Preview

Connections enrich understanding in the pairs of texts set for study. To what extent is this made evident in the texts you have studied?

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1131 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Connections enrich understanding in the pairs of texts set for study. To what extent is this made evident in the texts you have studied?
Connections enrich understanding in the pairs of texts set for study. To what extent is this made evident in the texts you have studied?

Connections, made explicitly and implicitly between texts enables readers to gain new insights and confirm they’re understanding of conceptual ideas. The investigation of “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen and “Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen” by Fay Weldon stress the notion of how contexts can determine an individual’s understanding. Austen and Weldon criticise the class structure and privileges those who challenge authority, thus allowing readers to make their own conclusions on the concept of hierarchy based on their knowledge of their own context. Austen criticises women who marry to gain economic and social standing but Weldon emphasises the fact that in Austen’s context women were viewed as a commodity and that it was part of the norm. The response we get from Weldon’s confirmation of the importance of context is that Austen was well ahead of her time in terms of challenging the class structure and the role of women. The implicit connections examined through these texts are the values that endure the test of time making them universal.

The grounds of marriage are formed on the basis of genuine love but can also be seen as an avenue taken to gain financial and social security. Austen challenges the incessant need for women to marry in her time while Weldon supports her views by recontextualising her context to fit the contemporary period. Through this, the reader’s understanding of women becomes enriched through the examination of what a woman values in both contexts. The necessity of marriage is stressed and explored through Charlotte’s character as she marries Mr Collin’s despite being the second option. Her pride is not compromised as it is outweighs the financial security she gains from him. She was well beyond the average marrying age and would have been left in destitution had she not married.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In Classical Literature, there are few works which can boast having a huge societal impact upon their publication, yet still cause a modern reader to sit at the edge of their seat turning the page in anticipation of what happens next. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is one of these evident pieces. In Pride and Prejudice, the life as a middle-class English woman in the 19th Century was portrayed so astutely that the world around her was forever altered. The novel is also not only readable, but stimulating, with each page alluring the reader to find out what happens next to the unforgettable characters. But how is Austen able to accomplish this? What is the quality that makes her work stand out from the rest? It is evident through textual analysis that Jane Austen uses distortion as a device to aid not only in her plot development, but also in order to express her views on societal issues within Pride and Prejudice. This distortion is most prominently seen in the amplified characters, exaggerated circumstances, and the misrepresented interactions.…

    • 990 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    How has your exploration of the connections between your prescribed texts enhanced your understanding of the values and contexts of each?…

    • 1018 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The ideas conveyed by Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice and Fay Weldon in Letters to Alice on first reading Jane Austen conflict with and challenge the values of their contemporary society and serve to offer moral perspectives opposing to those of their respective societies. Connections can be made between the role of the writer and their purpose in both texts and, particularly through consideration of Weldon’s contextualisation and form, the reader’s perspective of both texts is reshaped and enhanced. Furthermore, Weldon perceives and forges a connection with Austen to illustrate both authors’ didactic purposes and allows the reader to re-evaluate the form and purpose of Pride and Prejudice against Weldon’s feminist and postmodern context.…

    • 1266 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Through the connections made between PP and LA, responders gain a deeper understanding of the purpose of a marital relationship within society, especially its importance in the lives of women. In the patriarchal society of Austen’s context women have no individual rights of their own and since inheritance was passed through the male linage marriage was the economic bases of life and the only option for women with limited fortune and beauty. The subsequent importance of marriage has been supported by the critic Ginger Graph, “the world of this novel; marriage is the market, and the young woman are the merchandise.” Austen has reflected the purpose of marriage as a tool for economic survival through her pragmatic characterisation of Charlotte Lucas who agrees to marry Mr Collins despite his, “conceded, pompous, narrow-minded nature,” she admits to Elizabeth that she “asks only for a comfortable…

    • 1562 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Through “Pride and Prejudice” Austen explores many values in place in her society and exemplifies just what value she applies to them. Marriage is the key issue addressed throughout this entire text along with her focus on women, which is Weldon’s focus as well; her approach is simple and abrupt. She accepts that marriage is a necessary goal for women yet believes that one should marry for love and happiness rather than financial gain or standing. Financial gain that results from marriage should be luck rather than the key factor for the marriage. This belief contradicted beliefs of society within that time as society dictated that the sole reason of marriage was to gain financial standing and as a result better standings within class and rank. Within the text there are many instances that show these contradictions of beliefs, of society and Austen.…

    • 1228 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The fundamental importance and value assigned to marriage in the context of Jane Austen and ‘Pride and Prejudice’ is reinforced through Weldon’s discussion of the options for women outside marriage and its purpose of providing financial security for women. In ‘Pride and Prejudice’, Austen presents the historical context of her novel in the mock axiom of “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” The parody of this statement is presented through Austen’s satirical tone, as the novel focuses heavily on women, rather than men, seeking to marry. Austen conveys this by directly informing the audience of Charlotte Lucas’ pragmatism, as she lives “without thinking highly either of men or matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young…

    • 1643 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The two texts, Letters to Alice and Pride and Prejudice, mirror and contrast the central values shared and explored by evaluating them; presenting them against Jane Austen's context and that of Fay Weldon. Mirroring Austen's novel, Weldon presents the central values for women such as the social values of moral behaviour, independence, and, literary values of reading and writing, from Pride and Prejudice and adapts them to a 20th Century context. Weldon's novel's subtitle, On First Reading Jane Austen, suggests that the novel should serve as a filter to assist readers. The implication of this is that Weldon enables her readers to identify more fully the significance of Jane Austen as a writer, and, the significance of Pride and Prejudice as a piece of literature, exploring the ongoing relevance of its values concerning women.…

