Pride and Prejudice Personal Response Essay

Jane Austen’s novel, Pride and Prejudice, is a great representation of how life in the 1800s would have been. Placement in society played a major role and most of her characters only did what society permitted them to do. The people who you were surrounded around either broke you or made you an influence on the town. The women seemed to look only for someone to marry them, not for someone to love them. The women in this novel, searched for men with wealth and power. They only looked on the surface and did not care enough to look beyond. They seemed like all other women of their time, only looking for a man to call husband, and to keep them as accessories, rather than lovers. This book, in my opinion, did not show many deep feelings, or any love involved, apart from Elizabeth. It showed that most women were materialistic and believed what you possessed made you as a person. Marriage was not a sign of love represented in the book, but as just a prize to show off to others. The book does not show the characters with much individuality, projecting all the women looking for the same thing: a handsome husband with money. Looking at this, I think that Austen did it intentionally. All the other characters were foils to make Elizabeth stand out. Austen may have very much exaggerated the desire of women desperately wanting marriage but, Elizabeth showed that not every decision was based on financial stability, seeing that she rejected two potential husbands. My favorite thing about this book is Elizabeth’s intelligent observations about the other characters. She is able to see through all the nonsense in her life. She had a mind of her own and she knew how to use it, she was not going to be swayed by women like Lady Catherine, who did nothing but judge those who she felt were not equivalent to her. Yet, in my opinion, one character is not enough to account for all the other character’s personalities as they are mostly superficial.