As I find myself in the middle of writing an essay on Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, I found it more than fitting to discuss her work Pride and Prejudice for January's Monthly Classic. Now, I read this book last year (wow that sounds weird, I'm not used to being in 2021 already, I guess haha), and I wanted to use it for a Monthly Classic for a while now, I just had other books to look at first. For this review, I did reread some passages to get back into the novel, but my actual read was some time ago like I said. Pride and Prejudice is so far the most fun book I read for my studies. I had seen the film (the one with Keira Knightly, 2005) already before actually reading the book. Over the year, my appreciation for Jane Austen has only grown. This year, I hope to read more of her works, with Emma being high on my list.
Jane Austen has a very particular style of not just writing but also her stories are different. One of my friends explained it as: during the book, nothing really seems to happen, we mostly read a lot of gossip and people's opinions about certain things, which make up the story. This might seem abstract to you if you haven't read Jane Austen before, but I quite agree. That is also why it took me a while to get into the story. As it starts with just explaining families, marriages, etc. The pacing of the first half of the book is not that fast and there I think, most people quit reading the book. However, it is after the middle that the pacing picks up and the story actually gets interesting. In was after the halfway point where I realised why people love Jane Austen novels. But yes, it took a while.
The thing with classics is that many are outdated. That's partly why they're called "classics", I wrote an entire blog post about this. The society that Austen lived in and used as the basis for her novels was different than ours is today. As you can expect it to be. In that time, for a woman, it was important to find a good husband. Not out of love, but for money, status and a good future. This is why Mrs Bennet, the mother of the family, only thinks about this. She has multiple daughters and wants a good future for them all. For some readers, this might be frustrating as it goes against the beliefs of our society today. Now, marrying isn't even that important, and if you marry, you marry out of love. Besides, women nowadays have the rights to choose their own future and are not depended on men anymore. So yes, the novels are outdated. That is why I suggest that new readers of Jane Austen keep this in mind while reading her works. They represent how women lived in that time, but are in no way saying that that is right. Nowadays, it isn't. The new Netflix series Bridgerton is also set in this time and also has a protagonist woman that is in search for a man, this too is based on that time, but not saying that this is 'correct'.
Now that I got that out, let's discuss the book! Some people say that there's not much action in this (or any) Jane Austen novel, and that is true. This is a novel about the characters and their behaviour in society and towards others. In a course I followed last year, we discussed this book. My professor then explained that Jane Austen writes 2 types of heroines: heroines that are right or heroines that are wrong. In Mansfield Park, a book that I read for a current course, Fanny is the heroine that is right. Meaning that her standards and beliefs are the right ones and the people around her need to learn these, especially the man needs to learn these before they can marry. In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth is a heroine that is wrong. Her thoughts and views are clouded by prejudice and she needs to learn things before she can marry. Which (spoiler alert!!) happens in the end.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters. - Austen, Pride and Prejudice
I think that the first two sentences of this novel are extremely well written. In just these two sentences, the style of Austen is so well shown. Speaking of men almost as 'cattle', that are to be married to one of the daughters of the neighbourhood. These two sentences show what Mrs Bennet tries to achieve for her daughters, so any new man in the neighbourhood is considered as potential marry-material for her daughters. These sentences are so powerful as you see the irony so clearly in them already and the story hasn't even started yet. This is one of the reasons why Austen makes my literature-heart so happy.
I haven't discussed the actual story in much detail, but I'm convinced that you should just enjoy the story without knowing too much of it. During the read, appreciate Austen's style, word choice, irony and look at how she ties the characters to the story, the gaps she leaves and the emotions of the characters. It is just so well-done. This year I have a few Jane Austen books on my tbr because I am such a fan of her style and would love to read more of her. For your first Austen novel, I really recommend Pride and Prejudice. Mansfield Park is (besides being her least appreciated work) a bit denser and might be less enjoyable if you're not used to her style of writing.
I hope you liked my first Monthly Classics post of the year! I enjoyed writing this for you and I am thinking about re-reading Pride and Prejudice now. Have a lovely day everyone, see you in the next post!
With love,
Julia
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