Pride and Prejudice

Synopsis:
The story opens with a conversation between Mr. Bennet and his
wife. Mrs. Long, a friend of Mr. Bennet’s wife has been in
Netherfield Park and she has known about the renting of the
estate, which now belongs to a rich and single man, Mr. Bingley.
The man, who comes from the Northern of England, is so hooked
on by the place than he had decided to agree with Mr. Morris and
to be there with his servants at the weekend. Since he is a single
man, Mr. Bennet’s wife plans an arranged marriage with one of
their five daughters. Mr. Bennet suggests her of letting go on
their own because according to his point of view, she is the most
beautiful woman than their five daughters and she is afraid that
Mr. Bingley might fall in love with his wife. She recommends him
to call on him but he does not want despite his wife insists on
thinking about the future of their daughters. The husband vows
to send the consent of the marriage especially for Elizabeth
because he guesses she is more intelligent and brilliant than the
other girls, considered silly and ignorant by their father. The wife
cannot stand the way he thinks about his daughters, she blames
him for the lack of empathy of her nerves and she recommends
him again to go visit him in order to meet the girls even if he is
not convinced about the wife’s intentions. Mr. Bennet is a
sarcastic and reserve but his wife is incapable to understand his
irony. She is considered as an unintelligent, stupid and frivolous
woman like her daughters and she prefers only spending time in
her living room with her friends talking about other people and
to arrange marriages for her daughters.
GRAMMAR
The story is written in the third person told in the past perfect.
The structure of the chapter 1 is based on the direct speech with
an exception in the last paragraphs where Jane Austen, the
author of the novel, describes the attitude of the man and the
woman. Probably, the choice of the direct speech is used with the
aim to move the characters in a spontaneous way. The adjectives
used by the father like “ignorant” and “silly” are referred to the
girls and this conveys the idea of the bad reputation he has
towards them. Moreover, some nouns like “caprice” “humour”
referred to Mr Bennet and “little information”, “uncertain
temper” referred to the wife reveal principal features of
characters’ behaviour. In the chapter we can find also an
alliteration “My dear”, expressed by the wife in order to show her
affection towards him but at the same it emphasizes her frivolous
and romantic attitude. In the dialogue, we can find a good
command of English lexicon and grammar rule and this feature
suggests the idea the Bennet’s family belongs to an upper social
class because they are educated, even if the wife does not care
about reading.

LANGUAGE
The language techniques applied in this work are full of irony. An example
is given by the opening sentence “It is a truth universally acknowledged
that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a
wife.” This phrase points out the idea of the reality of the marriage during
British Regency period, which was seen by the author as a family
business, where it does not prevail the love but only personal interests.
The irony is given also by a large use of periphrasis especially by Mr
Bennet when he wants to make fool of her wife about her nerves and her
inability to not understand his dry sense of humour. The peculiarity of this
work is given also by the large use of paragraphs and a large use of
punctuation. The last one is characteristic of Mr. Bennet’s speech with full
stops, maybe because the writer wants to highlight his way to go straight
to the point through his irony. An another feature is given also by some
verbs and pronouns written in italic like “her” “how can you abuse…”. This
choice comes from Austen because she thinks these are important words
in order to understand better the flow of the plot.
PERSONAL CONSIDERATIONS.
As we notice in the first sentence, written in an ironical way, we
can extrapolate the reality of the marriage. The concept of the
marriage is not seen in a romantic view but it has based only on
personal business. In fact, in this case, gender roles are reversed:
the woman wants to marry a rich man because both for ethical
purposes neither because she wants to overcome her social
status. Moreover, we can find also the egoism and the lack of
respect of Mr Bennet when he describes in a bad way his
daughters and this convey the idea of his absence. The mother
seems not to care about their romantic interests and she expects
their daughter will follow her plans about the marriage.