Middlemarchvpride And Prejudic

Want to read the rest of this paper? Join Essayworld today to view this entire essay and over 50,000 other term papers

for a quiet docile companion who could also function as his secretary. Instead, he finds a person who makes intellectual demands on him that he is unable to fulfil. His marriage can be added to his long list of failures of which he is aware but which he is unable to acknowledge fully. Similarly, in Pride and Prejudice we are immediately introduced to the idea that women are thought of as a possession or an aid to man, as opposed to a fellow human being. "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife", suggests that women or a wife completes a 'man'. Thus, they are given an understated importance in contrast to the unappreciative attitude shown towards women in Middlemarch.
The theme of illusion in Middlemarch is most clearly expressed in the marriages of Causabon and Dorothea, and Rosamond and Lydgate. All four marry not for love but for selfish reasons, each believing the partner to be other than he or she ...

Get instant access to over 50,000 essays. Write better papers. Get better grades. Already a member? Login

Thus she must make her own decision, independently, for example Elizabeth does not reveal to Jane, her sister, her changed emotions towards Darcy until he has actually proposed again, and she has accepted. Such 'moral autonomy' on the part of the young woman would by no means have been universally approved of in Jane Austen's day. This reflects the prominent mode of isolation suffered by women in the novel.

In Jane Austen's time there was no real way for young women of the 'genteel' classes to strike out on their own and be independent. Therefore, most 'genteel' women were unable to finance themselves, thus wealth could only be captured by marriage or by inheritance. Unmarried women ...

Succeed in your coursework without stepping into a library. Get access to a growing library of notes, book reports, and research papers in 2 minutes or less.

CITE THIS PAGE: