pride and prejudice

For a very long time I have been longing to read the book "Pride and Prejudice", especially when the movie version starring Kiera Knightly was released in 2005. The book has recently celebrated its 200th anniversary and it is also on the leaving certificate course in 2016 so as part of my English course I have chosen to do my book review on Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen .

 I chose to read this book because it is a classic and I love the era of luxurious parties, castles and the gossiping of society. I expected for this book to be overwhelming because it is a classic, but also because the ratings of the movie review was excellent, and many people have come to the conclusion that the book is always better than the movie.  I was expecting a lot of drama and conspiracies that would leave me gripping to read on and this is exactly what happened.

Jane Austen has a clear understanding of the determination a mother has in seeking out wealthy husbands for her single daughters. This book has a theme of love that effects many of the characters and the greed and wealth of society also. This is a beautiful book that contains endless images of the wealth in England .Pride and Prejudice is a classic novel that beautifully illustrates the essence of true love.

The story follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education, and marriage in  early 19th-century England. Elizabeth is the second of five daughters of a country gentleman living near the fictional town of Meryton in Hertfordshire, near London. The talk of the family is that a gentleman called  Mr Bingley has moved into a mansion and earns 5,000 pounds a year. Mrs Bennet is extremely excited because this is the perfect chance to casually introduce her daughters hoping that one of them will catch his eye.

Marriage is another theme that is strong throughout the novel .This is established straight away from the opening sentence "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a large fortune must be in want of a wife". We learn throughout  the novel that a woman is only truly happy if she marries a man who she loves dearly. We come across marriages in the novel that are not successful due to the lack of love. A woman's job was to marry so that she would have a comfortable home and future but Elizabeth shows us that there is more to love than a comfortable home when she refuses her cousin.

My favourite character in the novel is Elizabeth because she is a highly intelligent woman who is independent and loving. She delivers the opinions of Jane Austen : that one should marry only for love not for comfortable means or money. At the start of the novel Elizabeth was prejudice and believed that Mr Darcy was a cruel and ignorant man but because she has matured during the novel she confessed that she was wrong about him and that really he is a wonderful loving gentleman.

I really enjoyed reading this novel and would recommend it to teenagers and adults. It is a heart warming novel that is still relative to our lives now with the message that love is the heart of marriage. I would like to live in this era because there is no mention of poverty only wealth, castles, parties and the peaceful countryside. But the question iswill the Bennet girls marry or will they be left poor and homeless when their father dies ?

The Bennet Girls