Throughout the novel Pride and
Prejudice written by Jane Austen, characters are faced with life decisions
left and right. Although most of it was captured well, most of the emotions and
thoughts that were faced had to be inferred through what was accepted in
society then and now. As David Foster Wallace once wrote “What goes on
inside is just too fast and huge and all interconnected for words to do more
than barely sketch the outlines of at most one tiny little part of it at any
given instant.” This was not only true for this novel but for pieces written
now.
Throughout the novel Austen does and outstanding job of
relating the chaos and the lifestyles of the era in a comprehensible manner.
However it is left to reason that all pieces she wished to have incorporated
were left out. In certain instances she just states accepted behavior such as
when Jane Bennett and Charles Bingley dance multiple times at the ball but doesn’t
clarify what that means in society of the time. It appears that she expects her
readers to understand that a ball was where the host or hostess was expected to
dance with all available partners and it was considered very respectful when a
host asks someone to dance multiple times. Although Austen knows exactly what
she was trying to exhibit when writing her novel, she was “brainstorming” she
skips that piece because she believes it is unimportant to the plot and she
assumes her audience will grasp the meaning. Most writings movies or television
shows today use allusions to history and common sense in the assumption that
the audience will comprehend what is being shown. However does this assumption
make viewing or reading a piece harder to understand the meaning that is being portrayed?
In some cases it is acceptable and adds to the mystery and interactive nature
of the piece but in some cases it takes away from the plot and makes a piece to
confusing to read and incomprehensible.
When and author writes they provide an insight into their
own mind and they provide and interesting world for others to explore through
their writings. Austen provides this also in her novel into the priorities and
the needs of society of the era. It was almost a necessity to marry in your own
social class and all others below you were beneath you. In Pride and
Prejudice we see the social order effect interactions between characters
and the way the characters think. However not the whole picture can be
portrayed. In other words, the window isn’t fully opened between us as audience
members and the authors though process. Austen alludes to the importance of
social order and she uses some characters to underline the importance of order
in the society and of marriages. However with these references us as readers
must understand and infer what meaning social order has on the world as we see
it today. Today most individuals don’t base marriages and relationships on
social status. Those who do don’t make it far in life and many brand them with the
title “Gold-diggers.” Without writers using this window into historical times,
we as a community and a nation wouldn’t understand this idea or the ideas
proposed with arrange marriages.
Throughout literature we see examples of authors alluding
and mentioning ideas in their writing but becoming so enveloped in their ideas
that they forget to write pieces down or forget to capture the bigger picture. Many
writers of pieces find it difficult to write all their ideas in a piece because
while writing this idea one idea will come but once the author becomes around
to mentioning it, he or she forgets and comes up with a different idea
entirely. Even while writing this piece I personally have gone through several
ideas that were either written or not written. Each other has a different
method for imputing their ideas into the world around them. Austen was an
exceptional writer in the way she was able to use Pride and Prejudice as
her way to underline meanings of love and social order in a society through her
own creative window.
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