Analyzing Pride and Prejudice the novel

[Mayanka]

Aside from the most obvious of themes, what other deeper, more controversial themes and issues can be found in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice? It is a very cleverly written novel, and social issues keep stepping up every now and then. But I'm looking for deeper issues, not very apparent. I admit, it's for college. I want to show people that it is much more than a romance. Help please?

[Londoner]

You say that deeper issues are not very apparent, yet you want to show people that they are there.

Why? Do you feel that because a book is famous, or popular, or on the syllabus, it must contain a discussion of 'controversial themes and issues'?

(I'm afraid that if you post requests for help with essays on philosophy boards, this is the sort of answer you will get!)

[Belinda]

P&P is more than a "romance" because Jane Austen has observed human nature under very specific cultural constraints .Those constraints as exemplified most rigidly by Mother Bennet and Lady de Bourgh are manipulated by the other characters each in his or her own way. It is while regarding the peculiar styles of the various characters that we join with the author in a psychic conversation about morality, heroism, kindness, and decency.

I trust that you will take it from here and develop your own theories about the morality, immorality, stubbornness, bad temper, patience, stoicism, hedonism, gullibility, pacifism, dutifulness, etc. of various characters including your own choice of quoted evidence from the text. If you still have difficulty one common way into such a discussion is to begin with 'why I like (so and so)' Then perhaps carry on with 'I would like to meet (so and so) because-------'. Have fun!

This sort of exercise in literary criticism is good for you because it makes you concentrate on human nature and its various byways, dark and dangerous underpasses, and sublimities.

[Obvious Leo]

I regard all of Austen's oeuvre as brilliantly written but nothing more than shallow romances. Her analysis of the human condition is pedestrian and cliched, rather reflective of her own narrow and constrained life. Some of her work is downright boring, and I offer Mansfield Park as the definitive example, but she draws her uninteresting characters with an uncanny precision which makes the reader want to slap them, and this marks her as a writer of rare talent. If the goal of literary art is to move the mind of the reader she ticks all the boxes, but I very much doubt that her superficial world would resonate very deeply with a 21st century readership.

Regards Leo

[Belinda]

Jane's 'world' indeed is a world of superficial manners and morals. However that can also be said of our liberal western world , or tellingly, the world of the ruling classes and their subjects in Saudi Arabia today. The common factor between all 'worlds' of cultural beliefs is that none of us can escape from the influences that socialised us as children, and in most individuals 'cases, manners and morals that still rule adults' heads and hearts.

Jane's world is tiny in space and in time but the struggle between individual personalities on one side and the strictures of cultural beliefs on the other side still goes on. Day after day one reads in the papers about individuals in various walks of life who want to change society for the better, as they think, and who are prevented by old and rigid customs.

Jane shows how , in her small middle class, restricted as to time and place world, individuals can win for honesty, courage, kindness, tolerance and patience against the forces of stupidity, greed, and silliness. Most of all I see that Jane Austen is against change for the sake of change, and warns against the sillier extremes of Romanticism.

[Obvious Leo]

I certainly feel that Austen is a "must study" author for students of English literature because her work marked a turning point in the evolution of the novel as a legitimate genre in English literature. She was arguably the first true novelist in our language and her technical skill at narrative composition has been matched by very few authors since. She is hardly to be blamed for her lack of depth which is more a reflection of the stultifying social milieu she moved in than a critique of her unquestionable talent. Nevertheless in a comparison with later 19th century authors she reveals a naivety which borders on sentimental immaturity but this was largely also a reflection of her times. Like all authors she wrote for a specific readership and the readership of her day had an expectation that young females should be vacuous empty-headed bimbos. She painted most of her female characters in this light, as indeed did Dickens, but she herself rose above this stereotype as best she could manage. She was also gifted in the use of irony, as was Dickens, and if she'd had access to Dickens' breadth of social experience she may have made an equally important contribution to the evolution of British society into a modern egalitarian state.

Regards Leo

[Belinda]

Obvious Leo wrote:

Nevertheless in a comparison with later 19th century authors she reveals a naivety which borders on sentimental immaturity but this was largely also a reflection of her times. Like all authors she wrote for a specific readership and the readership of her day had an expectation that young females should be vacuous empty-headed bimbos. She painted most of her female characters in this light, as indeed did Dickens, but she herself rose above this stereotype as best she could manage. She was also gifted in the use of irony, as was Dickens, and if she'd had access to Dickens' breadth of social experience she may have made an equally important contribution to the evolution of British society into a modern egalitarian state.

