Marriage, Manners, and Money in

Pride and Prejudice

 

irony – a subtly humorous perception of inconsistency, in which an apparently straightforward statement or event is undermined by its context so as to give it a very different significance (The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms).

verbal irony  -perceived discrepancy between what is said and what is meant

dramatic irony, in which the audience knows more about a character's situation than the character does, foreseeing an outcome contrary to the character's expectations, and thus ascribing a sharply different sense to some of the character's own statements  (The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms).

situational irony – discrepancy between what is expected and what happens

  • irony sometimes used to highlight the gap between the real and the ideal; used to critique or mock society or customs. In Austen, this gap is exploited for comic purposes-

 

Examples of verbal irony in P&P:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife” (Austen 3).

Elizabeth uses irony when she responds to Mr. Darcy. We have been told by the narrator that “Darcy was continually giving offense” (12) and that “he made himself agreeable nowhere…” (16). However, Elizabeth contradicts this information in her remark to Mr. Lucas in Mr. Darcy’s presence, stating that “Mr. Darcy is all politeness”… (8).

Various behaviours and customs are mocked in the novel

  • pretensions of the aristocratic class eg. Lady Catherine (Chapter XVI) “’Miss Bennet, do you know who I am?’” (231), Miss Bingley (250, 253)
  • smug self-righteousness in Mr. Collins’s judgments of Lydia (237)
  • Mrs. Bennett’s lack of awareness of social mores (198) and Lidia’s insufferable indifference (189, 205)
  • Mrs. Bennett’s hypocrisy (247) as she changes her mind about Mr. Darcy
  • More serious censure is fixed on Lydia’s behaviour with Wickham, which threatens to ruin not only Lydia’s reputation, but that of her entire family; the narrator refers to Wickham as öne of the most worthless young men in Great Britain” (200)
  • critique of entailment which jeopardizes wellbeing of female members of family
  • Mr. Bennet’s failure as a parent to reign in Lydia and Kitty
  • Mr. Darcy’s pride
  • Elizabeth’s prejudice and pride

 

Also a novel about relationships

  • tension between needs of the individual and the demands of society
  • reflects historical events and preoccupations

Dorothy Van Ghent –

marriage is a social convention rather than event of passion, “an engagement between the marrying couple and society…”(302) where the parties marry society and exchange property

  • Lizzy’s independence is seen as a form of rebellion against social convention
  • language becomes a means by which individuality can be revealed within the social codes of convention

 

Susan Morgan –

Elizabeth possesses “a central moral weakness, that she does not take life seriously. Raised by a foolish mother and a cynical father who has abdicated all responsibility, encouraged to distinguish herself from her sisters, Elizabeth sees the world as some sort of entertaining game. She is not silly in the way that Lidia and Kitty are (though she is sometimes surprisingly similar to them), but she cannot imagine that anything would be expected of her. Elizabeth is morally disengaged” (343).