Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen is a complex novel mixing romance with comedy with an unprecedented quality of realism. Austen's techniques require the reader to pay close attention and to actively interpret what it is they are reading unlike other light novels which you can passively work your way through. Pride and Prejudice is centrally concerned with the ideals and necessities of marriage in the early nineteenth century.
Austen used a variety of features to make the novel Pride and Prejudice seem more realistic and relevant to the period of the nineteenth century. Some of the features used in the writing of this novel are contrast, irony, and the devices used such as letters. The realism created by these features enhances and addresses the main issues of the period and through this the main themes in the novel.
One of the most prominent features used in the novel Pride and Prejudice in contrast, contrast of the characters, their beliefs and the situations that the characters are put in.
The characters are contrasted in many different ways and each of these contrasts are used too express a different issue or idea. Such as the contrast of Mr Collins and Elizabeth Bennet, Mr Collins believes and expresses the common ideals that middle class women of the period were best to be submissive and obedient and under the dominion of men, hence the reason he uses words like "modesty" and "economy" when he is complimenting Elizabeth and her nature and his belief that Elizabeth's rejection of his marriage proposals are ladylike modesty "I must therefore conclude that you are not serious in your rejection of me according to the usual practice of elegant females.". This shows that Mr Collins is essentially the personification of the early nineteenth century beliefs for the nature and