Pride+&+Prejudice-+Treatment+of+Class

**Activity 1. Jane Austen's treatment of social class in the early nineteenth century**
**Jane Austen was a close observer of her society, and one of the features that distinguished English society at the time she was writing was the structure of social classes. Students, in the process of completing this activity, will recognize the importance of the class system as presented by Austen in // Pride and Prejudice //. They will organize evidence gathered from the novel to evaluate, analyze, and draw conclusions about the social order of England in the early nineteenth century.**

**Class is a concept that is alien to most Americans, even though the term is used in a general way to refer to social distinctions relating to social, educational, and economic status and the opportunities (or lack thereof) resulting from that status. What distinguishes the United States from countries having a true class system is the relative fluidity of American society. From the earliest years, Americans enjoyed far greater social mobility than their European counterparts—though that has changed in recent years. As a result, the rigid lines separating one class from another never really formed on this side of the Atlantic.**

**In England, individuals were traditionally defined by their class. Movement from one class to another, though not impossible, was difficult. Interaction between individuals of different classes was governed by unwritten rules requiring deference by the party from the lower class. Using Austen's // Pride and Prejudice //, students will explore the class system and how it affected individuals and their relationships. The following quotations and discussion questions are available on the EDSITEment Student LaunchPad .**  **Step 1. Begin by reviewing a couple of terms important to this exercise.**  **// Class: // David Cody supplies a basic definition of class on [|The Victorian Web], an EDSITEment-reviewed website. He explains:**  > **Class is a complex term, in use since the late eighteenth century, and employed in many different ways. In our context classes are the more or less distinct social groupings which at any given historical period, taken as a whole, constituted British Society. Different social classes can be (and were by the classes themselves) distinguished by inequalities in such areas as power, authority, wealth, working and living conditions, life-styles, life-span, education, religion, and culture.** > **// Gentleman: // Cody again provides a helpful description on The Victorian Web, an EDSITEment-reviewed website. He states:** > **Members of the British aristocracy were gentlemen by right of birth (although it was also emphasized, paradoxically enough, that birth alone could not make a man a gentleman), while the new industrial and mercantile elites, in the face of opposition from the aristocracy, inevitably attempted to have themselves designated as gentlemen as a natural consequence of their growing wealth and influence. Other Victorians [as well as those who lived earlier in the nineteenth century]—clergy belonging to the Church of England, army officers, members of Parliament—were recognized as gentlemen by virtue of their <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #a9332d; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[|occupations] , while members of numerous other eminently respectable professions—engineers, for example—were not.** > <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">**Step 2. Austen wrote primarily about the upper-middle class. She was not, however, interested only in the lives of her middle-class characters but also in their interactions with members of other classes. She was keenly aware of the tensions created by the industrial revolution, in particular the emergence of a class of businessmen with substantial resources and economic influence.** <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">**Optional side-step: If your students need practice doing a close reading of a primary source, you might start by "walking" them through the following excerpt from Chapter 5, available as a <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #a9332d; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">hypertext document on the EDSITEment-reviewed <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #a9332d; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">British Academy Portal :** <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;"> > **WITHIN a short walk of <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #a9332d; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Longbourn lived a family with whom the Bennets were particularly intimate. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #a9332d; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sir William Lucas had been formerly in <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #a9332d; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">trade in <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #a9332d; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Meryton, where he had made a tolerable fortune and risen to the honour of knighthood by an address to <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #a9332d; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">the King during his mayoralty. The distinction had perhaps been felt too strongly. It had given him a disgust to his business and to his residence in a small market town; and <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #a9332d; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">quitting them both, he had removed with his family to a house about a mile from <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #a9332d; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Meryton, denominated from that period <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #a9332d; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lucas Lodge , where he could think with pleasure of his own importance, and, unshackled by business, occupy himself solely in being civil to all the world. For though elated by his rank, it did not render him supercilious; on the contrary, he was all attention to every body. By nature inoffensive, friendly and obliging, his presentation at St. James's had made him courteous.**

