"Pride and Prejudice is a domestic novel." BUT WHY?

 

Of all truisms about Jane Austen's novel, the most significant and most discussed for the past decades is the very little interest taken by her in the broad concerns of national life. It is a proposition which seems quite obvious to the readers of Pride and Prejudice or any other works of Austen's. Winston Churchill exclaimed, "What calm lives they had, those people! No worries about the French Revolution or the Napoleonic Wars!" Criticism of this kind indicates the essentially narrow focus of an Austen novel. But can the 21st century readers rely on the words of a 'privileged man'?

It is true that Jane Austen focuses on the domestic world. However, it is also to be kept in mind that her novels were about women of the Victorian era, who had little to no literacy regarding the national life. Moreover, they were not allowed to be involved in politics or other so called 'broader concerns'. Hence, Austen's novels like Pride and Prejudice focuses on the daily struggles of these women like marriage, love and money. Austen wrote in a letter, "Single women have dreadful propensity for being poor, which is one very strong argument in favour of matrimony." So unlike men, women's lives were not "calm" or happy to be worrying about "French Revolution" or the "Napoleonic Wars", when they had to struggle to escape unfavourable fates.

The economic crisis which Austen mentions in her letter is what drives Mrs Bennet in Pride and Prejudice to constantly pressurize her daughters to get married, since, as women they could not inherit property and the Bennet property would go to Mr Collins after Mr Bennet's death. On the other hand, since any property a woman might possess before her marriage automatically became her husband's, many women were in danger of being married for their money by fortune hunters. We see Wickham as an obvious example of this. He tries to get Georgiana Darcy to elope with him in order to get her fortune. Austen criticizes the utilitarian view of marriage, but does not negate the logic behind it, especially since women during the Victorian age required social security and marriage was the only viable option for them. Though this does not excuse Charlotte Lucas's decision to marry Mr Collins "from the pure and disinterested desire of an establishment" it is, it does make it appear more understandable as she is choosing the option which best suits her interest.

A frame from the 2005 Pride and Prejudice film adaptation

Austen's domestic world is not quite simple and not as "narrow" as it may seem. Pride and Prejudice is at first glance a simple and amusing depiction of England's social conventions of the late 18th Century and the beginning of 19th Century, particularly those of the gentry. But at a deeper level, by employing a subtle ironic style, Austen through her 'little domestic world' criticizes certain political, economic and sociological circumstances of her time. Apart from society's expectation of a woman to behave in a certain way and their otherwise ostracism, Austen also satirizes the class conscious society. Social inferiority carried its own stigma in the matrimonial world. Conventions and class distinctions were followed by social snobs and marriage between the members of a humble

A portrait of Jane Austen

rustic family like the Bennets and the aristocrats like the Bingleys or the Darcys were exceptions, rather than the norm. This class snobbery is seen in the behaviour of Caroline Bingley and Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who is almost comic in her snobbery. When Lady de Bourgh invites Elizabeth Bennet to come to Rosings everyday and play on the piano-forte in the servants room, she says about Elizabeth, "she would be in nobody's way... in that part of the house."

To conclude, Austen's novels are domestic because her protagonists are not given the chance to have a broader educated life. Her protagonists are women of age 15 or 16, confined in a society which only strives to crush their potential, individuality and freedom. Austen's novels focus on their domestic lives like in Pride and Prejudice where Elizabeth Bennet, a woman of immense potential is seen struggling just to assert her right in choosing to marry for love, rather than the social convention for money.