How Austen Voices The Contextual Issues of Her Time in Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen voiced the contextual issues of her time through literary techniques in her book Pride and Prejudice, written during England’s Regency period. Austen was a writer who lived from 1775 to 1817, and wrote six major novels, to appraise and observe society as she knew it. She did this through the use of techniques such as circumlocution, satire and pedantic characters. She employed circumlocution to portray issues with class, satire to critique matrimonial ideals and pedantic characters to comment upon the unrealistic expectations of women in upper classes, which she believed to be relevant during the Regency Period.

Austen used circumlocution as a literary technique to voice her opinions of class as a contextual issue in her society. Austen heavily criticized how in Regency England, class was a determining factor of many aspects of a woman’s life. Mr Collins’ attachment to Lady Catherine de Bourgh can be explained by his understanding of this, and how he knew it would be beneficial for him to have relations to those in the aristocracy. “…respect which he felt for her high rank, and his veneration for her as his patroness, mingling with a very good opinion of himself, of his authority as a clergyman, and his right as a rector, made him altogether a mixture of pride and obsequiousness, self-importance and humility.” In this extract, Austen used circumlocution, a technique where the speaker uses an excessive amount of words to make a point that could have easily been conveyed briefly. People of the upper classes utilized this frequently to uphold superficial civility and etiquette. This also demonstrated how people of different classes were expected to act, thus expressing how Austen applied circumlocution as a literary technique to express her views of class as a contextual issue in her society.

Austen used satire throughout Pride and Prejudice to portray her opinions on marriage as a contextual issue. She believed marriage to be a contextual issue because of how it was often for insubstantial reasons, such as gaining land. She used Charlotte as an example of what people in higher classes thought of marriage in Regency England- as a means to gain status and wealth, shown through the quote: “Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.…it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life.” Satire is a writing style where the author critiques people or ideas in a humorous way, to make a political statement and in this excerpt, Austen ridiculed Charlotte and those with similar matrimonial ideals. Charlotte expresses that happiness in marriage is only through luck, and that she will not marry for love, but for wealth and status, and she ends up marrying Mr Collins. Using satire, Austen allows a character that believes in facile marriages to marry unhappily, lightly criticising those who share Charlotte's beliefs regarding marriage. This is how Austen uses satire to comment upon marriage ideals in Regency England.

Austen used pedantic characters to voice her criticism on expectations of upper class women, as a contextual issue. She believed this to be an issue because while men could play cards and gamble constantly, women were expected to be skilled in different aspects to attract a husband. Austen portrayed this through Miss Bingley’s pedantism, saying: “A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages… and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions…”. A pedantic person is someone overly concerned with minor details, which describes the general social attitude towards higher class women. Austen used pedantic to express her view on the unrealistic standards women were held to. In Pride and Prejudice, multiple characters hold these views, such as Lady Catherine, Miss Bingley and Mr Darcy (at the beginning of the novel). These characters are seen as bothersome, as they caused issues and intervened unnecessarily, so by creating exasperating characters with pedantic views of higher class women, Austen mocked those who think of women as such. Through this it is shown how Austen conveyed her view on women of higher social status through pedantic characters.

Through the points presented above, it is evident Jane Austen used multiple literary devices in her book Pride and Prejudice to voice contextual issues of her time. She lived during England’s Regency period, and utilized techniques such as circumlocution, satire and pedantic characters to express her views upon contextual issues. She applied circumlocution to appraise class, satire to criticize superficial and shallow marriage ideals and pedantic characters to express her views on the highly unrealistic expectations of women with high social status- issues that she believed were important and appropriate to the time period during which she lived.

References

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