Love-and-marriage-in-Pride-and-Prejudice.doc

Love and marriage in Pride and PrejudiceAbstract: Pride and Prejudice has always been Austens most popular novel since its publication in 1813. The paper is about love and marriage in this famous and also our lovest fiction. In our view, love and marriage are based on money and appearance, and also there is no doubt that they are happy in this novel. In my paper, The paper will analyze the three important things about love and marriage. Key words: love, marriage, fortune, appearance, happiness 1IntroductionWe may do not think marriage is strange to us, and when we mention marriage, we generally think of love soon and most of people will agree that love and marriage deserve to be connected, so will we. However, what are love and marriage on earth. Just do not worry, we can find the exactly answer in this novel written by Jane Austen .From the vivid descriptions about the heroes in this novel, we can see the writers opinion about love and marriage clearly. She thought that money and appearance play an important role in love and marriage, surely, love and marriage are happy as well. They are also what we want to say. Thus, the next the paper will analyze that why love and marriage stand for money, appearance and happiness. 2Analyzing love and marriage in Pride and PrejudiceAlthough many fictions were created by Jane Austen such as Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, First Impression, Emma, Susan and so on all her life, undoubtedly one of the most popular fictions of her works was Pride and Prejudice. The original title of the novel is First Impressions, and the central conflict was the kind of pride and prejudice that bar the marriages of Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy and Jane and Bennet and Bingley but bring about the marriages of Charlotte Lucas and Collins and Lydia Bennet and Wickham. From this we can know that this novel is mainly about love and marriage. Next the paper will explain what are love and marriage in this novel in detail.2.1 Love and marriage for fortune There is marriage merely for fortune, money and social rank. From the start of the novel we can see some sentences like this “It is a true well know to all the world that an unmarried man in possession of a large fortune must be in need of a wife. And when such a man moves into a neighbourhood, even if nothing is known about his feelings or opinions this truth is so clear to the surrounding families, that they think of him immediately as the future husband of one or other of their daughters.” From the first paragraph, we can easily know that almost everyone regards love and marriage as the symptom of fortune, money and social rank. They do not care what kind of people they will marry, and they even do not mind what the rich men think of themselves, they just know that if they or their relationships marry a man like that, then they will own everything they want and they will superior to other people. They put this as the most important thing in their life, so to achieve the goal, they can care about nothing. And this can also be found in Miss Bingleys pursuit of Darcy, Lady de Bourghs intention to arrange a marriage between her daughter and Darcy, and in Charlotte Lucass marriage to Mr. Collins. The snobbery and vanity of the rich and the practicality of the poor gentry women are fully accounted for.2.2 Love and marriage for appearance The tendency to marry for beauty, attraction and passion regardless of economic conditions or personal merits. This is generally known as “love at first sight”. Typical examples are found in the marriages of their youngest daughter Lydia to the handsome, charming but morally weak and penniless Wickham. I think we all remember the Chapter 4 Elizabeth meets Mr Wickham .From this chapter, we can find some sentence like “The young ladies notice a very gentleman.” “ They all wondering who the handsome stranger could be.” “The young man only needed an officers uniform to become completely charming.” “He was very good looking, with a very pleasant, social manner.” We can easily see how handsome and charming Wickham was, and then in chapter 10, after the marriage between them, they were allowed to enter Lydias fathers house again. When the carriage containing the young couple arrived at Longhorn House, the two elder Bennet sisters were shocked to see how unashamed Lydia was. She entered the house, laughing and joking, and asked all her sisters to congratulate her. When all the membership thought it foolish to see a marriage between Wickham and poor Lydia, but Lydia, herself wished to marry the man who had no money and good manners at all, and it seems that she felt pride and happy marrying Mr Wickham. It is not strange at all, the outstanding appearance of Wickham attracted Lydia, and this also made Lydia fell in love with him. Nationally, marriage were happened between them. The terrible aftermath of such marriage is only too obvious in the marriage of the two generations of the Bennets as well.2.3 Love and marriage for happiness We must admit the ideal marriage were exist in the novel though it seems impossible, which is a love match with considerations of the lovers personal merits and economic conditions. Such perfect happiness is to be found in the marriage of Darcy and Elizabeth and that of Mr. Bingley and Jane, although the satisfaction of both the personal and economic conditions like this is really a bit too idealistic. And in this last kind, the author seems to give her particular preference to the former couple. A larger part of the space is given to the description of the ironical and unsmooth course of development of the relation between Elizabeth and Darcys large wealth, high position, good education, refined manners, intelligence, sense of responsibility and capacity to love, we have Elizabeth, who is only beautiful, kind, lively and pleasant, but also very intelligent, witty, rational and capable of learning. She is a woman worthy of love and admiration. Her love and marriage are happy, so it is in fact. In Chapter 11, “ Bingley returns to Netherfield, after Bingleys propose to Jane, Jane could not keep her secret from her sister, and kissing her, cried, I am the happiest creature in the world！Oh, Lizzy！ I do not deserve this！ Why is not everybody as happy as I am.” How excited and happy she was. From what she said, it is not hard to see that love and marriage are happy