The Significance of Space in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice
The settings of the events that take place in Pride and Prejudice establish tone, mood, and an orientation to the social class and conditions of the characters. The settings also serve important symbolic functions, however. Taking into consideration the ways in which indoor and outdoor settings are contrasted in this novel and identify the function that each type of setting plays and meaning it represents. The country house is perhaps the most familiar landmark in Jane Austen's setting, and far from being merely decorative, it serves a vital purpose. This is the inevitable consequence of the fact that Jane Austen carefully places her characters in just the proper symbol of …show more content…
Bingley had not been of age two years, when he was tempted by an accidental recommendation to look at Netherfield House. He did look at it, and into it for half-an-hour—was pleased with the situation and the principal rooms, satisfied with what the owner said in its praise, and took it immediately. The setting of Pride and Prejudice—however remains unclear: “It is not the object of this work,” the narrator tells, “to give a description of Derbyshire, nor of any of the remarkable places through which their route thither lay.” Jane Austen's style, as generally remarked, is spare in spatial imagery—or for that matter in any imagery at all”. Estates like Pemberley, Longbourn, for instance, and even these exteriors like the natural landscapes, the gardens, etc, are “there” but Jane Austen purposefully refuses to talk or at least to describe these settings with enough concrete detail to enable the readers to visualize them with accuracy. We do know that Pemberley is grand and of exceptional beauty. We learn that the furniture is “neither gaudy nor uselessly fine... with less of splendour, and more real elegance, than the furniture of Rosings,” yet the narrator prefers—it seems—to keep us in the intimacy of Elizabeth's inner feelings, showing how she responds to the place; not what she sees in …show more content…
Bennet's library or Charlotte's parlor become spaces able to protect from Mrs.Bennet and her nerves, from husbands like Collins, or from intruders of all sorts. It is there that privacy is sought (and sometimes found). Crowded interiors, however, can also become source of tension. The noisy and busy atmosphere of dinners, parties, and balls do not allow for privacy or solitary reflection. People expose themselves: to ridicule, to the mockery of Miss Bingley, and to a public display of misconduct. If “it is Darcy whose reserve, privacy, and discretion are, in fact, protective of the individual”, Wickham, on the contrary, prefers to expose his misfortune to the world. We understand that public exposure of the self will lead to false intimacies, and eventually to Lydia's downfall and elopement at the end of the
The settings of the events that take place in Pride and Prejudice establish tone, mood, and an orientation to the social class and conditions of the characters. The settings also serve important symbolic functions, however. Taking into consideration the ways in which indoor and outdoor settings are contrasted in this novel and identify the function that each type of setting plays and meaning it represents. The country house is perhaps the most familiar landmark in Jane Austen's setting, and far from being merely decorative, it serves a vital purpose. This is the inevitable consequence of the fact that Jane Austen carefully places her characters in just the proper symbol of …show more content…
Bingley had not been of age two years, when he was tempted by an accidental recommendation to look at Netherfield House. He did look at it, and into it for half-an-hour—was pleased with the situation and the principal rooms, satisfied with what the owner said in its praise, and took it immediately. The setting of Pride and Prejudice—however remains unclear: “It is not the object of this work,” the narrator tells, “to give a description of Derbyshire, nor of any of the remarkable places through which their route thither lay.” Jane Austen's style, as generally remarked, is spare in spatial imagery—or for that matter in any imagery at all”. Estates like Pemberley, Longbourn, for instance, and even these exteriors like the natural landscapes, the gardens, etc, are “there” but Jane Austen purposefully refuses to talk or at least to describe these settings with enough concrete detail to enable the readers to visualize them with accuracy. We do know that Pemberley is grand and of exceptional beauty. We learn that the furniture is “neither gaudy nor uselessly fine... with less of splendour, and more real elegance, than the furniture of Rosings,” yet the narrator prefers—it seems—to keep us in the intimacy of Elizabeth's inner feelings, showing how she responds to the place; not what she sees in …show more content…
Bennet's library or Charlotte's parlor become spaces able to protect from Mrs.Bennet and her nerves, from husbands like Collins, or from intruders of all sorts. It is there that privacy is sought (and sometimes found). Crowded interiors, however, can also become source of tension. The noisy and busy atmosphere of dinners, parties, and balls do not allow for privacy or solitary reflection. People expose themselves: to ridicule, to the mockery of Miss Bingley, and to a public display of misconduct. If “it is Darcy whose reserve, privacy, and discretion are, in fact, protective of the individual”, Wickham, on the contrary, prefers to expose his misfortune to the world. We understand that public exposure of the self will lead to false intimacies, and eventually to Lydia's downfall and elopement at the end of the