Language, structure and form in Pride and Prejudice - Eduqas

• Pride and Prejudice is a prose novel in the literary fiction genre.

• The story is told in a linear way, which means the chapters follow on from each other in chronological order.

• Jane Austen uses a third-person omniscient narrator to describe events and characters, and free indirect speech to focus on Elizabeth’s thoughts and feelings.

• The language in the novel reflects its 19th century context and the way in which upper-class people spoke.

Remember

In your exam response, it is important to talk about the effects of language and structural techniques, rather than just identifying them.

Pride and Prejudice is a prose novel which reflects the lives of upper-class English people living in the Georgian era.

Both the novel and its author, Jane Austen, have become popular and studied by many people since it was first published.

This means that Pride and Prejudice is now often categorised in the genre of literary fiction.

However, in the Georgian era it would have been thought of as a romance or satire.

Jane Austen was one of the first writers of her time to focus on female protagonists and their lives.

In the upper classes that Austen was writing about, women’s concerns often centred around love and marriage, leading to the label of ‘romance novel’.

To a modern reader, the language used by Austen can seem old-fashioned. Austen uses words which would have been more familiar in the 19th century. She is also depicting the formal language used by the upper classes.

Austen is also writing to entertain and to create a vivid world for her reader, so her language is further embellished – just like in the most dramatic speeches of a modern-day film or TV show.

Pride and Prejudice can be described as a satire because Austen draws attention to aspects of upper-class society that she believes are wrong or ridiculous. She does this in a humorous way, so her readers are sharing the joke with her. Irony is used throughout to achieve this, most famously in the novel’s opening line:

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

Not only do the events of the novel contradict this statement – as it is the women looking for husbands, rather than the other way around – but it also concisely satirises the obsession that the Georgian upper classes had with marriage, class and wealth.

Another way in which Austen can control how her ideas are presented is through the perspective she has chosen to use.

In Pride and Prejudice, she uses a third-person omniscient narrator. The narrator can therefore comment on all characters and events.

As a satire, the tone of the narrator can often be sarcastic or critical, though there are occasions when the narrator is very empathetic, especially towards Jane and Elizabeth.

Free indirect speech is used by Austen when it is helpful to have a clear idea about what a character is thinking or feeling. This technique combines the author’s perspective with the character’s emotions. Austen mostly uses it in Pride and Prejudice to share what is happening in Elizabeth’s mind. An example is when Elizabeth unexpectedly meets Darcy at Pemberley:

Oh! Why did she come? Or, why did he thus come a day before he was expected? Had they been only ten minutes sooner, they should have been beyond the reach of his discrimination.

Here, Elizabeth is not speaking, but the exclamation and question marks suggest that these are her inner thoughts and feelings instead of the words of a more distant, calm narrator.

Epistolary novels are structured from letters between characters. Academics believe that Jane Austen’s first draft of Pride and Prejudice, under the original name of First Impressions, was written entirely in the epistolary form.

In the version published in 1813, there are a total of 28 letters that support the progression of the plot. Letters are used as part of the novel’s structure to reveal additional information and create different character perspectives, and are eagerly read by other characters. Austen makes her intentions about this clear in Volume 3, Chapter 6 when she says:

The arrival of letters was the first grand object of every morning’s impatience.

Austen includes letters at points when characters are in different locations or to create a dramatic and unexpected revelation, such as the news of Lydia’s marriage.

The structure of the narrative in Pride and Prejudice is linear, which means that events occur in chronological order. There are some small jumps forward in time between chapters, but there are no significant changes to the plot or characters in these gaps.

There are several sub-plots in the novel. Most of these are brought together by coincidence – for example, the Bennet sisters meeting Wickham on the street and later finding out about his connection to Darcy. They are also sometimes linked by revealing a familial connection between two characters, such as Mr Collins and Mr Bennet.

All the narratives join together in some way and enhance each other and are resolved by the end of the novel. This variety of events is entertaining and invites the reader to try and guess at the connections and overlaps as they are reading.

Pride and Prejudice was originally published in three volumes, with the chapter numbers restarting each time.

This was common in the 19th century and meant that readers could buy individual volumes cheaply and build anticipation for the next volume.

Structurally, each volume develops the narrative in a traditional way that mirrors a three-act play, with the first volume providing exposition, the second describing rising action, and the third volume giving readers a clear resolution.

There is much more dialogue in Pride and Prejudice than readers of modern novels may be used to. Some chapters are almost entirely made up of dialogue, so that these chapters seem like scenes from a play.

Austen does this to add realism to the conversations between characters, making the reader feel like they are immersed in the world of the story. It also means that, even though we experience the story from Elizabeth’s perspective, we can make our own judgements about the meaning of what each character says.

Austen ensures that each character has their own patterns of speech, different to other characters in the novel. This is necessary to be able to tell the differences between them in large sections of dialogue in the text – especially as, in the Georgian era, chapters from novels would be usually read aloud by one person to the rest of the family.

For example, Mr Bennet uses short, blunt sentences when speaking to his wife – and Mrs Bennet is hyperbolic and uses frequent questions in return. Characters like Darcy and Elizabeth often use rhetoric, as their conversations are frequently about persuading or arguing.

The novel also has many examples of imagery, mostly metaphors and similes in both dialogue and description.

In addition, descriptions of body language and physical movements, like a character turning or looking away, are used to emphasise the words being spoken.

Look at this moment in the novel when Lady Catherine de Bourgh realises she has been unsuccessful in her attempt to discourage Elizabeth from marrying Darcy. Lady Catherine is speaking first.

“You have no regard, then, for the honour and credit of my nephew! Unfeeling, selfish girl! Do you not consider that a connection with you must disgrace him in the eyes of everybody?”

“Lady Catherine, I have nothing further to say. You know my sentiments.”

“You are then resolved to have him?”

“I have said no such thing. I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.”

“It is well. You refuse, then, to oblige me. You refuse to obey the claims of duty, honour, and gratitude. You are determined to ruin him in the opinion of all his friends, and make him the contempt of the world.”

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