Occupation In Pride And Prejudice

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Finding an occupation can be a challenge. You try so many different things, but cannot find the one that suits you best. There are varying significances of an occupation depending on the one you have. No matter how significant or insignificant the occupation, the hard work done can be of use in any society. In the case of Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Darcy has many small but very impactful occupations. In this essay I will look at Mr. Darcy’s occupation of spending his money and pleasing people through the lens of Marge Piercy’s appreciation for the hard work that others do in “To be of use”. This helps us to see that when Darcy secretly paid off Wickham’s gambling debts and paid him to marry Lydia, he had no obligation of doing …show more content…
From the outside, it may not seem like Darcy does much, but what he does behind the scenes holds an upmost importance in who he truly is. He is a landlord, a master, a brother and a lover: all of these being his occupation. When dealing with all these different aspects in his life, he takes the tasks that arise and deals with them without a complaint, just as Piercy describes. For instance when Lydia and Wickham ran off to London to elope, he did not complain about their decision, he went out to find them and to make things right. Darcy was not directly involved with the incident so why did he get involved? It was his job as a lover of Elizabeth to. He wanted to restore the Bennet family name which would in turn make Elizabeth feel grateful for him, making her fall in love with him. But wouldn’t he want to flaunt the fact that he found the two in London? Flaunting his discovery would not bring any satisfaction to Darcy because people already looked down upon him for being too proud and flaunting that he saved the Bennet family could only make it worse. As Piercy describes, “But the thing worth doing well done, / has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident” (Piercy 20-21). Darcy gets his satisfaction from knowing that he did the right thing in the correct manner. He also gets satisfaction knowing that he helped the Bennets, especially Elizabeth, alleviate their diminished image in a way that …show more content…
and Mrs. Gardiner’s visit to Pemberley, Darcy’s housekeeper Ms. Reynolds, explains what other people think of Darcy: “some people call him proud; but I am sure I never saw any thing of it” (Austen 239). Ms. Reynolds also states that despite the many prejudices towards Darcy, “he is the best landlord and the best master that ever lived” (Austen 239). People that do not know Darcy think of him as very proud and arrogant. These prejudices put a false persona on Darcy so people understand him as something he isn’t. In reality, Darcy is neither proud nor arrogant: he is just shy. In order to break through the prejudices and make people understand who he really is, Darcy “…strains in the mud and the muck to move things forward” (Piercy 10). The mud and the muck being all the false accusations associated towards Darcy and the strains being the unrecognized work that Darcy does every day in order to show his true self. Darcy continues to do what he has to in his individual occupations in order to get the self-satisfaction The prejudices that people hear about Darcy, hide the hard work he does on a daily basis because in reality he is the best landlord, brother and lover he can

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