Your entire criticism is so well rounded and in parts justified that I am having to think again. But I thought that Austen's women were some of them empty headed like Mrs. Bennet and Lydia, but others such as Lizzie and Darcy had considerable insight into contemporary morals and demonstrated Mother Bennet's and Lydia's lack of prudence when accepted morality is heedlessly defied. True, Austen aligns that accepted morality with the everlasting virtues of charity, frankness, wisdom, reflection, and loyalty, but even so there is much to be said for prudence for the sake of prudence and the lovably pragmatic Charlotte Lucas shows how .

Typical of the later, Romantic extravagances is Wuthering Heights in which the heroine actually died of her indiscretions, and Heathcliffe arguably lost his soul due to loyalty to one individual woman because he is Romanticism personified. P and P and WH understood as a contrasting pair show social change from loyalty to traditional extended family and village , to cutting loose from the latter and cleaving instead to the claims of individuality.

The question is to what extent should we rebel against the current morality for the sake of self expression and to what extent does the current morality allow us to be free to choose to do good as did Darcy and Elizabeth. P and P is set on a tiny stage but it still asks the question and suggests an answer.

[Obvious Leo]

Excellent post, Belinda. You're no slouch yourself when it comes to literary criticism. I did quite a lot of literary analysis in a previous life but haven't done so now for decades. My perspective was always more about the social impact that the authors made on their societies than a specific examination of the themes explored. As a wordsmith myself I also have a passion for the technical dissection of narrative technique and literary style. In other words the little cheats that all writers use to put words and ideas together. Style, of course, is all about engaging the mind of your reader and I'm a big believer in cadence and flow.

Regards Leo

[Belinda]

Obvious Leo wrote:

My perspective was always more about the social impact that the authors made on their societies than a specific examination of the themes explored.

So your perspective was more historical than sociological, would you say? I recommend your sort of historical perspective if The Bible and the Koran are under review, because those badly need to be divested of their spurious authority.

[Obvious Leo]

As it happens I did this many years ago. I've been an atheist since about the age of 14 so I had no problem being objective and simply analysing these texts from a historical perspective. The Koran proved difficult because there were so few historical references in it and such a scant historical record from other sources, so it wasn't much of a research project. The bible was a different matter. Although the old testament accounts are just fables and stories from the oral record there is a little cross-referencing from other sources to line up a few of the stories. There is a consistent thread of some reliability through most of the books but none whatsoever in Genesis. The new testament account was an entire fabrication but it was more than just fictional. It was clearly quite deliberately doctored although Christ was a historically real figure and he did split off a Jewish cult from the mainstream. Rome had a rich tradition of historical literature and much was written about Judea both before, during and after the time of Christ. The new testament accounts don't line up at all, although the crucifixion did happen. In fact most of the early christian literature up until about 300 AD completely contradicts the accounts that were finally brought to publication by Gutenberg. There were lots of different stories and people were just making stuff up and shoving it in until the council of Nicea established a canon doctrine called the Nicene creed in 325. This was to be the official version but it never quite worked because the monks in various parts of Europe all spoke different bastardised versions of Latin. Every now and again the curia would try and tidy it up again but it was like Chinese whispers. After dozens of revisions it was historically worthless.There was truly no bible at all before Gutenberg.

In fact this is a historically fascinating story. So terrified was the Roman church of the printing press that they persecuted and murdered the early printers and smashed their presses. When they finally realised they were fighting a losing battle a team of propagandists ( from the Latin ..to spread) worked for a generation to put out a sanitised version which they felt might be suitable for the general population. They were terrified that the masses might discover that the priests had been selling them a load of **** for centuries so there was to be only one official church-sanctioned version. They needn't have worried. As subsequent history has shown the implausibility of the story is irrelevant and selling people a load of **** is as easy as falling off a log. Even in the 21st century, would you believe. Go figure out human credulity.

Regards Leo

[Belinda]

I thought that the historicity of the Koran would be easier than The Bible because the Koran is all one book by Muhammad. I thought that the unification of Arabia was well documented and also the scope and, I don't know, perhaps even some of the dates of Muhammad's military campaigns and social reforms.

