Breakthroughs And Limitations In Pride And Prejudice:a Feminist Reading

Jane Austen is one of the greatest women writers in English literature. Living a pastoral life in the countryside, Austen is mainly concerned about women’s daily lives of "three or four families" in the rural area. Most of the topics in Austen’s novels are balls, love affairs and marriages. With her intelligent humor, Austen has brought many characters to life. Her light style, humorous languages, earnest observations and deep reflections make her one of the most important female writers in the literature history.Pride and Prejudice tells the love stories of four young couples in the countryside. Its humorous style and rich meanings win its great popularity among the critics. Its female characters’ intelligence and wit have made them completely different from the male images, which convey Austen’s strong female consciousness. This paper explores Austen’s feminist breakthroughs and limitations in Pride and Prejudice. In the novel, her feminist breakthroughs are reflected in her contrast characterization of weakening male images and strengthening female images by making women the winners in their relationships. Her feminist limitations are shown in her female characters’passiveness in love, their economical dependence on men and their destiny of marriage.This paper will search Austen’s feminist breakthroughs and limitations in Pride and Prejudice. In the Introduction part, a brief review of Pride and Prejudice is given and some critical comments on Austen and Pride and Prejudice are mentioned. Chapter One analyzes three main relations in the novel:Mr. Bennet vs. Mrs. Bennet, Mr. Collins vs. Charlotte, Elizabeth vs. Darcy. Through the analysis of these relations, this part manifests Austen’s feminist breakthroughs in the novel. Chapter Two observes Austen’s feminist limitations in the female characters’destiny of marriage, self-oppression and passive attitudes. Chapter Three examines Austen’s feminist limitations by looking at the plots, the fairy tale pattern and Cinderella complex. Chapter Four explains factors that result in Austen’s limitations. The last part concludes with the importance of studying Austen in the modern days.