Every day kids ask why, in fact it is probably the most asked question in the world. Why did you do that? Why does that work that way? It's not only kids either, although they are the ones that we blame for most of those questions. Personally, one of the topics that I ask why about the most is the classics. I mean why are some books; and even movies, I know that there are some of you about to put this away hearing that, but it is true regardless, hear me out; considered classics, where there are others that seem to be just as good, that just aren't. Believe me when I say that I truly understand that this is a very large topic, so being me, and being female (Let's admit it ladies.) I'd like to focus mostly on Jane Austin.
What is it that makes Jane Austin a classic? The obvious answer is that Mr. Darcy is so, swoon… but let's really think about it does one character, or even lots of them, being every girl's dream guy really make it a classic? On my part the answer was a very decided no. I mean that as true as it is that Mr. Darcy is so passionately lovable, if all that was needed was a good character then I can think of a million books off the top of my head that would be classics, but they aren't, at least not in the way that we all know Pride and Prejudice. On that note, if it were just Mr. Darcy who was popular then what about her other books many of which have loser heroes, what about them? Honestly consider that idea for a minute before you read on.
Ok minute over. When I honestly thought about it I realized that the answer for me was that the characters in Jane Austin's books all remind me of people that I know. I mean, sure I might not know a Mr. Darcy, Kudos to you if you do, (That, and can I please date him.) but all of us probably know a Charlotte Lucas, an Elizabeth Elliot, a Miss Bates, or a Marianne Dashwood. Maybe we see these characters in ourselves. I can personally say, that I even know a Mrs. Bennett. Ok, maybe I don't know a lady who is only interested in marrying her daughters off to rich men, but I do know a lady who has many of these ideas.
Who is Mrs. Bennett, and why is it that I can say that I know a version of her. Mrs. Bennett is a woman who married someone because she thought, much along the lines of Charlotte Lucas, that she needed someone to take care of her; much along the lines of her daughter Lydia she probably thought that she loved the man, and though they say in Pride and Prejudice that they are ill suited for each other they never say that Mr. and Mrs. Bennett do not love each other in their own weird twisted sort of way. What is also interesting is that in Mrs. Bennett you see a woman who is constantly worried about the future. All the stability that she knows could be taken away from her at any moment. If that were to happen then she would have nothing left. Upon the death of her husband she could be thrown out of her home, have her money taken away, and be left to be cared for by relatives. How is she to remedy this, she wants her daughters to marry rich men so that they will not have to worry the same way that she does. She wants Lizzy to marry Mr. Collins because if she does, not only does Lizzy no longer have to worry, but then her own worries are done away with as well. Is this selfish, probably, but it is also there because this is the only life that she has ever known. Mrs. Bennett is a loud woman, but in many ways that is the fault of her husband, the only time that he gives her attention is when she is loudly demanding it, which is what leads her to act that way so often.
Why is it that I can say that I know at least one woman who reminds me of Mrs. Bennett? The answer would be simply that I know of a woman whose remarks have made her daughter feel so pressured to get married that it has made the girl awkward around men. I also know a woman (actually several women and some men as well who seem to think that the only way in which you can be happy is to be married. (Let's forget the fact that there are millions of people who are perfectly happy unmarried in the profession of their choice) Like Mrs. Bennett's children, in many ways these people embarrass me, but like Elizabeth I wouldn't want some random stranger to come in and tear them apart, whether what they said was true or not. Let's move on to another character and how I think that they could remind us of people that we might know.
Charlotte Lucas is one of those women who are tired of being alone and being a burden. She's a single young woman who lives with her parents. Charlotte also feels that she contributes nothing to their lives that they would not have without her. Basically, she wants someone who seems to genuinely need her around, and with whom, even in the smallest sense she gets this sense of companionship. She thinks that by having someone she will feel better about who she is. This isn't true, but in her mind, it is. She dreads being alone and a burden on her family for the rest of her life. Her options, as an unmarried woman in that time-period were being shunted from home to home or being left to the lonely life that a governess would have had. (In the days of Jane Austin this was the only honorable job that a young woman could have.) Regardless of this there are many women that I know who have trapped themselves in jobs that they don't enjoy. They, rather than seeing that they merely need a new job, think that the only way to get out of the one they have is to get married, and claim that's the reason for leaving, regardless of who they are marrying, or why.
In a way it is possible to say that Charlotte is a product of her times, but in other ways there is a bit of Charlotte in all of us. She is a woman who did what she was expected to do, no matter what it meant to her personally. She married Mr. Collins because that is what was expected of her. In the time of Jane Austin, it was considered a disgrace for a woman to work, and any young gently bred woman was either married to anyone who wanted her, or she became a burden on her family for the rest of her days. While it was a disgrace for a woman to work, it also was a disgrace for her to live alone. Thus, many families were worried that if they were forced to care for a spinster, not only would they be out monetarily, but they also would look bad in the eyes of other families. With this in mind, it becomes more interesting to say that we all have a pinch of Charlotte in us. Many of us do what is expected of us by the society that we live in. Whether that society expects us as teens to party or it expects us to be get proper jobs with a college education, in many ways we live up to that ideal that has been placed before us. How many people in the world have the job that they do because it is a well-paying respectable job? In my opinion that is the number of people who are the Charlotte Lucas' of the world.
As a contrast to Charlotte, we have Elizabeth. She is Charlotte's best friend, but at the same time they have different ideals, because even though they grew up on the same time, they were raised in drastically circumstances. The concept of Elizabeth that we get in Pride and Prejudice is that she, barring a university education, which would have been forbidden at the time, she was educated more as a male for that time-period would have been than a female. The book implies that she was educated mostly by her father, who valued her mind, but because she was educated by her father, he gave her the education that he had received, the education of a gentleman. If the family had a governess, she would have been solely in charge of the children's education, so that they would be proficient in what was expected of them. What made the life of a governess lonely is that since they oversaw the education of the children the post was primarily a long-term post. Dealing with the family on an everyday basis, and on close terms, they almost became part of the family, but they were still the paid help, and as such were not a part of the family. This may seem like a tangent, but it isn't. What I am trying to day is that since Elizabeth did not have a governess she grew up with many notions that were considered radical for the time-period. She believed that you should not marry someone whom you do not love and respect. During a time that emphasized marrying for comfort and money, this opinion is quite strange, where did she get these ideas? As I said, she was educated by her father, and when you consider the type of marriage that Mr. Bennett had it does not shock me that she was taught to marry for love. Mr. Bennett probably did not realize that he was teaching her these things, but he would most likely have said many things unconsciously to an impressionable young mind, and she would have taken those thoughts, and deciphered them in a purely feminine way.