" Pride and Prejudice "

Author: Austen
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-04-01
Features: Jane Austen was born into a cultured clergyman's family in the southern part of England, Hampshire. Her father, George Austen, graduated from the University of Oxford and served as the principal clergyman of two parishes. Austen never received formal schooling. Pride and Prejudice is Austen's masterpiece and also her most popular novel. Somerset Maugham listed it as one of the world's top ten great novels. Like her other five novels, Pride and Prejudice is also themed around the love and marriage of the male and female protagonists. The Bennet couple has five unmarried daughters. Due to the absence of a male heir, according to the British property inheritance laws of the time, the family estate would be inherited by Collins, a distant cousin, after Mr. Bennet's death. Therefore, how to marry off her daughters to wealthy families became Mrs. Bennet's greatest concern. In the book, the author illustrates her views on marriage through the four marriages of the protagonists: marrying for money and status is wrong, while marrying without consideration is foolish. She opposes both marrying for money and treating marriage lightly. She emphasizes the importance of an ideal marriage and regards the emotional bond between the two parties as the cornerstone of such a marriage.