Essay B3

Jane Austen's Middle-Class Female

Jane Austin insightfully portrays the class mentalities of the middle and upper classes during the early nineteenth century in her novel Pride and Prejudice. Society then was overly preoccupied with the distinction of classes, and with these shameless distinctions there existed an obvious hierarchy that governed people's behavior and obligations to their respective societies. Austen's story focuses on Elizabeth Bennet and her family, who are well-to-do members of middle-class society in England. Throughout the novel, the Bennets maintain social contact with their fellows of the middle-class as well as with upper-class characters; and as vanity, love, and gossip permeate the story's development, Elizabeth struggles to remain composed and levelheaded in the midst of petty follies. However, her struggle is no easy matter, for the standards of behavior and social acceptance, as well as society's traditional expectations of a young middle-class...