In both Pride and Prejudice and Wuthering Heights, readers realize that love is more important than the desire to reach great popularity in society. This lesson is taught more clearly in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Austen uses satire in her novel, and indicts that she is frustrated with society's customs. In the introduction of the novel, she states that a bachelor "in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife," and criticizes about the families that force their daughters into marriages which are primarily for the money more than love. The reader encounters ridiculous characters such as Mrs. Bennett and Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Mrs. Bennett, the mother of five daughters eligible to wed, and Lady Catherine de Bourgh, a rich widow and owner of the Rosings, both believe it is important to marry into a wealthy family that will give them security. However, money does not bring happiness into a marriage.
Austen proves that women don't necessarily have to depend on men in order to become prominent in society. At the end of the novel, Elizabeth Bennett does marry a very wealthy man who happens to be wealthier than her sister Jane's husband, Mr. Bingley. However, Elizabeth is not marrying for the security and high status, but she is marrying Mr. Darcy because she loves him. In conclusion, Pride and Prejudice teaches readers that love is not true if women rely on the security and hopes of high status in society from wealthy men.
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Bonnie,
You touch on an important theme in P and P, one that would appeal to our classroom. I think you could have done more with the idea that P and P "teaches readers that love is not true if women rely on the security and hopes of high status in society from wealthy men." My one complaint is that you don't discuss WH at all as a way of addressing your opponent. Good work.
Mrs. G
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