Themes of Pride and Prejudice

There are three main themes in the novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. These themes are Love and Marriage, Good breeding and Social rank, and Moral belief and Behavior. These themes are present throughout the entire novel; they are the underlying motif of the story. It is widely recognized that these themes were the reason for Austen writing this book, she wanted to show and preserve how the upper classes lived in the Napoleonic era. She also wanted to; criticize how and why people married in those times, how the upper classes related to everyone else and how the values of Napoleonic English society shaped their society. Maybe her most ardent viewpoint is on the theme of Love and marriage.
Love and marriage is a major theme in this novel, it is used to show a criticism of peoples reasons for marrying. The novel is shown through the view point of Elizabeth Bennet, and Elizabeth is a representation of Jane Austen; she lives in the same era and an author’s views are shown in their novels, and in Pride and Prejudice the views are shown through Elizabeth. This is done in a third person limited technique. Thus when we see Elizabeth’s point of view we see Austen’s. Elizabeth believes that people should marry for Love and Reason

Another example of Austen’s criticism of pride and Haughtiness is when the character of Lady Catherine de Bourgh is introduced in person. Her first description, aside from the numerous adaptations from Mr. Collins, is when Elizabeth visits Charlotte at Hunsford and the “entire party” is invited to Rosings. The first reference to Lady Catherine is “Her ladyship, with great condescension, arose to receive them.” The fact that Lady Catherine treats Elizabeth with condescension constructs her character as haughty. Elizabeth is the norm of the upper class as far as the reader is concerned; there are no faults that Austen has exaggerated in her so the reader considers Elizabeth as perfect, for someone to treat Elizabeth haughtily is symbolic to the reader of Lady Catherine’s pride. Lady Catherine continues to treat Elizabeth in this way so the reader’s negative opinion of her only gets worse. The time at which Austen criticism of Lady Catherine reaches its peak is when Lady Catherine visits longbourn and enquires about Elizabeth’s relationship with Darcy, she then warns her off him. This positions the reader to feel strong hate for Lady Catherine at this point, and thusly the reader strongly criticizes pride and haughtiness.

Another value that Austen constantly refers to is the society’s belief that all females should be elegant and non-independent. Austen does this to accentuate how Elizabeth differs from the other women in her society at that time. One way in which Austen does so is during Mr. Collins’ proposal. When Elizabeth refuses him he says that “I am not now to learn…that young ladies reject the addresses of the man whom they secretly mean to accept…it is an established custom of your sex to reject a man on the first application…it is consistent with the true delicacy of the female character” every time she refuses him, he puts it down to her being female, and it is her “delicate femininity” that is causing the refusal not her feelings. Yet through Elizabeth’s point of view the reader knows that Elizabeth is doing it for no such reason, she is disgusted by Mr. Collins. The fact that even Mr. Collins believes that all women are like that shows the beliefs of the period, and the fact that Elizabeth doesn’t comply with this belief is the point in which Austen is trying to put forward. Elizabeth isn’t the normal female of the time; she would fit in more in our era. Another example of how Austen shows Elizabeth’s differences form the base mould woman is through Miss. Bingley. When Elizabeth walks to Netherfield instead of riding or taking a carriage she gets her “petticoats” dirty. Miss. Bingley is criticizing her for this (behind her back of course) and she says “It seems to show an abominable sort of conceited independence…a most blatant indifference to decorum.” This statement shows that the independence of women goes against the decorum of the time. Elizabeth is certainly the most independent woman in the text so Austen has again specified that Elizabeth is not a normal woman. By showing that Elizabeth is not normal enhances her criticisms of the other people in society, mentioned above, because the reader sees the text from Elizabeth’s point of view and thus Elizabeth’s views are the norm and everyone else is different, but Austen is showing that it is the other way around to juxtapose the readers point of view to the societies point of view. It makes the reader think about w