Presentations text content in The power of imagination, the clash of cultures,
Slide1
The power of imagination, the clash of cultures, the blush of love and the sting of loss. Find all these and more in Jane Austen’s enchanting and utterly enthralling:Pride and Prejudice
By: Jane Austen
Slide2Pride and Prejudice
the author:
Jane Austen
Born on December 16
th
, 1775
Grew up in her father’s rectory (house provided for a minister) in
Steventon
, Hampshire, England.
Her father, George Austen, took an interest in his second daughter’s literary education.
Jane was widely read and began writing in her early teens.
Although all of her fictional heroines eventually find true love, Jane never married.
After her father’s death, she lived quietly in her brother’s household.
Six of her novels were published before she died on July 18
th
, 1817.
Austen admitted that among her heroines, Elizabeth
Bennet
(P&P) was her favorite.
Slide3Pride and Prejudice
the times:
Jane Austen’s England
Marriage was a central concern in the early nineteenth century (1800s)
Marriage involved the social continuance of the family line through inherited property and was the only chance for middle- and upper-class women to have a tolerable existence.
Law, education, and custom cut off many possible avenues of advancement for women.
Men ruled the public world of politics and business: women ruled the home.
Slide4Pride and Prejudice
the times:
the life of a married woman
Rigid guidelines dictated the lives of respectable married women.
They never went out alone, especially not in the city and certainly not at night.
They spent their days supervising servants, doing needlework, and making or receiving visits.
They thought of little besides fashion and society.
Married women could not own property, including even that which they might have inherited or earned after the wedding.
Slide5Pride and Prejudice
the times:
the life of a married woman
Husbands were under no obligation to will their estates to their wives.
If a husband died without his will, his widow had little claim to any of the property. Although divorce was virtually unobtainable, if a marriage did dissolve, men had sole rights to children.
Slide6Pride and Prejudice
the times:
the life of an unmarried woman
Unmarried women of good birth had an even more difficult time.
They could rarely inherit property, most fortunes being willed to the eldest son.
Great estates were frequently “entailed” on the male line, so that in the absence of sons some distant male relative would inherit a man’s property.
(This is the case in
Pride and Prejudice
).
No matter how elevated her background, a penniless young woman who did not marry was often forced to live with married sisters or survive on a meager income.
Young women who did not have either kind relatives or adequate personal incomes were usually forced to turn to the only respectable careers open to them – as governesses or schoolteachers.
Slide7Pride and Prejudice
the times:
the life of an unmarried woman
Being a governess was not necessarily a great opportunity.
Often, the young ladies were of the same or higher rank as their employers and they suffered the additional indignity of being treated as servants, subject to the whims of her employers.
Many times, young women in these situations were sad and full of despair…dreaming of a marriage to save them from the life of a governess.
In
Pride and Prejudice
, the character of Mrs.
Bennet
is an obnoxious woman who seems overly concerned with marrying her daughters off; however, deep down, she was afraid of their futures if they didn’t marry.
Slide8Pride and Prejudice
the times:
a further word on entailments
In the traditional British class system, wealth was passed on via the inheritance of family property, an annual income for life or both.
Inherited wealth conferred far more status than money earned by work.
Family estates were usually inherited by the oldest son; and other sons, and sometimes daughters, were given smaller incomes.
An entail is a restriction on the inheritance of family property, and in the case of the
Bennets
, the entail stipulated that
Longbourn
, the family home, be passed on to a male cousin.
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The power of imagination, the clash of cultures,
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