Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. New York, NY: Century, 1902. Print
In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen narrates the struggles of the heroine (Elizabeth) between following the social requirements concerning marriage and pursuing her own vision of how to live her life..
The story is set for the 1800 period of time when the most important thing for people to survive in society was for men to be rich and wealthy and for women to marry the men who were rich and wealthy. This particular story is about the Bennett family and their daughters trying to find marriages of the rich men who recently moved into town, Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy. As time progresses, Mr. Bingley and Jane end up having a really strong connection while Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth (without really knowing it) develop an attraction to each other as well. Just like any other love story, there is drama that keeps the lover apart like gossip and hearsay but they all end up together happily ever after at the end. While I was reading this narrative, I came across some pretty obvious controlling values that I pointed out in my blog. The purpose of the controlling value is pride in how one views themselves. Having pride without vanity makes you a better person. It shows your confidence and attracts the opoosite sex without even knowing it. (Mr. Bingley) The content of this controlling value is having pride and vanity together causes you to be uninviting and disliked without any knowledge of doing this. (Mr. Darcy) However, the opposing controlling value is how characters would like others to view them. The purpose is that showing pride to have better manners to be well liked almost like playing a role. These types of characters basically believe in the good in people. (good cop) The context is showing pride to be superior than others and not caring what they think. These characters se
I used many methods that we learned during this course while I was reading this book.
In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen narrates the struggles of the heroine (Elizabeth) between following the social requirements concerning marriage and pursuing her own vision of how to live her life..
The story is set for the 1800 period of time when the most important thing for people to survive in society was for men to be rich and wealthy and for women to marry the men who were rich and wealthy. This particular story is about the Bennett family and their daughters trying to find marriages of the rich men who recently moved into town, Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy. As time progresses, Mr. Bingley and Jane end up having a really strong connection while Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth (without really knowing it) develop an attraction to each other as well. Just like any other love story, there is drama that keeps the lover apart like gossip and hearsay but they all end up together happily ever after at the end. While I was reading this narrative, I came across some pretty obvious controlling values that I pointed out in my blog. The purpose of the controlling value is pride in how one views themselves. Having pride without vanity makes you a better person. It shows your confidence and attracts the opoosite sex without even knowing it. (Mr. Bingley) The content of this controlling value is having pride and vanity together causes you to be uninviting and disliked without any knowledge of doing this. (Mr. Darcy) However, the opposing controlling value is how characters would like others to view them. The purpose is that showing pride to have better manners to be well liked almost like playing a role. These types of characters basically believe in the good in people. (good cop) The context is showing pride to be superior than others and not caring what they think. These characters se
I used many methods that we learned during this course while I was reading this book.
Repetitive formThe word that comes up often in the book is the mentioning of pride and different types of acceptable pride. Pride can be a positive thing or a negative thing depending upon if the person is humble about it or not.
One of the definitons of pride I found in the Merriam-Webster dictionary: 1. a feeling or deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one's own achievements, the achievements of those with whom one is closely associated, or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired. Mr. Wickham describes Mr. Darcy as a very prideful man but not in a way that is looked at with respect. It is almost a pride that is “snobby.” He says that all of Mr. Darcy’s actions “can be traced back to pride, ad pride has often been his best friend.”(p.82) When I read that line, I felt like he was implying that Mr. Darcy only cares about himself, like a backhanded compliment. Elizabeth asks, “Can such abominable pride as his have ever done him good?” (p.82) Mr. Wickham replies that he has family pride, filial pride, and brotherly pride, but states how it is all “not to appear to disgrace his family, to degenerate from the popluar qualities, or lose the influence of the Pemberly House..” (p.82)
Symbolic codeThe symbolic code “Generates unresolvable oppositions (antitheses) that structure conflict, and ultimately reinforce dominant cultural codes (controlling values), for instance, between male and female subjects, between those who "know" and those who are ignorant, between those who suffer and those who inflict suffering, the rich and the poor, the clever and the stupid, the simple and the complex, the rule followers and renegades, cops and robbers, etc.
