Exploring the intersections of love and marriage in Pride and Prejudice from our complimentary open class held on May 2023.
Key Insight: Marriage as an intersection of genuine love and bildungsroman growth in Pride and Prejudice
Austen presents marital and romantic happiness as the ultimate reward for characters who undergo a process of moral growth and development. This is best epitomised by the marriage between Elizabeth and Darcy, whose relationship is presented as the most ideal in the novel, superior to the happiness of Jane.
The marriage between Darcy and Elizabeth is presented as a means towards the epitome of happiness as a reward for achieving moral development. This is seen from how their interactions resulted in ‘all [Elizabeth’s] former prejudices had been removed’ and how Elizabeth ‘taught me a lesson [...] by you I was properly humbled’. The absolute term ‘all’ emphasises the immense scale/depth in Elizabeth’s character development. This scale of moral growth is similarly mirrored in Darcy through the modifier ‘properly humbled’. The twin flaws of the protagonists - pride and prejudice - are seen to be tempered by virtue of the other, suggesting that this union is a mutually beneficial one that contributes to the genre of the novel as a bildungsroman.
Austen’s reward to Darcy and Elizabeth can be seen from how Elizabeth confides in Jane in a light hearted tone that ‘It is settled between us already, that we are to be the happiest couple in the world’ The use of superlative and hyperbole in ‘happiest in the world’ alludes to Elizabeth’s easy confidence regarding the future of their successful marriage as a result of how their personalities have been improved through their interactions. Elizabeth’s happiness is echoed in, even culminates in the conversation with Mrs Gardiner where she states that
‘I am the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so before, but not one with such justice. I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh’. The repetition of the ‘happiest [..] in the world’. (Austen)
Here, Austen imbues Elizabeth’s assertion with a sense of absolute truth and happiness. This then is coupled with ‘not one with such justice’, where Austen’s use of absolutes in ‘not one’ reinforces the impression of Elizabeth’s subliminal bliss to the reader wherein the romance genre is fulfilled, and similarly positions Elizabeth’s happy union as supremely unique to the heroine herself. As the marriage between Jane and Bingley fails to achieve a moral paradigmatic shift for the parties involved in the match, unlike the union of Elizabeth and Darcy, their marriage does not reward them with that significant a source of happiness. The contrast between the respective pairs in a continuum of joy wherein Jane ‘only smiles’, only possessing a modicum of restraint, and Elizabeth’s unfettered joy as embodied in the freer self-expression of her ‘laugh’ thus illustrates how Austen privileges relationships that improve upon the character flaws of those involved, where both parties stand to gain inner growth.
