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Satire in Pride and Prejudice


Mrs. Bennet is delighted, because "as long as she stays there, it is all very well" (Austen 22). In addition, when Mrs. Bennet learns that Lydia has gotten married to Mr. Wickham, she is extremely joyful. She is so blinded by the fact that one of her daughters got married; that she didn't see the pain Lydia could have potentially caused the rest of her family. Mrs. Bennet is being satirized throughout the novel as a busybody who's never had a rational thought, however, she is right and justified in wanting her daughters to marry someone with money and land. These are valuable assets to a successful marriage and social standing, but Austen mocks this view, probably on the belief that happiness in marriage should come before the social and financial aspects.
             Mr. Collins is a great comic creation for Austen. He is one of the best examples of her expression of criticisms of society through humor. Mr. Collins is pompous, pretentious, and extremely hypocritical in his moral judgments. He takes every opportunity to flatter and win the approval of his social superiors. He comes to Longbourn in search of a wife, a well-meaning attempt to compensate the Bennet's by keeping the estate in the immediate family. He infers his desire to propose to Jane, and upon finding from Mrs. Bennet that she is to be engaged to someone else, he turns his sights on Elizabeth. When Elizabeth makes it clear that she will not under any circumstances marry him, he winds up proposing to and marrying Charlotte Lucas, Elizabeth's friend who believed that "happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance" (Austen 16). Mr. Collins constantly demoralizes himself and others due to his high outlook on Lady Catherine DeBourgh. He thinks so highly of those who are superior to him in status that it almost seems that he believes that if he can be in their good graces, he will somehow become one of them. He is quick to tell Elizabeth upon her invitation to dine at Rosings, "do not make yourself uneasy, my dear cousin, about your apparel.


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