Pride and Prejudice and Madame Bovary
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Paper #1: Do the main characters in Pride and Prejudice and Madame Bovary change? If so, how? If not, why not? What does the absence or presence of growth or change in characters say about the conception of individuals and social life in each novel?
The novel Pride and Prejudice was written by Jane Austen in the early 19th century and has become one of the most vintage love stories. In the novel, the love of the characters Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy are told in detail. As the reader proceeds the novel, it is deducted that the name of the novel comes from the characteristic properties of protagonists Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. As Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy are introduced at the beginning of the novel, they confront lots of misunderstandings and misfortunes that arises from their characters and difference of social status. While pride is assigned for Darcy, prejudice is assigned for Elizabeth. The second novel which will be discussed in this paper is called Madame Bovary, written by Gustave Flaubert in the lately 19th century. The novel mainly tells about a young, passionate womans unhappy marriage and her pursuit of happiness. The main characters in the novel are called Emma and Charles Bovary. As the classical novels Pride and Prejudice and Madame Bovary are compared, the reader exactly infers that the main characters Elizabeth, Darcy and Emma face an obvious character change through the novel. In this paper, the changes of these main characters and the conception of individuals and social life will be discussed.
In the novel Pride and Prejudice, the protagonist is Elizabeth Bennet. Elizabeth is the second daughter of the Bennet family. She is reflected as the most intelligent and quick witted girl among five Bennet girls, especially for her father. It is obvious that Elizabeth is so different from her sisters and mother. She absolutely does not care about money and aim to make a marriage with a wealthy man even though her mother wants her to do so. Jane Austen has described her so well that, Elizabeth has become one of the most famous characters in English literature. Elizabeth is a clever, honest and lovely girl, however her sharp tongue had lead some problems between her and Darcy at the beginning of the novel. Because of their difference of social status, Elizabeth was prejudiced towards Darcy. Both Elizabeth and Darcy are self-confident however Elizabeth is an unconventional girl unlike Darcy. For istance; at the beginning of the novel where Elizabeth and Darcy were dancing, Elizabeth makes fun of the dancing convention by saying “We are supposed to have a conversation during the dance”. Darcy is a wealthy gentleman and he is the master of Pemberley. Even though he is smart enough, he has so much pride that he is not good at social inferiors. For instance; at the beginning of the novel at the Meryton Ball, while he was talking with his friend Charles Bingley; he expressed his thoughts about Elizabeth with his pride:
“Which do you mean?” and turning round, he looked for a moment at Elizabeth, till catching
her eye, he withdrew his own and coldly said, “She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to
tempt me; and I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are
slighted by other men. You had better return to your partner and enjoy her smiles, for you
are wasting your time with me.” (pg.7-8)
One of the problems between Elizabeth and Darcy is that, for a long time they never talked about their problems so that they let their problems grow and misunderstandings occur. For instance, Wickham lied to Elizabeth abouth the things between him and Darcy. However Elizabeth believed Wickham instead of talking with Darcy, just because Wickham has good manners and she believed that Darcy is so spoiled that he does not worthy of speaking with people who are from lower social status. Based here, it can be cocluded that even on Elizabeth, the impacts of the society can be seen clearly. The whole society sees Wickham as a good man and Darcy as a rude and arrogant man. As the novel progresses, Elizabeth gets rid of her prejudice and understands how Darcy is indeed. At the end of the book, both Elizabeth and Darcy understood that they were prejudiced to each other and they misunderstood each other unduly. After Darcy proposes marriage to Elizabeth, it is clearly seen how Darcys feelings has transformed since his earlier dismissal of her as not handsome enough. He has expressed his feelings like;
“In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.” Elizabeths astonishment was beyond expression. She stared, coloured, doubted, and was silent. This he considered sufficient encouragement, and the avowal of all that he felt and had long felt for her, immediately followed. He spoke well, but there were feelings besides those of the heart to be detailed, and he was not more eloquent on the subject of tenderness than of pride. His sense of her inferiority–of its being a degradation–of the family obstacles which