    • 1502 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Wit and Donne

    • 1571 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Connections enrich understanding in pairs of texts set for study. To what extent is this made evident in the texts you have studied?…

    • 1571 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    An examination of Jane Austen’s 1813 social satire Pride and Prejudice, and the reading of Fay Weldon’s 1984 epistolary text Letters to Alice on first reading Jane Austen, allows understanding of Austen’s novel to be moulded and then shifted. Pride and Prejudice is a novel of manners, focusing on marriage, Pride, Prejudice and Social Class which are projected through the characters, gentry-class setting and Austen’s authorial comment. Austen’s purpose was to portray the world of the gentry class, and satirise some aspects of her society and praise others. Weldon’s purpose is to encourage an understanding of the value of literature for individuals and society. She models Austen’s writing to demonstrate her argument and in so doing she gives a heightened understanding of values in Austen’s context. She reviews Austen’s society, providing an explanation of social conventions such as marriage, social stratification and women. Aunt Fay’s opinions allow readers to reshape their understanding of events and characters in Pride and Prejudice. Her conclusions allow the reader to draw connections between our contemporary society and Austen’s context, which then enables us to reshape our original understanding of Pride and Prejudice and our own context.…

    • 2183 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Austen explores the monetary pressures to marry that were imposed on young women. Women who didn’t have sufficient wealth felt the greatest pressure to find a man of wealth to look after them, as they would otherwise become a burden to their family. The occupational restrictions placed on women, specifically from the “genteel” class, subjected them to professions that weren’t too highly respected and well paid. Therefore, marriage presented the most common path to financial security. Many female characters in Austen’s novels valued marriage as their highest and most natural aspirations; should they find the right man, marriage was undoubtedly to follow.…

    • 457 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout ’Pride and Prejudice’ Jane Austen conveys the theme of marriage of being of paramount importance. The first line of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ defines the main themes of Austen’s’ novel, as well as subtly giving the reader an insight of Austen’s views of marriage. Her use of hyperbole ‘That a man in possession of good fortune, must be in want of a wife’ hints at a somewhat mocking and ironic tone on Austen’s part, which indicates to the reader that Austen doesn’t agree with the general perception of marriage during her time.…

    • 1017 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Weldon's Letter To Alice

    • 1254 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Through didactic language and fragmented sentences, Weldon explains to her fictional niece, Alice, that during Austen’s time “...to marry was a great prize. It was a woman’s aim”. However, the aim of marrying was for economic means and security. Love, on the other hand, was not a considered factor when it came to marriage. Furthermore, Weldon cynically satirises the professions that were available to women during Austen’s time, “Women’s trades – millinery, embroidery, seaming, chimney sweep... or a prostitute... or you could get married”. Weldon uses satire to show that marriage was the only option for women to live a secure and prosperous life. Another comparison that can be made is Weldon’s ongoing encouragement of Alice to pursue Literature and education and to be independent. However in the Pride and Prejudice, Lydia, aged about the same as Alice, is already married and boasts of her situation to Jane as seen when she says, ”Ah! Jane, I take your place now, and you must go lower, because I am a married woman.” During Austen’s time, at the age of thirty women were considered unmarriageable as they were too old. Weldon expresses great shock at this when she says, “Jane Austen put herself on the cap when she was thirty... Thirty!” Through the repetition of ‘thirty’, Weldon further emphasises the change in values of marriage over the…

    • 1254 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Underpinning Weldon’s stance on her values is her feminist attitude as a post 1970s feminist writer. The authorial intrusion and didacticism she manipulates through Aunt Fay demonstrates her belief in female equality and independence. Although Weldon shares this value with Austen, Weldon believes that marriage is not only way to power. She draws a parallel with unsatisfactory marriages that Austen revealed and modern day marriages of ‘bought Asian brides,’ that marriage ‘in order to survive’ is considered no better than slavery. Weldon downgrades the role Austen places on wealth in relationships, with less emphasis on income compatibility as a critical factor to marriage, but supports the notion of marriage for love and relationships based on…

    • 1505 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Through the use of her novel, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen critiques her era’s view of marriage. By examining several of Austen’s narrations, Charlotte Lucas’s nearly mechanical approach to marriage, and Mrs. Bennet’s relentlessly pragmatic wish to see her daughters married, it becomes evident that Austen does not view society’s definition of marriage in a positive light. During the time period in which the novel was written, marriages often revolved around money and social status. Jane Austen herself never married, which, given the time period she lived, raises the question about how she viewed her era’s definition of marriage. Based off of how she portrays marriage in her novel, Pride and Prejudice, it becomes evident that Austen viewed…

    • 985 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Pride and Prejudice

    • 486 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The intricate nexus of marriage, money and love in Jane Austen's society is unfolded through the development of plots and characters of her novel Pride and Prejudice. In the nineteenth century's rural England, marriage was a woman's chief aim, both financially and socially. Financially because of women's dependent position marriage was the "only honourable position", infinitely preferable to the dependence of precarious shabby-genteel spinsterhood. Money was, therefore, a very significant aspect of Austen's society, especially when marriage was concerned. "A single man of large fortune" was naturally considered as "a nice thing" for the unmarried girls. Partners were chosen for what might now seem unemotional reasons: fortune and connections, similar to, but preferably better than one's own. By representing a series of marriages, Austen in this novel unearths and elucidates different aspects of the role of marriage, money and love in her society.…

    • 486 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays