Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen
Characters
Elizabeth Bennet: she is the second oldest of the five Bennet children. Elizabeth, also called Lizzy, is the most ligical and level-headed of the Bennet daughters, that also makes her her father’s favorite. She is thoughtful, intelligent, practical, good in observation and very cheerful but she has just little pillancy in temper.
Jane Bennet: she is the oldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet. She is very beautiful and she always sees the positive things. She is feather headed and as Lizzy calls her: “honestly blind”.
Mary Bennet: she is the middle child in the family. She is odd, a homebody who spends her time reading. She is the only one who doesn’t get married.
Catherin Bennet: she is the second youngest in the family. Also called Kitty and she is very much influenced by Lydia.
Lydia Bennet: she is the youngest daughter of the Bennets. She is very feather headed and naughty.
Mr. Bennet: he is a reserved middle aged man. He has a sarcastic humour and likes to tease his wife. He thinks all his daughters, except Lizzy and Mary, are feather headed and silly.
Mrs. Bennet: she has an uncertain temper and is not very smart. She is very pushy, ignorant and as Lizzy says: “embarrassing”. Her life business is to get her daughters well married. She loves Jane the most and doesn’t get along well with Elizabeth.
Mr. Darcy: he is a very handsome and rich man. But his pride makes him unliked by strangers. In real he is a very smart and helpful man. He loves Lizzy because of her wild temper and her brightness.
Mr. Bingley: he is a very good looking man. He has a good sense of humour, pleasant manners and a lively, easy going and sensible character. He loves Jane because of her sweet character and her beauty.
Charlotte: she is Lizzy’s best friend and a very good one as well. She is sensible, inteligent and realistic. She doesn’t believe in love and that is why she marries Mr. Collins.
Mr. Collins: he is a mixture of pride, self-importance and humility. He is very self-convinced but not sensible. He only thinks about his own provit and what Mrs. De Bourgh would say.
Lady De Bourgh: she is Mr. Darcy’s wealthy aunt and Mr. Collins patroness. She wants her daughter to marry Mr. Darcy to unite the families. She is a very self-convinced person.
Mr. Wickham: he appears a very charming person, but in in real he is a very false one. He only wants to get profit and have fun. Darcy’s dad is his godfather, and because of a fight the two men don’t like each other. He is the reason why Lydia runs away.
Mrs. Gardiner: she is Lizzy’s aunt. The two women get along very well. Mrs. Gardiner is very thoughtful and practical. She is the first one who suspects that Lizzy and Darcy are in love.
Settings
Longbourn: The Bennet family estate near Meryton. Longbourn will be inherited by Mr. Collins when Mr. Bennet dies.
Netherfield: The Bingley’s estate close to Longbourn.
Meryton: Town, Mrs. Phillips lives there.
Rosings: Lady Catherin De Bourgh’s estate in Hunsford.
Hunsford: Town near Rosings, Charlotte and Mr. Collins live here.
Pemberley: Mr. Darcy’s estate in Derbyshire. Elizabeth is on vacations with the Gardiners there.
Hertfordshire: The neighborhood, or county, where Longbourn, Netherfield and Meryton are located.
Summary
Aktually Hertfordshire is a calm neighborhood where nothing much happends. But everything changes when Netherfield, an estate in Herdfordshire, is sold. When Mr. Bingley, a young goodloking bachelor from London, buys Netherfield, a country estate near Meryton, Mrs. Bennet, one of his neighbours, begins her mach-making shemes. Mrs. Bennet has no greater ambishion in her life then to get her daughters married. At a great Ball the Bingley’s and the Bennet’s meet and Mrs. Bennet’s eford seamed to show first results. Mr. Bingley and Miss Jane Bennet, the oldest Bennet daughter and the most beautiful one, start to get found of one another.
Mr. Bingley’s best friend, Mr. Darcy, is not so well accepted by the neighborhood. Even though he is as rich and handsome as Mr. Bingley. His pride makes him not appealing to strangers. As time passes Bingley and Jane get very intimate and everyone belives they will marry.
Meanwhile Mr. Collins, Mr. Bennet’s nephew, comes to visit the Bennets because he wants to marry Elizabeth, but she denies. Short afther Collins an Caroline, who is Lizzy’s best friend, marry and move to Hunsford.
Also Mr. Wickham comes to town and starts spreding lies about Mr. Darcy, Lizzy, like the whole neighborhood, belives him. afther a short periode she developes positive feelings towards Mr. Wickham.
Sadly Mr. Darcy starts to show aswell interrest in Elizabeth, whats not only to the unfortune of Miss Bingley, Bingley’s sister, but als to Jane. Miss bingley is secretly in love to Mr. Darcy, who doesn’t have the same feelings for her. To get Elizabeth out of the way, Miss Bennet convinces her brother to move back to London with them, to Janes unfortune Mr. Bingley accepts and they don’t see anymore.
Whene suddenly Mr. Bingley and his party leave the countryside and make no attempts to contact any of their neighbours, Jane is heartbroken. Elizabeth believes that there is something wrong.
To cheer up her heartbroken sister Lizzy and Jane visit their aunt in London. Later Elizabeth extends her trip to visit Caroline and Mr. Collins in Hunsford. During her visit Elizabeth meets Lady De Bourgh and her daughter. To Lizzy’s surprise Mr. Darcy shows up at Rosings and askes her to marry him, but she denies because she still believes in Mr. Wickhams story. Before she leaves Mr. Darcy gives her a letter in which he describes the situation and what realy happened. Lizzy realises what mistake she had done and notices how much she actually likes Mr. Darcy.
To distruct herself she majes a trip with her unkle and aunt. During this trip to Pemberly, Mr. Darcy’s estate, where they visit Miss Darcy, Mr. Darcy’s little sister, Elizabeth gets the news of Lydias vanishing with Wickham. They emedeatly end the trip and go home to help search Lydia. Without anyone knowing Mr. Darcy helps and takes care of the matter. He convinces Wickham with money to marry Lydia and safes the Bennet’s family reputation. Bingley moves back to Netherfield, also thanks to Mr. Darcy, and he and Jane are imideatly in love again and marry. Darcy askes Elizabeth to marry him, once again, and this time she accepts.
About Jane Austen
In 1775, Jane Austen was born in Steventon, Hampshire, one of two daughters of Rev. George Austen and his wife Cassandra (née Leigh). With her sister, Cassandra, she maintained a close relationship throughout her life. In 1783, she was educated briefly by a relative in Oxford, then in Southampton, and finally in 1785–1786 attended the Reading Ladies boarding school in the Abbey gatehouse. This uncommonly advanced level of education may have contributed to her early start of writing, she began her first novel in 1789.
Austen's life was even less eventful than that of her characters. In 1801 the family moved to the socially esteemed spa city of Bath, which provides the setting for many of her novels. After the death of her father in 1805, Austen, her sister, and her mother lived in Southampton with her brother Frank and his family for several years before moving to Chawton in 1809. Here her wealthy brother Edward had an estate with a cottage, where he allowed his mother and sisters to live.
Austen lived at Chawton, and wrote her later novels there. In 1816, she began to suffer from ill-health. In May 1817 she moved to Winchester to be closer to her doctor. Her condition became unstable, and on July 18th, 1817 she died.
Historical Background
Women have been writing for hundrets of years, in diaries, letters, poetry, recipes, plays and fiction. Mostly they wrote under male pen names. The reason for this is clear, men would never publish or buy a book written by a woman. Woemen have recorded what seamed important to them and created a treasure for modern times. This literature holds a lot of information about life and living condition of the past.
Woemen had a large theme area, they not only wrote about their life and experience but also about politics.
1614 a poem named “The Wife” was published, it was the first published writing written by women who probably included Cicely Bulstrode, who is one of the first published women in England.
After 1614 women started to let their books be published, but always under male pen names, that is why we know so little about female writers of this time.
1747 Charlotte Lennox started publishing her first book, she is one of the most famous writers of her time and published many books, poems and plays in fourty years. She wrote in all different kinds of genres. She was the first women who stopped writing under a pen name and outed herself as a woman.
Jane Austen, one of the most famous early writers in modern days published her first book in 1789.
In 1846 Charlotte Brontë started to publish as well. She and her sisters Emily and Anne Brontë also belong to the most famous early writers in our time.
During my search I have recognised that the only real probleme is that many female writers of the past are “lost”, mostly because their writings were never published and they were forced to write under male pen names to be able to publish their books.
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