ViewsOnMarriageInJaneAusen’sPrideandPrejudice_开题报告

  Jane Austen, the writer of Pride and Prejudice, was born in southern England. She is known as “British women Shakespeare”. Pride and Prejudice have been studied at home and aboard. Novel takes the end of the 18th century to the early 19th century British countryside as the background, with the feelings of the hero and heronie experiences as the clues, describes young men and women’s marriage problems, including Jane and Bingley—harmony happiness of marriage, Elizabeth and Darcy—the perfect marriage of love each other, Charlotte and Collins—attachment type marriage, Lydia and Wickham—lust type marriage. It reflects the British local conditions and customs, social relations, class concept, marriage and family, a series of problems.

  Sir Walter Scott analyzed Pride and Prejudice from an overall perspective. In his article “The Journal of Sir Walter Scott”, he pointed that “Jane Austen has a talent for describing the feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful that I ever met with.” The background of Pride and Prejudice was reflected in his points that Pride and Prejudice was the description about the descent life and communication in her familiar country. The author Jane was born in a country clergyman’s family, about 20 years old, she began to write, six novels were published, in the novels, she shows her viewpoints on love snd marriage.

  In recently, people would like to pay more attention to the marriages in Pride and Prejudice. The first Chinese study on the marriage in Pride and Prejudice would be ZhuAiping, and in her article “Attitude toward Marriage in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice”, she expressed her view that “By the stories we can see, it mainly tells of the love story between a rich, proud young man Darcy and the beautiful and intelligent woman Elizabeth Bennet”. We can realize that Pride and Prejudice is a story about the love and their search for suitable husband. Before the conversation between Elizabeth and Lady de Burgh, both Darcy and Elizabeth dare not to have the wild wish of their love, so Darcy and Elizabeth only depenf on the help of Lady de Burgh became a happy couple. Though later they have cleaned up the misunderstanding between them and undersatood each other, there are no good earnest feeling, and contradict each ohter,no strong desire of living together between them. How passive of the pair yougth to pursue love and happiness.

  The author made a further analysis about the four marriages, she said “it is the inevitable result of the marriage conceot, which in that time was based on the sconomic condition and affected by the family status.” Besides the main story of this happy pair Darcy and Elizabeth, there is another happy pair the rich bachelor Bingley and the beautiful mild Jane; the servile clergyman Collins and Charlotte Lucas, not because of love between them, only a necessary step if a woman is to avoid the wretchedness of aging spinsterhood, it’s the reality of marriage; the elopement of thoughtless Lydia and Wickham it shows the dangers of feckless relationships unsupported by money.

  At the same time, another scholar HuangRong published a paper called “Thought of Marriage in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice”, there are two important words “fortune” and “want”. “Fortune” is the basis of marriage, while “want” provides the marriage chance for those unmarried women. We can read “fortune” everywhere in the novel, and “money” played an important role in marriage. Because women had no economic ability and status, they usually got married when they became one’s wife, just had their own status, and be acknowledged by society only after getting married.

  Later, a scholar called XinShulan from Langfang Teachers College raised an article, the title called “Women’s Happiness Secret—On Elizabeth’s Marriage Choice in Pride and Prejudice”, it’s from a totally new perspective on woman’s situation in Jane Austen’s age. The author said “a woman who did not marry could generally only look forward to living with her relatives as a ‘dependant’, so marriage is the only way of ever getting out from under the parental roof, in which case she would face the unpleasant necessity of going to live with employers as a dependant governess or teacher, or hired lady’s compasion.” A woman with no relations or employer was in danger of slipping off the scale of gentility, becoming an “old maid” was not considered a desirable fate ( so when Charlotte Lucas, at age 27,marries Mr.Collins, her brothers are “relieved from their apprehension of Charlotte’s dying an old maid”,and Lydia says “Jane will be quite an old maid soon, I declare. She is almost three and twenty!”) In Pride and Prejudice, the dilemma is expreesed most clearly by the character Charlotte Lucas, whose pragmatic views on marrying are voiced several times in the novel: “Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honorable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasant preservation from want. ” She is 27, not especially large “portion”, and so decides to marry Mr.Collins “from the pure and disinterested desire of an establishment”.

  Marriage in the Pride and Prejudice were a series of humorous descriptions; how the young women and their mothers choose their future husband refers to many wonderful scenes of the novel. The writer strives to portray mamy different marriages and love relationships. Although they have entered the marriage under siege, the awareness of happiness about marriage is diverse. Becasue in Jane Austen’s work, love is not the only reason for marriage, money is also closely related.

  For me I want to make a further study on this famous work; I want to make a study on this famous work and the four marriages happened in the novel: Elizabeth and Darcy, Jane and Bingley, Lucas and Collins, Lydia and Wickham. Thedifferent reasons, purposes and backgrounds make the marriage unique; the money or economic status in the marriage is important; the women’s pursuit of marriage freedom and the future development of marriage.

               Outline

1. Introduction

1.1. The Background of Jane Austen

1.2. The Background of Pride and Prejudice

2. The Four Marriages in Pride and Prejudice

2.1. Collins and Charlotte’s Marriage

2.2. Lydia and Wickham’s Marriage

2.3. Jane and Mr.Bingley’s Marriage

2.4. Darcy and Elizabeth’s Marriage

3. Views on four Marriages of Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice

3.1. Marriage based on true love and mutual understanding

3.1.1. Jane and Mr.Bingley’s marriage

3.1.2. Darcy and Elizabeth’s marriage

3.2. Marriage based on money and social status

3.2.1. Collins and Charlotte’s marriage

3.2.2 Lydia and Wickham’s marriage

4. Conclusion

References

[1] Jane Austen, Pride and Pre judice, Penguin Popular Classics, 1994

[2] Stewart S . Language and Culture[J]. USF Language Quarterly, 1982

[3] Penn, Merlin. 2007. Money and marriage in Pride and Prejudice. London:Longman.

[4] HuangRong.2007.Thoughts of Marriage in Pride and Prejudice.Wuhan:WuHan Univercity of science and technology.

[5] Goldwin Smith, Life of Jane Austen [M]. Kessinger Publishing. 2004:275.

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[9] 孟霞，简·奥斯汀及其《傲慢与偏见》中的女性主义意识[J].外国文学研究2011，（01）

[10] 谢秋花，《婚姻是一种生存联盟——透视<傲慢与偏见>中的婚姻实质》[J]郑州大学外语学院河南·郑州。2002（3）