Compare And Contrast Between Austen’s Novel ‘pride And Prejudice’ And ‘sense And Sensibility’ 2tf60

STAMFORD UNIVERSITY BANGLADESH

Assignment on: Compare and contrast between Austen’s novel ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and ‘Sense and Sensibility’

Jane Austen’s novel ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and ‘Sense and Sensibility’ share many striking similarities. These lie in the characters, the settings, and the overall style and themes used in creating the two works. But the plots are different .In the two novels, there are many similar themes such as the importance of love and marriage and money, relation between sisters, theme of Women and Femininity and so on. Even the way of writing title is similar in both novels.

Love is one the dominating theme of Jane Austen’s novel. The concept of love in her novel is one that necessarily goes hand in hand with suffering; no love relationship in her novel can exist without an edge of discomfort. “Love is a many splendored thing, but it's also a many troubled thing” Austen says .She shows us dramatically different part and dimension of love, from the euphoric to the lifethreatening. While love is certainly the driving force of the various plots of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and ‘Sense and Sensibility’, it more often bring danger or tragic situation in them. Though marriage is the end of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and ‘Sense and Sensibility’, she actually tries to glorify the importance of love for a good marriage. There is a depth, variety and seriousness in her treatment of love. 'Romantic love' is the theme which unites all the incidents and the characters in "Pride and Prejudice” and “Sense and Sensibility”. But there is nothing 'romantic' about Jane Austen's treatment of 'romantic love' in the novel. ‘Love' is checked and controlled by the incomes and financial freedom of the partners involved. Marriage is considered as an arrangement between parties who occupy the same social level. In that situation, not love rather financial solvency is certainly a necessary consideration for a good match. For example, in the "Pride and Prejudice”, Darcy has been promised to Lady Catherine Debourgh's daughter since birth. But for Jane Austen love was absolutely necessary for a good marriage. However, in English society at the time, which is depicted in the novel, love is not the greatest consideration for marriage. The ideal goal for marriage is to marry someone financially capable of ing them. Love is secondary. Austen mocks this practice in these two novels. Through concept of love Jane Austen tries to show differences between how marriage should be and how they are. In this manner Jane Austen is able to blend 'romance' and 'realism’. In both novels there is a restraining power of money on 'romantic love'. Jane Austen portrays love through several couples and highlights the good and bad aspects of love in order to aware the men and women of her age. She actually writes these novels so that she can bring a change in her society, that is people’s point of view towards love. First of all, she gives some example of infatuated love. She categorizes love between Marianne Dashwood and John Willoughby, between Lucy Steel and Adward Ferrar (from “Sense and Sensibility”) and between Mr. Wickham and Lydia (from “Pride and Prejudice”) as ionate but infatuated love.

Marianne Dashwood and John Willoughby’s relation is infatuate from point of Marianne. Marianne is highly sensitive, emotional, somewhat irrational romantic. She possesses very ionate feeling about love. She dreams of loving a romantic hero who is “uncommonly handsome”, charming and whose likes and dislikes will totally match with hers. Therefore, when she meets Willoughby, she attracted by him as she found out he has many things common with her, (one example is reading Shakespeare’s book). She was so much happy and outspoken that never tried to know Willoughby’s real feelings or intention regarding herself and become trapped to her own excessive ion. Finally when he abandons her, she realizes her mistake. In the same novel, another example of infatuated love is between Lucy Steel and Adward Ferrar. They are maintaining a relation for long five years which they actually never felt from their heart ever. For this reason, Adward fall for Elinor and Lucy Steel got married with Robert Ferrar. Now if we look at “Pride and Prejudice”, we can find a clear example of infatuated love in this novel that is between Mr. Wickham and Lydia. Being the youngest and most stupid girl of the family Lydia is the most open and willingly fall into trap. She is too quick and stupid. She is obsessed with Wickham. She likes to live the dream of marriage. She can’t wait for her future to roll out in front of her very eyes. She runs away with Wickham without giving a second thought because she definitely believes that Mr. Wickham will marry her. But the cruel fact is that Mr. Wickham has absolutely no intention in the slightest to marry her. It is generosity of Darcy who bribes a huge amount to Wickham so that he marries her and save Bennet family from disgrace.

Then, Jane Austen portrayed some successful but dull Love. A love relation is called successful when it ends up with marriage. But we see, Austen often portrayed some successful loves in which the lovers who involved possesses less excitement. For example, love relation between Jane Bennet and Mr.Bingley (from “Pride and Prejudice”) and between Elinor and Edward (from “Sense and Sensibility”) If we look at the relationship between Jane Bennet and Mr.Bingley, we realize that from first sight they fall in love. Jane and Bingley are sincerely in love with each other. Between them exists a great emotional compatibility. By nature, both are sweet and gentle, calm, unsuspecting, free from malice, ill will and duplicity, and simple and willing to forgive readily. There is every likelihood that they will lead a

happy married life. Still, their marriage is timidly weak. Bingley is too weak-willed that in spite of loving Jane deeply, he does not take any initiative. Their temperamental harmony lacks the strengthening of intellectual understanding and maturity. Though they finally marry with the blessing of everyone around them and give their relation a positive end, still according to many readers their love was spiritless and dull. Now if we try to find such kind of love in Sense and Sensibility, we will get love relation between Elinor and Adward. In this whole novel there is not a single traditionally romantic couple, not even Elinor and Edward. Throughout the novel they are described as unusually unaffectionate, and their courtship and infatuation happen entirely off-page. Therefore, the readers' romantic gratification is denied even by their union. Not only that, readers are quiet disappointed by the motive of Adward. He came to Elior when he has already disowned and Lucy Steel left him. He lacks spirit of romantic lover. Lastly, she portrayed courtship between Darcy and Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice in order to give her reads an example of perfect romantic couple who goes though misunderstanding and face many obstacles yet fall in love and make us believe that love is something independent of all personal prejudice and social forces. Firstly they were mislead by their own personal qualities ,for example, Elizabeth’s pride that makes her misjudge Darcy, and Darcy’s prejudice against Elizabeth’s poor social standing that blinds him to her many virtues. Then they have to overcome social obstacles such as Lady Catherine’s attempt to control Darcy, Miss Bingley’s snobbery, Mrs. Bennet’s idiocy, and Wickham’s deceit. We also noticed that Darcy, like a ionate romantic hero, does everything to get Elizabeth’s heart such as settled Jane’s wedding with Mr. Bingly and secretly bribed Wickham to marry Lydia. On the other hand, Elizabeth also like romantic confident heroine directly refuses Lady Catherine when she tries to dissuade her from marrying Darcy, because she is poorer than him. She angrily retorts: "In marrying your nephew, I should not consider myself as quitting that sphere. He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman's daughter: so far we are equal." Finally they get married most desirably which gives the readers a satisfaction that they desired to have at the end of the novel.

In the sum up, we can say that Pride and Prejudice’ and ‘Sense and Sensibility’ both deals with theme of love, while in ‘Pride and Prejudice’ Jane Austen

emphasis on romantic love, in ‘Sense and Sensibility’ emphasize more on realistic love. However, both are the testament to the importance of love in a materialistic society like her.

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