Preview

Pride and Prejudice and Aunt Fay

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2261 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Pride and Prejudice and Aunt Fay
Explore social, cultural and historical context influences aspects of texts, or the ways in which changes in context lead to changed values being reflected in texts.

Weldon’s Letters to Alice: On First Reading Jane Austen (Letters to Alice) is an epistolary novel containing a series of letters from Aunt Fay to her niece Alice who is currently studying English Literature at college. Alice has been told to read Jane Austen but thinks that Austen is “boring, petty and irrelevant” (Letters to Alice, Page 7). Aunt Fay attempts to convince Alice to read Jane Austen by talking about the life and work of Jane Austen, and tries to explain Literature to Alice. She encourages Alice to put off writing her own novel until she is more familiar with proper Literature. Aunt Fay then creates the metaphor of the City of Invention where writers create their “Houses of Imagination” (Letters to Alice, Page 11) and readers come and go. Alice finally creates her novel ‘The Wife’s Revenge’ which becomes a bestseller and manages to sell more copies of it in three months than Aunt Fay has done with all of her novels. However, Aunt Fay still offers advice on what to do and read. This series of letters are similar to the letters which Jane Austen wrote to her own niece. Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy who are ‘blinded’ by pride and prejudice.

Letters to Alice - the 'explosion' of change that was occurring at this time with respect to the roles of women within society and the fact that they could now partake in the workforce. Pride and Prejudice - there was not much change occurring during this time which involved the characters of this novel. Letters to Alice – the City of Imagination is the world which is created by writers and that this Literature is “the very essence of civilisation” (Letters to Alice, Page 9). ‘Romance Alley’ which is described by Weldon in Letters to Alice; many of Austen’s novels would be found in this alley in which

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Through “Pride and Prejudice” Austen explores many values in place in her society and exemplifies just what value she applies to them. Marriage is the key issue addressed throughout this entire text along with her focus on women, which is Weldon’s focus as well; her approach is simple and abrupt. She accepts that marriage is a necessary goal for women yet believes that one should marry for love and happiness rather than financial gain or standing. Financial gain that results from marriage should be luck rather than the key factor for the marriage. This belief contradicted beliefs of society within that time as society dictated that the sole reason of marriage was to gain financial standing and as a result better standings within class and rank. Within the text there are many instances that show these contradictions of beliefs, of society and Austen.…

    • 1228 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    ‘A deeper understanding of relationships and identity emerges from pursuing the connections between Pride and Prejudice and Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen.’…

    • 1562 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Fay Weldon’s ‘Letters to Alice on First reading Jane Austen’, through the didactic literary form of an epistolic novel, serves to encourage a heightened understanding of the role of women in Jane Austen’s social, cultural and historical context, and also aims to present the parallels of women in both texts. In doing so, it inspires the modern responder to adopt a more sincere appreciation for the perspectives of Austen and Weldon of women inherent in both ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and ‘Letters to Alice’. Through the inclusion of relevant contextual information from Austen’s time and didactic assertions of the fictional character Aunt Fay, Weldon implores the responder to accept her opinions on the role of women in both her and Austen’s context. Her discussion of this, which delves into marriage, feminism and the patriarchal influence, transforms a modern responder’s understanding of the themes and context explored in both texts, and moreover, alters the way in which the responder perceives the events and decisions of the women within the novels.…

    • 1643 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The ideas conveyed by Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice and Fay Weldon in Letters to Alice on first reading Jane Austen conflict with and challenge the values of their contemporary society and serve to offer moral perspectives opposing to those of their respective societies. Connections can be made between the role of the writer and their purpose in both texts and, particularly through consideration of Weldon’s contextualisation and form, the reader’s perspective of both texts is reshaped and enhanced. Furthermore, Weldon perceives and forges a connection with Austen to illustrate both authors’ didactic purposes and allows the reader to re-evaluate the form and purpose of Pride and Prejudice against Weldon’s feminist and postmodern context.…

    • 1266 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    “He was the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world, and everybody hoped we would never come there again.” (3) These were the feelings that Miss Elizabeth Bennet possessed at the start of Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen weaved a marvelous tale of love in its rarest and truest form. This love was formed out of a once burning hatred. The transformations throughout Austen’s masterpiece shows how true love fights through the boundary of pride and prejudice which exists in the society of Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy. Jane Austen captivates us through the characters of Darcy and Elizabeth through their altering feelings for one another and the world causing anxiety for the readers at first but ultimately an overwhelming relief for the readers.…

    • 1309 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    This bond of female friendship is responsible to shape Eliza’s thoughts and actions to some extent and helped the plot of novel to grow in a significant manner. The theme of sisterhood remains prominent with Foster’s work; The Coquette and The Boarding School can be quoted for example. Such bond of female love and enmity is evident at various junctures across popular romantic novels, where women come to the rescue of each other, but somewhere down the line happen to scrutinize each other for the prospect they are vying as women. Jane Austen’s masterpiece, Pride and Prejudice offers a parallel theme of female love and rivalry, where the female characters, though bears enormous love for each other, but are also competent with each other in pursuit of a better match making for themselves.…

