Explore the Narrative of the Narrator in Pride and Prejudice. Essay Example

Pride and Prejudice has been criticised among the literary community for the narrator thought to be from the view of Elizabeth is often counter argued by someone else saying that the narrator is an omniscient third person narrator. The narration of Pride and Prejudice is typically done by Elizabeth in many views, although it occasionally gives us information that Elizabeth is not aware of, which therefore makes us come to the conclusion that it is not Elizabeth narrating the book. The third person narrative gives a plain view of the novel in the sense of the dialogue, opinions and the events which are dominating throughout the novel rather than emotions. Elizabeth Bennet sometimes excludes from this rule, for example in chapter 36, this chapter is devoted entirely to Elizabeth’s emotional transformation right after the letter she received from Darcy. Although even though we do often get to hear the thoughts of other characters in the novel, it is mostly in shorter bursts compared to Elizabeth’s more complex outbursts. The narrator is using free indirect discourse or speech to show the reader the characters thoughts or spoken words, but without quotation marks. It let’s the reader know some of Elizabeth’s bad judgements against others like Darcy at the beginning of the novel. The use of dialogue brings forth veracity, which makes the reader question which character is to be believed. Although at the same time the truthfulness of the narrator themselves can be questioned. The veracity of Elizabeth’s dialogue is strengthened when the narrator doesn’t employ a detached narrative voice to describe the characters thoughts but is focalizing the proceeding through the character of Elizabeth, which is therefore meaning that the reader views the story from Elizabeth’s perspective. Seeing the story through Elizabeth’s eyes yet via the narrator’s voice, for example “the general pause which ensued made Elizabeth tremble… She longed to speak, but could think of nothing to