I'm so bored, anyone wanna go over it when i'm done and try and bump up my shoddy 30 min draft that i had all 6 weeks of summer to do properly,to a higher grade? :/
Post Merge: September 08, 2010, 01:02:21 PM
Jane Austin uses letters as a narrative device in a very effective way. Every time a letter is written or read the plot changes. There are three main instances of these changes. The ones that I will highlight are: Mr. Darcy's, Mrs. Bennett's and Mrs. Gardener's Letters to Elizabeth.
The first letter I will discuss is Mr. Darcy’s letter to Elizabeth, it appears half way through the novel and completely changes the direction of the main heroin and character, Elizabeth’s opinion of Mr. Darcy, in the previous chapters of the novel Mr.Darcy has begun to show a different side to himself, he seems to propose to Elizabeth because she is away from her, over-bearing, embarrassing and socially awkward family, and would not act like them, because in Mr. Darcy’s opinion of her family is “the situation of your mothers family, though objectionable”(P.154). A reader may think because Mr.Darcy is away from Elizabeth’s family he seems allot more comfortable in himself and shows a different side to his self and is much more friendly and less unsociable. The letter explains why he proposed to Elizabeth, and all reasons for his apparently indecent actions. The letter changes Elizabeth’s opinion of Mr. Darcy, after this letter Elizabeth starts to like Mr. Darcy, not seeing him as the arrogant, self indulgent man she used to see.
The quote shows Darcy’s total lack of respect for Elizabeth’s famly, it s basicly saying to her that even though her family are massive failure to the rules of their society, he will make an exception to wed her, disregarding her family’s lack of money, power and social gracefulness, all three of these things being very important at the time, which is why, at Darcy’s first proposal to Elizabeth, he is surprised when he is turned down, when you chose a suitable partner, in Austen’s time, you didn’t look for love, but rather, wealth, estate and family, Darcy having all of these things in great abundance, meaning Elizabeth was going against the norm, hence Darcy’s shock when he is turned down.
The second letter that I will study is Mrs. Gardener’s letter to Elizabeth, in chapter 52, this letter is preceded by Lydia and Wickham announcing their elopement, the letter is a major turning point for the way Mrs. Gardener tells Elizabeth about how Darcy has paid Wickham’s debts to stop the elopement with Lydia, by meeting with a man whom Darcy loathed, and bribing him, just to do the right thing for a family he had very little respect for the quote that appers after Elizabeth reads the letter “the contents ….. Threw Elizabeth into a flutter of spirits” (P.250) it makes her see nothing but goodness in this man, whom at first she despised and saw as a arrogant.(not finished paragraph but i need a break)
