomes engaged, something that finds a solution to the long conflict which begun right at the beginning of the novel. The final and perhaps the most difficult conflict to overcome was that involving lady be Bourghs's effort to avert Elizabeth and Darcy's marriage (Francus, 23).
Elizabeth looks prepared for the war due to her previous situations where she stood firm on her ground; hence she refuses to back down on her decision. "In vain, have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." Elizabeth's astonishment was beyond expression. She stared, coloured, doubted, and was silent. This, he considered sufficient encouragement, and the avowal of all that he felt and had long felt for her immediately followed" (Austen, 123).
Decay’s marriage proposal to Elizabeth (Chapter 34) shows the extent to which his feelings towards Elizabeth had gone through a massive transformation since the dismissal of his initial attempt because he was not handsome enough. With Darcy and Elizabeth finally overcoming their obstacles, the novel reaches a climax when Darcy proposes marriage for Elizabeth again, a proposal which was accepted. Darcy said, “You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject forever” (Austen, 124). Indeed, good men go through a lot in search of real love. For a fact, nothing good can come like manna from heaven, it must be fought for, and once achieved, must be under a strong guard.
It is a demonstrable fact that this novel’s main point of focus is on the social problems that young girls of different characters and backgrounds go through, be it the prudent Elizabeth or the optimistic Jane, the introvert Kitty and Mary, or the flirt and ignorant Lydia. The context is described in this novel may not have a place in the West today; however, it is a fact that such situations are still alive in the developing nations of the world.
The excellent cooking for guests as well as other procedures can be absent in the contemporary society; however, it ought to be noted that a family with five girls may only face public humiliations and similar problems as a result of unusual behaviours such as those portrayed by Lydia in this novel (Francus, 45). Notably, this novel does not in itself convey any message, but rather asks its readers to make their understanding of the issues talked about. At times, it can be said that the language that the author chose to use in this novel is quite plain and verbose, thereby rendering its reading dull and uninteresting, but this is normal with feminist novels and stories.
Conclusion
Be it as it may, the novel is undeniably influential in the way it demonstrates domestic struggles and everyday events, which are presented more realistically. Fundamentally, readers do experience the most of the plot's events, just exactly the characters mentioned in this novel do, without any special technique applied in the narrative (Austen, 221). The plot structure chosen by the author in this novel is essential in making the events of the story more relatable. The author ends the story with a classic comedic closure where three of Bennet daughters get married. Still, only the worthy characters (Elizabeth, Jane, Darcy, and Bingly) are awarded happiness and prosperity. In contrast, the wicked and foolish characters (Wickham and Lydia) only get more troubles in their marriage (Austen, 223).
