Pride and Prejudice (Grades 9–1) York Notes

Marriage was a big issue in ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and that isn’t surprising as in those days there wasn’t anything else for women to do. Elizabeth’s mother, Mrs Bennet, thinks it is her ‘business’ to get her daughters married because otherwise they will have no money. In Volume 1 Chapter 19 Elizabeth turns down Mr Collins and Mrs Bennet goes on and on at Elizabeth and in the middle of all this Charlotte turns up. She is 27 which is getting quite old and she’s Elizabeth’s best friend so Elizabeth thinks Charlotte is being helpful when she distracts Mr Collins and gets him to talk to her. Actually Charlotte was scheming because she wants to get married.

Charlotte is not pretty but she is clever and by the next morning she is looking out of her window to catch Mr Collins. Jane Austen says that she flatters him and they get engaged. This extract is when Charlotte tells Elizabeth about the engagement and you wonder whether they will be friends any more. Elizabeth is really surprised and tells Charlotte that it is ‘impossible’ that she and Mr Collins are engaged. This is where you think they are going to have a row or someone is going to cry. Elizabeth is a bit sarcastic when she wishes Charlotte every ‘imaginable’ happiness as she can’t really imagine that anyone could be happy with Mr Collins.

Charlotte must have been desperate as Jane Austen says there was nothing else women could do and if she didn’t get married none of her brothers or sisters would be able to get married either. She tells Elizabeth that ‘I am not romantic’.

Elizabeth rejects Mr Collins because she wanted to marry for love and she also thinks that Mr Collins is ‘pompous’. He is a clergyman and one of the things he tells them is that he is marrying because Lady Catherine de Bourgh told him it would be a good idea and he always does what Lady Catherine says. I think that’s understandable as she is his ‘patron’ which is like his employer but it’s not exactly very flattering to the person who was being proposed to. Elizabeth said no but Mr Collins is so conceited that he wouldn’t believe her to start with and said she was an ‘elegant female’. In the end she convinces him but then there was a big row with her parents.

Elsewhere in the novel Jane Austen shows other characters getting married. Elizabeth is the heroine and she marries Mr Darcy who she can’t stand so people are almost as surprised when they get engaged as when Charlotte does. This is called irony. She also gets a much bigger house.

When Mr Bingley comes into the area all the girls and their mothers are fighting over him as long as he has some money and a nice house. He marries Jane and they are happy like Elizabeth and Darcy though not as rich but money is still important when it comes to marriage.