Comment on the use of wit and irony in the novel Pride and Prejudice.

The use of wit and irony in the novel Pride and Prejudice - Pride and Prejudice, romantic novel by Jane Austen, published anonymously in three volumes in 1813. A classic of English literature, written with incisive wit and superb character delineation, it centres on the burgeoning relationship between Elizabeth Bennet, the son of a country gentleman, and Fitzwilliam Darcy, a rich aristocratic squatter. Upon publication, Pride and Prejudice was well entered by critics and compendiums. The first edition vended out within the first time, and it noway went out of print.

About the Novel Pride and Prejudice

The use of wit and irony in the novel Pride and Prejudice , It is set in pastoral England at the turn of the 19th century, and it follows the Bennet family, which includes five veritably different sisters. The eldest, Jane, is sweet-tempered and modest. She's her family Elizabeth’s confidante and friend. Elizabeth, the heroine of the novel, is intelligent and high-spirited. She shares her father’s nausea for the conventional views of society as to the significance of wealth and rank. The third son, Mary, is plain, erudite, and pretentious, while Lydia and Kitty, the two youthful, are flighty and immature.

 

Mr. Bennet is the family primogenitor. He's fond of his two eldest daughters — especially his favourite, Elizabeth — but takes a unresistant interest in the youngish bones, eventually failing to check their jejune instincts. An intelligent but eccentric and sardonic man, he doesn't watch for society’s conventions and mocks his woman’s preoccupation with chancing suitable misters for their daughters. As several scholars have noted, still,Mrs. Bennet is rightfully concerned. The use of wit and irony in the novel Pride and Prejudice , Because of an number, the modest family estate is to be inherited by William Collins,Mr. Bennet’s whoreson, who's the coming joker in line. Indeed, as Austen scholar Mary Evans noted, “ IfMrs. Bennett is slightly crazy, also maybe she's so because she perceives more easily than her hubby the possible fate of her five daughters if they don't marry.” Unfortunately,Mrs. Bennet’s fervour and vulgarity frequently work against her interests. A woman of little sense and important tone- pity, she indulges her lively youthful daughters.

Throughout the novel, the Bennet sisters encounter several eligible maids, including Charles Bingley, Darcy, Lieutenant George Wickham, and Collins. Bingley has lately let Netherfield estate, which neighbours the Bennets’home, Longbourn. Austen describes him as “ good- looking and gentlemanlike; ( having) a affable countenance and easy, innocent mores.” He has come by his fortune through his family’s interest in trade, which was seen as a lower respectable means of carrying wealth than by inheriting it, as his friend Darcy has done. Darcy is easily a product of this hierarchical thinking he believes in the natural superiority of the fat landed gentry. He's arrogant but perceptive.

The use of wit and irony in the novel Pride and Prejudice.

In particular in Pride and Prejudice, an ironic tone is predominant throughout the novel. As Klingel Ray states, Austen is “ first and foremost a imitator. And for a imitator, irony is the major tool of language.” In order to assay the new completely and adequately, it's therefore of consummate significance to study Austen’s use of irony and her intentions and motives behind the ironic statements and events in the book.

This essay seeks to probe Austen’s use of irony in Pride and Prejudice. After agitating the description of irony that should be applied when studying Austen’s workshop, including an explanation of the different motives behind her use of irony, the author’s treatment of irony in the structure of the plot and her narrative strategy will be illustrated. The use of wit and irony in the novel Pride and Prejudice , An analysis of the two most ironic characters in Pride and Prejudice will also follow, and their relative donation to the ironic tone of the novel will be depicted with the aid of several exemplifications. Eventually, two exceptions from the prevailing ironic tone in Pride and Prejudice will be stated and explained.

 

 Before analysing the use and goods of irony in Pride and Prejudice, it's necessary to determine an applicable description of the term. It's clearly not delicate to find delineations for irony, since it's a well- known and frequently habituated word. Still, it's exactly this omnipresence of the word irony that makes it so hard to determine its true meaning. There are simply too numerous delineations. For the purpose of this essay, it's applicable to regard irony the way Austen herself did. One is only suitable to interpret and examine her pieces of work adequately when keeping her view on irony in mind.