In Pride and
Prejudice, I would say the symbolic code that really pops out for me is
between the male and female subjects. I’ve mentioned in my blogs how important
it is for each subject to maintain the role that is expected by society. Men
are considered acceptable when they are wealthy and women are acceptable by
their looks.
Men are superior to women, so when he picks a woman to marry, especially if he is wealthy, she is not expected to refuse him. Mr. Collins proposed to Elizabeth and she refuses him. Her mother believes she is being foolish and tries to get her father to “make” her do it. It seems in this book that marriage with money is more important than marriage with happiness. After a big debate, Mr. Collins ends up giving up on Elizabeth and proposes to her good friend Charlotte, instead. Charlotte says, “you must be surprised, very much surprised, so lately as Mr. Collins was wishing to marry you. But when you have had time to think it all over, I hope you will be satisfied with what I have done. I am not romantic, you know. I never was. I ask only a comfortable home; and, considering Mr. Collins’s character, connections, and situation in life, I am convinced that my chance of happiness with him is as fair as most people can boast on entering the marriage state.” (p. 125) Elizabeth is more about pleasing herself and not everyone else. She goes against the dominant norm because her personality is so strong. In the end, she ends up proving to everyone that finding marriage with happiness can be done. Just like her and Mr. Darcy. |
Syllogistic ProgressionSyllogistic progression is the unfolding of the steps of an argument, such that the conclusion follows as a matter of necessity once the premises are laid out for the reader
This
may be my favorite part of the book because it feels like I am “sitting in” on
the conversation and finding out information along with everybody else. I want
to follow Elizabeth as she tries to unfold the truth about Mr. Wickham and Mr.
Darcy. Whenever a new person is invited into an already established “circle,”
the newcomers tend to portray themselves to be well liked and not what they
really are, however, the truth always comes out.
I used one example in my blog-but now that I look back at what I read I feel that the situation when Mr. Bingley all of a sudden left town without saying anything to Jane really portrays the syllogistiv progression. Jane had stayed at Mr. Bingley’s house while she was ill and they became really fond of each other during this time. After she is recovered, she returns home with her sister Elizabeth’s help. Not long after she returns home, she receives a letter from Miss Bingley (not from Mr. Bingley himself-why?) “Jane, taking out her letter, said “This if from Caroline Bingley: what it contains has surprised me a good deal. The whole party have left Netherfield by this time, and are on their way to town: without any intention of coming back again.” (p.116) Reading this information makes me want to find out if that is what really happened since this wasn’t said from Mr. Bingley. Mr. Bingley is portrayed throughout the whole book with good manners and wanting to be liked so it seems very unlikely that he would leave Jane without an explanation or a good bye. The fact that Elizabeth and I have the same thoughts on the situation only draws me into the book further and wanting her to keep digging to find out the truth. (To prove we are right, ha) Elizabeth believes that Mr. Darcy “was really fond of Jane, she doubted no more than she had ever done; and much as she had always been disposed to like him, she could not think without anger, hardly without contempt, on that easiness of temper, that want of proper resolution, which now made him the slave of his designing friends, and led him to sacrifice his own happiness to the caprice to their inclinations.” (p.133) Finally! At the end, we find out the truth (that we knew all along) that Mr. Darcy feared that Mr. Bingley was more in love with Jane than Jane was with Mr. Bingley. He explains, “He (Mr.Bingley) left Netherfield for London on the day following, as you (Elizabeth), I am certain, remember, with the design of soon returning.”(p.196) Mr. Darcy, with the help of Mr. Bingley’s sister, were able to convince Mr. Bingley to not return and distracted hi with Mr. Darcy’s sister because they believed that was in his best interest. It feels good to be right. J Mamet also discusses syllogistic form in his chapter "Countercultural Architecture and Dramatic Structure." There he writes that the job of the storyteller
|
Distinguishing characters
Last, but not least, I really noticed distinguishing character traits that I really feel I developed in my blog. (If you click the button it will take you to it.