7.

From Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813)

ANALYSIS

I. IDENTIFYING AND CLASSIFYING

1. Kind of text: a novel of manners.
2. Title: Pride and Prejudice.
3. Author's name: Jane Austen
How important is this text/author in the history of a given English-speaking
culture/society? She was an important writer, representative of the middle-classes and wrote
about her own experiences – novel of manners.
4. Date of composition / publication: 1812/1813
Circumstances of the composition: She has very influentiated for the French Revolution
and the American War of Independence, and she lived during the Napoleonic Wars, although
she sats is necessary to accept the rules of the society (against Mary Wollstonecraft's
principles).
5. Central topic: A single rich man comes to the town and Mr. and Ms. Bennet see a good
opportunity to get one of their daughters married.

II. EXPLAINING THE TOPIC AND IDEAS IN THE TEXT.

1. What is the central historical/cultural topic developed in the text? The social class of
the gentry during the Industrial Revolution.
2. What is the context of this event? Industrial revolution (to be developed), The Landed
Gentry (to be developed) and marriage and gender roles (to be developed),
3. Why is this specific event relevant? In what sense is the topic discussed in the text
representative of its historical period? Marriage and gender roles, we can see this during
the conversation between Mr. and Ms. Bennet because they want to marry one of their
daughters with the rich man, and they are having an argument what of their daughters can
get that man fell in love with
4. Can this account of the issue be compared with other sources/versions of the same
event? We can compare Mary Wollstonecraft's vision with Jane Austen's one. Wollstonecraft
is more revolutionary than Austen, she criticizes women were not considered as rational as
men, according to Wollstonecraft women can be independent from men. Jane Austen says all
people has to act according to the rules of the society.
5. Apart from the central topic, what other interesting questions/topics are raised by this
text? The male chauvinism appears during the text: when Bennet's parents want to marry
one of her daughter to be dependent, not for love; but also when refers the importance of the
beauty above intelligence.
6. If relevant, how many parts is the text divided into? Why is this so? We can divide the
text in three parts. Part I (the first paragraph), the introduction, Austen explains what it is
happening,
7. How is the presentation of the issue structured (chronologically, analytically, etc.)? It
follows a chronological time order, the events are presented within a sequence.
8. Does the text present any relevant formal/stylistic features that should be commented?
Jane Austen uses ironies to express her thoughts.

III.CLOSING THE COMMENTARY

1. What is the relevance of the text for the knowledge of the period? Jane Austen is
opening a discussion about marriage, the situacion women lived, the dependence, the breach
between men and women, topics that a lot of women live nowadays.