Jane Austen lived during a time period where a woman’s position in life was contingent on a man’s income. This dependence is seen throughout Austen’s novel, Pride and Prejudice, as the women characters must enter into marriage for financial security. Austen shows that the reasons for entering into such engagement determine the vitality of the relationship. Austen novel also portrays two of her women characters are outrageous caricatures in attempt to bring light on how women were portrayed during her time. Throughout this essay, I will explore how Austen uses wit and irony in order to critique social conventions of her time period like marrying for superficial qualities and how women were parodied in other late eighteenth and early nineteenth literature.
One of the facets of the Romantic time period that affected Austen’s novel was the objectification of women in literature. Many Romantic authors and poets like William Wordsworth …show more content…
According to “English Satire” by James Sutherland the Romantics were prejudiced against satire (Sutherland 1). Irony and Romanticism are on opposite sides of the pendulum—the former “attuned to rationality” rather than the latter that was attuned to feeling (Handwerk 203). Despite this, the novel became popular during its time period. However, the book would most likely have excelled in the Victorian times. During the mid-nineteenth century satire was important to the time period in that it served as “an instrument of sociopolitical protest” (O’Cinneide). Austen’s novel uses irony to criticize the gender inequality and the social corruption of the sanctity of marriage. Similarly, authors during the Victorian ages, like Charles Dickens in Hard Times used melodrama in their works. Austen did the same thing a century earlier by caricaturizing Mrs. Bennet and Lydia to protest the misogynist view of women in
One of the facets of the Romantic time period that affected Austen’s novel was the objectification of women in literature. Many Romantic authors and poets like William Wordsworth …show more content…
According to “English Satire” by James Sutherland the Romantics were prejudiced against satire (Sutherland 1). Irony and Romanticism are on opposite sides of the pendulum—the former “attuned to rationality” rather than the latter that was attuned to feeling (Handwerk 203). Despite this, the novel became popular during its time period. However, the book would most likely have excelled in the Victorian times. During the mid-nineteenth century satire was important to the time period in that it served as “an instrument of sociopolitical protest” (O’Cinneide). Austen’s novel uses irony to criticize the gender inequality and the social corruption of the sanctity of marriage. Similarly, authors during the Victorian ages, like Charles Dickens in Hard Times used melodrama in their works. Austen did the same thing a century earlier by caricaturizing Mrs. Bennet and Lydia to protest the misogynist view of women in