About Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice

In the past two weeks our class was tasked with reading Pride and Prejudice or any likewise novel scripted by Jane Austin.  As I was completely unfamiliar with any of this author's writings, I settled with Jane's most well-known work, as you can surmise from the title of this post.

First I'll express my thoughts on the language of the Pride and Prejudice.  Going into the piece, I had anticipated that I would struggle with the interpretation - that I would become lost as I read along as I have experienced before when reading Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.  Thankfully I found Jane Austin's words easy to follow.  Her language is not entirely relatable to how most people speak today, but the organization is simple and her choice of words heavily appropriate to describing the fictional scenes and events.

One thing I also admired is her use of summarization. The brief setting descriptions and the oft times implied character action that goes on in the background of scene changes helps to keep the story from getting stale for me.  Sometimes however I do feel like the author summarizes interactions between characters that I would have been interested in having more detail.

The narrative itself is rather strangely paced.  We are quick to understand that courtship and marriage is the direction and general goal for the Bennet sisters, but the process of which the relationships transpire is different from many other romance/relationship stories that I have experienced.  Letters in writing are used very prominently in Pride and Prejudice, and they contain some of the most pivotal and interesting information for the overall narrative.  The delayed form of correspondence, and the fact that letters are more monologue than dialogue, seemed to throw off what I normally expect in the pacing of a story, but in an interesting manner.

All-in-all my experience was enjoyable.  While Pride and Prejudice did not incorporate any intense form of buildup and payoff, Jane Austin was able to hold my attention for the duration of the story with an array of playful characters.  I actually quite like how the drama was not exaggerated - it gave a grounding sense of reality to the story which helped me empathize with Elizabeth Bennet more than I think I would have otherwise.