journal of sustainable studies joss
Redefining Female Identity in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
Inst. Dr. Thamer Yousif Allawi
The General Directorate of Education in Anbar, Ministry of Education, Iraq.
Abstract:
When observing the novel Pride and Prejudice from the perspective of classifying the work as a conformist view of the female universe, one finds significant findings from a feminist soul writer. However, the author is not so simple to be characterized as traditional or proto-feminist. For the past thirty years, scholars have tried to draw a parallel between Austen’s novels and feminism. While Marily Butler (1975) maintains that Austen’s novels restricted women only to marriage and the domestic sphere; Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gulbar (1979), affirm the opposite: the characters of Austen contradict these conventions, defending the rational education for the woman, with obstinate female characters, of independent and daring minds. More recent studies point to a possible balance between conservatism and feminism. In this way, the novel can be characterized as a narrative of female identity, using ironies to criticize the society of its time, thus denoting a non-conformist side of the writer. Jane Austen was certainly influenced by the proto-feminist writings of Mary Wollstonescraft. However, she was tolerated by other conservative publications, which curbed the progress of feminism. The purpose of this work is to present a parallel between and the female characters of Pride and Prejudice and the representations of women in English society in the 19th century, taking into account both the view on the marriage of these characters.
Keywords:( Feminism, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Female Identity).
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