    • 3807 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Classical Literature, there are few works which can boast having a huge societal impact upon their publication, yet still cause a modern reader to sit at the edge of their seat turning the page in anticipation of what happens next. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is one of these evident pieces. In Pride and Prejudice, the life as a middle-class English woman in the 19th Century was portrayed so astutely that the world around her was forever altered. The novel is also not only readable, but stimulating, with each page alluring the reader to find out what happens next to the unforgettable characters. But how is Austen able to accomplish this? What is the quality that makes her work stand out from the rest? It is evident through textual analysis that Jane Austen uses distortion as a device to aid not only in her plot development, but also in order to express her views on societal issues within Pride and Prejudice. This distortion is most prominently seen in the amplified characters, exaggerated circumstances, and the misrepresented interactions.…

    • 990 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Complex analysis of the ways in which social, historical and/or cultural values are embodied in the text.…

    • 2479 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Weldon's Letter To Alice

    • 1254 Words
    • 6 Pages

    How does Weldon’s Letter to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen reveal her response to the values explored in Austen’s novel, Pride and Prejudice?…

    • 1254 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Pride and Prejudice

    • 977 Words
    • 4 Pages

    From the beginning lines of Pride and Prejudice, marriage is expressed as a central theme of the novel. Austen even makes the bold statement that “it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a large fortune, must be in want of a wife” (1). Throughout the novel, the question arises whether marriage is meant for love or for wealth and social status. Although Austen presents both sides of this argument in the text, marrying for love is favored.…

    • 977 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Blade Runner & Frankenstein

    • 6344 Words
    • 26 Pages

    Students examine ways in which social, cultural and historical context influences aspects of texts, or the ways in which changes in context lead to changed values being reflected in texts. This includes study and use of the language of texts, consideration of purposes and audiences, and analysis of the content, values and attitudes conveyed through a range of readings.…

    • 6344 Words
    • 26 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Beowulf Gender Roles

    • 2077 Words
    • 9 Pages

    By comparing all these examples in both stories, one can interpret the similarities in many aspects of gender role that both authors perceive in their societies. “Pride and Prejudice” bears a resemblance to “Beowulf” in the way both authors use conversations as a tool to create similar male dominated societies and their associated stereotype towards different genders, as well as the way they create different female models exist in the societies to make their stories more realistic. With attention to the narrative styles that both authors utilize in their works, readers can concede the similarities in the way they use conversations between characters as the main tool to recreate the whole societies. In Pride and Prejudice, Austen uses progressive characterization, in which characters are allowed to express themselves through thoughts, attitudes, and mainly conversations to reveal the differences in man and woman roles in the 18th century.…

    • 2077 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Conduct Book Review

    • 784 Words
    • 4 Pages

    You never get a second chance at a “first impression”; unless you're told by a book how to make that impression. Pride and Prejudice is an extremely clever piece of literature written by Jane Austen in the early 1800s. She pokes fun at the times and criticizes the odd qualities which made this time period unique. Today, many of the viewpoints made in this book have remained the same, and some have developed and stretched as ideas. Austen's take on conduct books for example sparked interest in her readers and people around the world. Isn't it odd to think that a book written on how girls are to act was written by men? Women were not viewed equally as men and were constantly instructed on how to conduct themselves.…

    • 784 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Pride and Prejudice

    • 488 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The first line of Pride and Prejudice reveals that a man who has money desires a wife. In the novel, Jane Austen criticizes British society and social expectations of the 19th century. Austen does this by her use of satire in her portrayal of her characters and in multiple situations. Her use of satire is to challenge the way things were in that time. Specific characters are the opposite of what they should be. However, some are just as they should be, and Austen pokes fun at them. The use of this sarcasm and irony is present throughout the novel.…

    • 488 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jane Austin

    • 9610 Words
    • 39 Pages

    Topicality: English writer, who first gave the novel its modern character through the treatment of everyday life. Although Austen was widely read in her lifetime, she published her works anonymously. The most urgent preoccupation of her bright, young heroines is courtship and finally marriage. Austen herself never married. Her best-known books include PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (1813) and EMMA (1816). Virginia Woolf called Austen "the most perfect artist among women." Jane Austen focused on middle-class provincial life with humor and understanding. She depicted minor landed gentry, country clergymen and their families, in which marriage mainly determined women 's social status. Most important for her were those little matters, as Emma says, "on which the daily happiness of private life depends." Although Austen restricted to family matters, and she passed the historical events of the Napoleonic wars, her wit and observant narrative touch has been inexhaustible delight to readers. Of her six great novels, four were published anonymously during her lifetime. Austen also had troubles with her publisher, who wanted to make alterations to her love scenes in Pride and Prejudice. In 1811 he wrote to Thomas Egerton: "You say the book is indecent. You say I am immodest. But Sir in the depiction of love, modesty is the fullness of truth; and decency frankness; and so I must also be frank with you, and ask that you remove my name from the title page in all future printings; 'A lady ' will do well enough." At her death on July 18, 1817 in Winchester, at the age of forty-one, Austen…

    • 9610 Words
    • 39 Pages
    Good Essays