Theme of Love and Marriage in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
Pride and Prejudice is one of the most popular novels of Jane Austen due to its multi-dimensional versatility of themes. Andrew H. Wright remarks: � She (Jane Austen) develops themes of the broadest significance, the novels go beyond social record, beneath the didactic, to moral concern, perplexity and commitment� One of the most important themes of Pride and Prejudice, love and marriage, is also the central theme of the novel. The oft-quoted opening sentence of the novel demonstrates this basic theme: �It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife� It is true that the chief preoccupation of Jane Austen�s heroines is getting married and life is a matrimonial ceremony for them. Pride and Prejudice dramatizes the economic inequality of women, showing how women had to marry undesirable mates in order to gain some financial security. Marriage was a significant social concern in Jane Austen�s time and she was fully co...