In any literary work the title and introduction make at least some allusion to the important events of the novel. With Pride and Prejudice, Austen takes this convention to the extreme, designing all of the first and some of the second half of the novel after the title and the first sentence. The concepts of pride, prejudice, and “universally acknowledged truth” (51), as well as the interpretation of those concepts, are the central focus of the novel. They dictate the actions of almost all the major characters (not just Darcy and Elizabeth), and foreshadow all of the major events in the novel, especially in the first few chapters, involving the first ball at Netherfield. While Darcy comes to represent pride, and Elizabeth prejudice, all of the characters in Pride and Prejudice are impacted by both pride and prejudice, and their scorn towards the two central characters in the novel becomes only hypocritical.
While everyone (at first) scorns Darcy’s excessive pride, that very same pride in self and family effects the actions of many of the characters. Pride in her daughters makes Mrs. Bennet confident that they will soon be married off. “It is very likely,” she tells her husband, “that [Bingley] may fall in love with one of them” (52). Pride makes the early Darcy cold and disrespectful, and Miss Bingley haughty, jealous, and spiteful. “[The Bingley sisters] were in fact very fine ladies…but proud and conceited. They were rather handsome, had been educated in one of the first private seminaries in town, had a fortune of twenty thousand pounds…and were therefore in every respect entitled to think well of themselves, and meanly of others” (63). Pride drives Mr. Col…
… middle of paper …
…Donald Gray. New York: Norton and Co., 1993.
Butler, Marilyn. Jane Austen and the War of Ideas. Oxford. Claredon Press, 1975
Harding, D. W. “Regulated Hatred: An Aspect in the Work of Jane Austen.” Pride and Prejudice. By Jane Austen. Ed. Donald Gray.
New York: Norton and Co., 1993. pp. 291-295.
“Jane Austen, ” Discovering Authors’ Modules, http://galenet.gale.com/a/acp/netacgi/nphrs?d=DAMA
Nature and Procreation in Blue Highways
Nature and Procreation in Blue Highways
In the book of a rustic American journey, Blue Highways, William Least Heat Moon continually characterizes the land he travels with simple, natural references. Least Heat Moon repeatedly gives the nature he discovers on his journey very fertile, prolific qualities. The essays often contains vivid physical descriptions of the environment, particularly its natural beauty. Least Heat Moon ponders human existence and its interference with the environment. The themes of natural beauty and fertility repeatedly surface throughout Least Heat Moon’s account of his journey around America.
In several descriptions of nature throughout the book, William Least Heat Moon portrays the wilderness he finds with extremely basic, reproductive traits. The themes of procreation and fertility in the natural environment surround him. For example, in his description of a swamp environment, Least Heat Moon writes,
In the muck pollywogs were starting to squirm. It was spring here, and juices were getting up in the stalks…water bubbled with the froth of …