Struggle And Surrender—An Analysis Of Women's Status In Pride And Prejudice

In her most famous novel Pride and Prejudice,Austen,the greatest female writer invariably paid great attention to the low status of women,showed her view that women should have the same rights and opportunities as men by successfully depicting four different marriages.She chose the eighteenth century England as the social background and expressed her outstanding feminist view.This paper aims to analyze women's status at that time and in particular to explore the women's attitudes towards their low status,which is clearly shown in Austen's Pride and Prejudice.The inheritance Law during that period was the main reason that put women in the danger of being without money,food and the other things necessary for life and being homeless upon their father's death.In addition,they were deprived of the rights to receive any kinds of education.As a result,young women found no opportunities for professional careers or other ways to support themselves.In that case,the only way for woman to lead a comfortable life was to find a husband who had fortune and got married.All these unfair factors caused the women's low status at Austen's time.In order to explore women's attitudes towards their low status,Elizabeth and Charlotte should be studied closely because they were the representatives of the two different sides.Elizabeth,as Austen's favorite character in her novel,had a strong sense of respect and dignity.She was a typical representative who had been chosen to speak for women who were brave enough to struggle to master her own fate and for a marriage of her ideal.On the other hand,Charlotte was gentle,quiet and always ready to do what other people wanted without expressing her own opinion and chose to surrender to the cruel reality.By a comparative study of these two characters,women's status in Pride and Prejudice was revealed completely.Jane Austen showed disapproval of the fact that women were not treated equally in the18 th and 19 th centuries.By means of fiction writing,she devoted her deep thoughts to such problems as women's rights,social status,and undiscovered abilities that a person was born with.In Pride and Prejudice,there were many feminist manifestations in the characterization of her heroines and the interpretation of the true meaning of marriage.