English Literature: Novel Analysis

   WOMEN`S ROLE IN THE  PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

 

In this post, I will examine the pride and prejudice novel and examine the role of women in society at that time.The author is considered among the first feminist writers of the period, but this is a controversial opinion. Even though the author questioned the equality between men and women between the lines, the ending of his works with happy "marriages" was tired by some groups that the author had nothing to do with feminism, but tells about the marriages he could not perform alone. Let's evaluate this interpretation by examining masculine literature and the historical process of the novel.

In the 1700s, literature continued to exist in the form of hymns, sermons, plays, poems and short stories. Novel and periodical publishing is based in the middle of this century. Considering that the famous work of Daniel Defoe, “Robinson Cruose”, which was the first novel in English literature, was published in 1719, it would not be wrong to say that prejudices to the genre of novel continued during the author's work. Although he did not fully reject his period, he interpreted the popular in his own way. This is a very important challenge when the current conditions are taken into consideration. Despite the waxing language used especially in poetry and games, Austen used a plain and fluent language and frequently used word games. It is considered to be the first British writer who can add the feelings of the character to the text as much as necessary and still retain the dominance of the text and use indirect narratives in his works in a broad sense. Even being able to shape the structure of the sentences according to the mood of the character is a success in itself. For example, Elizabeth's sentences, which refused Darcy, meant that she was briefly told in herself and was injured, continuing with curvature in an increasing tone.

 ``At the very beginning, or even at the very first moment I saw you, your attitudes made me believe that you were someone who was arrogant and selfishly mouthless to others' feelings, my anger was born like this and turned into a heavy discontent with the following events; It has never been a month of getting to know you that even if you were the last man in the world, I felt that no force could persuade me to marry you.

 Austen was the first woman to use humor in her works. While using it to overcome people and traditions he found stupid in his social environment like Elizabeth, he also brought ethical principles to this humor and drew attention to them.

 The position of the woman in the society, especially in the house until the 19th century, to be concerned with housework alone, especially with her emotional aspects, to be emphasized, to be deficient and weak, to be separate and distant from the outside world, the issues in the house are insignificant, the interests of men are important. For reasons such as impositions that there are issues, it is not possible to give women a strong role in the literature scene, and there is not even a space for them to write. We understand that the act of writing is considered a secret and special pleasure, as only the diary and the letter are popular among women. With the period, which is also called women's literature and started in the 1800s, female writers started to come to the fore. In the classical period texts, since the woman found herself as “missing and weak” and often “the source of evil”, it was not possible for the woman to find an infrastructure in which she could identify herself and explain her problems and awareness. Despite the masculine mentality that finds useless and unnecessary to make the woman's literature, considering the limited living space, and even fears that the balance of power may change against her; Women's literature, with the desire to appeal to the universal instead of addressing only the woman, attempted to distinguish from the masculine language under the influence of the male-dominated culture, discourse, subject, point of view and intellectual approaches. We can say that the publishing of the first works with male pseudonyms is a fear caused by the male dominant culture. Because many men who learn that their writers are women read and stop reading. Austen also signed his works as "A Lady" in order to preserve his reputation as women's engagement with literature is also shameful, yet we can think that he is brave, because his contemporary Brontë brothers, his first works with male names as "Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell" have published.

To give prejudices against women writers, writer Mark Twain said, “Any library without Jane Austen's books is a good library even if there are no other books in it,” Borges responded jokingly: “Ah Elizabeth, please Twain Don't take 's word seriously. I remembered; "It was too mediocre to be in the fourth-class writer category in Europe," Faulkner said for him. "

Until 1840-1880, female writers could only imitate male writers. Austen, in accordance with the conditions of the period, consciously avoided a womanly and emotional expression and a masculine style was adopted.

The most prominent feature of the language of the author is the social life of the era, which he ironically narrates with his simple and fluent language, based on love. In the 19th century, women addressed the inheritance of women as spouses and children, their inability to take part in society without marriage, the mistakes caused by their families and necessities when choosing a spouse, ignorant clerics who drank the wealthy, the soldiers who spent time in balls instead of fighting, the social class distinction and its strict limits.