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">**Step 3. Before your students begin to read // Pride and Prejudice //, assign each to a group, with 3-4 students in each group. Assign each group one of the following relationships to track throughout the novel, paying particular attention to the class issues that define the nature of the relationship and influence the way in which the relationship develops. Using post-it notes or flags, students should mark key passages that reflect the importance of class and how it plays out in the lives of the characters.** <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;"> > ** Jane Bennet and Charles Bingley ** ** Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy ** > ** Fitzwilliam Darcy and the Gardiners ** > ** Lydia Bennet and Lt.Wickham ** > ** Mr. Collins and Charlotte Lucas ** > ** Mr. Collins and Lady Catherine ** > ** Elizabeth Bennet and Lady Catherine ** <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">**When the students have finished reading the book, the groups should meet to compare their findings, identify four or five passages that best show how class considerations shaped the relationship (preferably showing how the relationship changed over time and why), and prepare a brief presentation for the rest of the class.** <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">**Following the presentations, the class as a whole should construct a social ladder. They should place the characters from the novel on the ladder and identify each by his/her social position.** <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">**When completed, the students should discuss Austen's own attitudes toward class, as revealed in // Pride and Prejudice //. Possible questions to focus on in the discussion follow:**
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; background-color: transparent; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; vertical-align: baseline;">**What does the novel tell us about Austen's attitudes toward the English class system?**
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; background-color: transparent; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; vertical-align: baseline;">**What literary device does she use to convey her thinking on this subject?**
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; background-color: transparent; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; vertical-align: baseline;">**Does the popularity of her novel say something about the attitudes of her readers toward this subject?**

**Activity 2. The status of women in England in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries**
<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">**Jane Austen, a well-educated and exceptionally gifted writer, had a unique perspective on the challenges faced by women in her society, the limits imposed by social constraints, and the consequences resulting from choices made when opportunities presented themselves. Her talent for creating fictional characters to illustrate the complexities of women's lives has earned her the respect of social historians and serves as the starting point for this activity.** <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">**As homework students may wish to read background articles relating to the place of women in English society. These can be found at on <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #a9332d; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Pemberley.com, a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #a9332d; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">British Academy Portal. The following student activities and quotations from Wollstonecraft's Introduction to // A Vindication of the Rights of Women // are also available via the <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #a9332d; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">EDSITEment Student LaunchPad .** <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">**Step 1. In // Pride and Prejudice //, Austen offers her readers a close look at the status of women in the early nineteenth century—in particular, the role of marriage in shaping a woman's identity. The topic of marriage is introduced in the first sentence and weaves its way throughout the novel. While both male and female characters display serious interest in the subject, virtually every person is influenced by her/his own view of woman's place in English society and the role she is expected to assume. As a result, readers soon realize that in novels, as in real life, an individual's perspective is critical.** <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">**Students—individually, in groups, or as a class—should construct a chart that will allow them to compare and contrast the attitudes of the female (and male) characters toward marriage.** <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;"> > **Column 1—list the names of characters** **Column 2—briefly describe each character: age, class, education, personality, values, etc.** > **Column 3—briefly describe her (or his) thoughts regarding marriage** > <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">**When the chart is complete, discuss the results. The following questions can be used to guide the discussion:** <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> **Courtesy-**    [|http://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson-plan/jane-austens-pride-and-prejudice-novel-historical-source#sect-activities]
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; background-color: transparent; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; vertical-align: baseline;">**What factors were most significant in shaping a character's attitude toward marriage?**
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; background-color: transparent; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; vertical-align: baseline;">**Why were women expected to marry?**
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; background-color: transparent; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; vertical-align: baseline;">**What factors influenced a woman's decision to accept or reject a marriage proposal?**
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; background-color: transparent; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; vertical-align: baseline;">**What were the consequences of a woman's remaining single?**
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; background-color: transparent; color: #4b4b4b; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; vertical-align: baseline;">**What do we learn about woman's status in English society from Austen's treatment of marriage in this novel?**