That is interesting about the eclectic mix before the Christian canon was constructed . Your account reminds me of the sitcom 'Father Ted' do you get that in Oz? I think it is fascinating to try to glean some actual history from The Bible. For instance I was taught that the book of Ruth was an example for dutiful womanhood, of obedience which the unseen narrator takes for granted is to be applied to the taboos, patrilinearity, labour, and kinship structures of the approximate time and place.

(Edited)

I could not have been more wrong about the historicity of the Koran! I have been reading http://www.qcc.cuny.edu/socialSciences/ ... rigins.htm

which details the various reasons for a canonical Koran to have been written down . The reason given is that so many people who remembered the religious texts had been killed in battle that the caliph who instigated the writing of the text thought he'd better get it written up before the remaining memories were killed off. Muhammad himself probably could not read or write. Another problem about the historical provenance of the Koran is that Arabic text was consonanantal, and small points to designate vowels were often absent so that various versions of the texts emerged. Anyway, I am definitely digressing from the OP, but I recommend the website.

[Obvious Leo]

I"ve always written a lot on evolution, which I regard as the fundamental organising principle of everything, both living and dead. It is a model well suited to studying such things as literature, society, religious belief etc and synthesising these things into the broader picture of the evolution of humanity. Rather more abstract ideas can then be looked at as self-organising evolutionary principles, such as the history of knowledge, ignorance, peace, justice, government, etc. Researching these things within an evolutionary framework was rather novel when I started doing it but is now common. Ideas as selection factors actually predates Darwin by centuries and it's not hard to see why. Good ideas have good outcomes and become more widespread and bad ideas the reverse etc, so the good ones have a higher reproductive success. I use this same sort of biological language to make the point.

Punctuated equilibrium is when evolution suddenly takes off exponentially because of circular causal feedback. In the evolution of ideas this is what is currently happening to humanity. It started with the printing press, but the early period was slow. Mass education didn't really happen until the 20th century but then we got mass media and the evolution of ideas took off. Now off course the internet and all gloves are off. Evolution always tends "upwards" which means the ideas of mankind get better. This is unstoppable and will be the salvation of our species from its own excesses. Even within my own lifetime and culture I can see what's dying off through lack of reproductive success. Racism, homophobia, misogyny, war, totalitarianism etc. It's sometimes hard to observe these things when you're living them every day, rather like watching your own kids grow up. But from a historical perspective homo sapiens is evolving into his humanity. Not before time, I might add, but it's all down to the evolution of knowledge.

The evolutionary historian looks at religion in the broader context of the evolution of ignorance but it's a lot more complex than simply that. Religion is a selection factor in the evolution of ideas more generally and many of them have been positive. War is an obvious exception. My own interest in these books was really just an overview to incorporate into my own work and I'm not a historian in the academic sense. Some people spend years trying to get to the details of the history of religion but it's over-arching causes are few and easy to elucidate. It's a way of getting people to do as they're bloody well told, Belinda, and as a means of social control it leaves government for dead. The most explicit biblical representation of this is Job. In the Christian history it essentially brought about totalitarianism, capitalism and the evolution of power and wealth more generally through war. Nobody wants to get their **** shot off for a politician.

Regards Leo

-- Updated August 1st, 2014, 6:49 am to add the following --

In a nutshell. The Christian bible was written in the middle of the 15th century by a gang of bandits who had a vested interest in its content. This is a problem.

-- Updated August 1st, 2014, 6:56 am to add the following --

You may be interested in the historical roots of the word propaganda. It comes from the Latin propago..to spread. It became incorporated into the language of the Roman curia prior to Aquinas and formed the basis of the Ministry of Propaganda. This was an official organ of the Roman church which lasted for many centuries under this name and it formed the basis of the Holy Roman Inquisition, but which is now called the Ministry for the Propagation of the Faith. Political correctness is not new.

-- Updated August 1st, 2014, 7:00 am to add the following --

Nowadays Christianity is mostly confined to the third world and is quite culturally specific to the cultures in which it has been propagated. Education will get rid it, just as it has in much of the developed world, the US being a notable exception.

-- Updated August 1st, 2014, 7:06 am to add the following --

The history of religion would be a fascinating subject for a new thread, and one I could make quite a significant contribution to because I've done a lot of work on the subject over a long number of years. However this forum has been hijacked by vested interests and propagandists, as you know, thus any objective analysis could never get off the ground.

"Belief is the antithesis of knowledge"..... Bertrand Russell.

