Theme Of Marriage In Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice

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Austen's Pride and Prejudice book shows the differences and similarities of the marriage relationships in the 18th century, through the marriage relationships of Charlotte, Lydia, Jane, and Elizabeth. Jane naturally found someone to marry, her attractive beauty and joyful character helped her easily attract Bingley to her. Young Lydia got married to Wickham, but she did not know anything about marriage yet. Elizabeth fell in love with Darcy because she realized that he is a special person. On the other hand, Charlotte married Mr. Collins because she was looking to be secure. Austen's novel revolves around attitudes and reasons for marriage among the four key characters demonstrating both ideal and practical unions. Lydia was always attracted to the soldiers in the story, she somehow considered them to be attractive. It seemed very exciting to her to get married to someone who works in the army, maybe because she considered soldiers 'popular'. Jane was not looking for someone's wealth or social status, she just wanted to fall in love and get …show more content…

In contrast, Jane was wise enough to make the right decision for herself and ended up with a better relationship than Lydia. Jane and Elizabeth had similar relationships because they both had common traits with the men they fell in love with. Elizabeth and Charlotte had very different relationships than each other. Charlotte married the man who Elizabeth rejected because she wanted wealth and security. Whereas, Elizabeth married Darcy because she fell in love with him, Elizabeth gaining all the wealth and security Charlotte wanted, even though she was not looking for it. Austen did a great job in introducing more than one perspective of relationships. All things considered, ideal and practical relationships were demonstrated clearly throughout the novel with great contrast and