On Social Classes In Jane Austens Pride And Prejudice :: essays research papers

In the late eighteenth and wee nineteenth centuries, life for the upper-middle class and the aristocracy was simple and comfortable, at to the lowest degree on the surface. Strict manners and &8220morals, that often prevented them from asserting or protect themselves, bound these two classes of sight. Such lifestyles are illustrated quite honestly in Jane Austen&8217s novel, Pride and Prejudice. The characters in this novel have comfortable lives on the surface however, internally they are victims of their social status.The husband and wife duo of Collins and Charlotte Lucas-Collins are two prime examples of this mentality. Collins, who is a minister, and bound by the social class of his benefactor, Lady Catherine, always puts on a fa fruit drink that makes him seem much classier than normal when he is around others. He evermore showed off his possessions. Charlotte, Collins&8217 wife, was not so much his wife by choice, but rather, out of necessity. Charlotte, a twenty-seven y ear old virtuoso woman nearly doomed to remain a spinster for the suspension of her life, had to marry soon, and the only man that made a proposal was Collins, thence she had to say yes.Mrs. Bennet, the mother of Eliza, always hurriedly rushes about to get her daughters married. Her boot is understandable, partly, because, the Bennet family has no male heir, therefore any daughters left unmated will be thrust into poverty upon their father&8217s death. However, most of her rushing seems nothing more than the nagging, useless bickering of a gossip old biddy. Mr. Bingley seems not to be a victim per se, but the people around him and their superficial motives tend to cause him harm. His sister, Caroline, causes many people to quash Bingley because of her snobbishness. Mr. Darcy, though good intentioned, almost ruins Bingley&8217s most promising conjugal union conquest by breaking Bingley and Jane Bennet up.