[Belinda]

Obvious Leo wrote:

------evolution, which I regard as the fundamental organising principle of everything, both living and dead. It is a model well suited to studying such things as literature, society, religious belief etc and synthesising these things into the broader picture of the evolution of humanity. Rather more abstract ideas can then be looked at as self-organising evolutionary principles, such as the history of knowledge, ignorance, peace, justice, government, etc. Researching these things within an evolutionary framework was rather novel when I started doing it but is now common. Ideas as selection factors actually predates Darwin by centuries and it's not hard to see why. Good ideas have good outcomes and become more widespread and bad ideas the reverse etc, so the good ones have a higher reproductive success. I use this same sort of biological language to make the point.

But evolution is simply change, and humans individually and as collectives do change without doubt. The organising principle of change, natural selection, cannot apply to humans (as it doesn't apply to pedigree dogs or racing pigeons) because our changes are determined by our artifices. Like pedigree dogs and racing pigeons are bred by means of artificial selection.

Our own artifices are in turn governed , not by the impartial workings of natural selection upon genes of ideas, but by our intentions as agents of change. Once the environment changes we humans will evolve in a changed direction, true. We can see this happening in the changes we make to for instance specially bred guide dogs and sniffer dogs or for instance in beef cattle that grow marbled fat deposits in the muscle tissue. I wrote "perceived need". Our perceptions are governed by our need to meet our futures with an eye on what has or has not worked in the past plus risky innovations. Natural animals don't know the meaning of 'risk' because they don't know that they are bound to die, and natural animals don't do history but arguably have almost no conceptual memories not even collie dogs or chimpanzees.

I really don't know what do about this way that discussions drift away from the OT.But trust that moderator will permit because Leo's post is too challenging to resist. Okay, back to the OT. Pride and Prejudice is an iconic bit of literature. This being so what, if any, signposts to the future can we learn from Jane Austen's insights into her contemporary world? That is the question that we ask from history and from iconic novels.

[Obvious Leo]

But evolution is simply change, and humans individually and as collectives do change without doubt. The organising principle of change, natural selection, cannot apply to humans (as it doesn't apply to pedigree dogs or racing pigeons) because our changes are determined by our artifices. Like pedigree dogs and racing pigeons are bred by means of artificial selection.

You're right. Evolution is simply change, but it's change of a particular kind because it's self-organising change. This means it has a direction and In the language of the biologist it means living systems evolve towards informational complexity. Note that I use the word "systems" and this is important to understand. The evolutionist doesn't get too hung up about individual species, genera, families and orders etc but rather regards the entire biosphere as a single living and evolving system. It is this entire system that is becoming more complex. This holistic approach is the only correct way to understand the non-linear aspect of evolution. It also has deep philosophical implications for our species, for we are the uber-predators who will determine the evolutionary future of our living planet and all the species it contains. This is a very onerous burden and a test we dare not fail. In evolutionary theory failure is just a polite word for extinction.

Truly we've got off topic and no doubt it was my fault. My apologies, Mayanka, for once again getting carried away with my own interests. However literature has always been a keen interest for me in its own right, and not just as a subject for historical research. P&P is a beautifully written work and Austen has a masterly command of language. Belinda drew a comparison to Emily Bronte which is well worth pursuing. Where Austen deals with morals and manners, Bronte looks deeper within her characters. Her focus is directed at the human passions and the trials of the human experience. They both hold a worthy status in the history of 19th century literature and it's quite interesting to see how the novel genre evolved in the short half-century between them. ( There we go with evolved again, I can't seem to help myself )

Regards Leo

[Belinda]

Me too. I apologised to Mayanka for the digression from her worthwhile question, and, by the way, it would be nice to hear from her how she got on if she is indeed pursuing a tutor-set assignment on Pride and Prejudice.

Leo, I repeat I object to your theory of natural selection applied to human history or history of ideas . Humans, unlike African lions , cockroaches, or wild daisies, have powerful cultures which not only change but which influence human history. True, an intelligent animal such as a domestic dog has a slight learned culture of behaviour which the trained nursing bitch passes on to her puppies. But human cultures unlike those of trained domestic dogs, are informed of their eventual demise , and by the deaths of all individuals.

These fact of the magnitude of human culture, the knowledge of the human past, and the necessity for risk taking, makes us humans know that we must leap into untried life situations. These facts have such an effect upon any natural selection that human change should be said to be governed, not by natural selection, but by self-imposed artificial selection.