First and foremost, Austen uses irony as a tool for unveiling and describing “ all the dichotomies between form and fact, all the visions natural to conventional art and conventional society.” The use of wit and irony in the novel Pride and Prejudice, When one reads the letters she wrote to her family, it becomes apparent that Austen was greatly sensitive to similar dichotomies, especially to those of social geste, and that she plant pleasure in detecting and also relating them to people around her “ Charles Powlett gave a cotillion on Thursday, to the great disturbance of all his neighbours, of course, who, you know, take a most lively interest in the state of his finances, and live in expedients of his being soon ruined.” The immediate effect of Austen’s ironic statement then, which is representative for her jotting style in her letters as well as her novels, is that it makes people laugh. Both Austen herself and her followership, be it her family or the compendiums of her novels, are entertained by her commentary on the distinction between what people pretend to be and what they really are.

 

The use of wit and irony in the novel Pride and Prejudice, Does this mean that Austen was solely a ridiculous artist, whose only intention it was to make her compendiums laugh? This question could only be answered appreciatively if we lived in a world where the forenamed dichotomies served simply as material for slapsticks without having any consequences on the society. This, still, isn't the case, and therefore one has to take these consequences into account when studying Austen's use of irony.

 Pride and Prejudice is, at first regard, simply an entertaining definition of England's social conventions of the late eighteenth-and the morning of the nineteenth-century, particularly those of the gentry. A alternate look reveals the deeper meaning of the novel. By employing a subtle ironic style, Austen laterally criticises certain political, provident and sociological circumstances of her time.

 

 In Pride and Prejudice, we've a perfect comedy of mores presented in a spirit of recreation deduced from bitterness. The use of wit and irony in the novel Pride and Prejudice, The excellence of the new rests a more significant part on the facetious dialogue. The wit has compensated the deficit of action in discourses; wit sparkles the characters of Elizabeth and her father,Mr. Bennet.

Elizabeth’s facetious exchange with Darcy is entertaining, butMr. Bennet’s reflections and replies to his woman’s queries are sharp and cutting. The dull situations are rendered largely investing through the facetious discourses of the characters. Kitty was coughing whenMrs. Bennet talked to her hubby about his incuriosity towards the family’s interest.

 

 IRONY in Pride and Prejudice

 Irony is the discrepancy between appearance and reality. Irony is the very soul of Jane Austen’s novels and great deal of Austen’s wit is actually seen through the use of irony. In “ Pride and Prejudice”, we see three types of irony; verbal irony, situational irony, and dramatic irony.

 The use of verbal irony particularly expresses Austen’s use of wit. Verbal irony is generally honored as affront ( mockery, cynicism). It's the moment when character or narrator says one thing but meaning is complete contrary. One perfect illustration of verbal irony can be seen in the veritably opening statement of the novel; The use of wit and irony in the novel Pride and Prejudice , “ It's a verity widely conceded that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a woman”. As Dorothy Van Ghent remarks that what we read in it's contrary – a single woman must be in want of a man with a good fortune. It also sets and foreshadows the narrative tone and humor in the novel.

  Situational irony describes a moment when commodity occurs and the exact contrary was anticipated to do. This we see During the party, when Bingley asks Darcy to dance with Elizabeth, he refuses to dance with her with affronting comment; “ she is tolerable but not handsome enough to tempt me …” But soon after, he gets charmed by her fascinating eyes and in the coming party wishes to dance with her. Also, Elizabeth tellsMr. Collins that she isn't the type to reject the first offer and accept the alternate but does exactly this when Darcy proposes alternate time. In addition, Collins proposes to Elizabeth when her heart is full of full of Wickham and Darcy proposes to her when she hates him most.

Dramatic irony occurs when the anthology is apprehensive of commodity that the characters have no idea of. It's also called the irony in character. It's indeed more prominent than irony of situation. For illustration, it's ironical that Elizabeth who prides herself on her perception and scorns Jane’s blindness to the realities, is herself dazed by her prejudice. The use of wit and irony in the novel Pride and Prejudice , Further, Bingley’s sisters detest the Bennets for their roughness but are themselves vulgar in their geste. Jane Austen portrayed similar characters for the recreation and moral education of the compendiums.

  The use of wit and irony in the novel Pride and Prejudice - Anyhow, Austen didn't show any cynicism or bitterness in using her irony to draw sarcastic pictures of vagrancies and asininities. Rather her irony can be nominated ridiculous. She uses irony to shake her major numbers of their tone-deception and to expose the insincerity, asininity and insanity of some of her minor numbers. Andrew H Wright correctly points out that irony in her hand is “ the instrument of a moral vision”.

 

 

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