Pride and Prejudice
Women in society today have come a long way from those in the 18th and 19th centuries. In terms of education, work, and marriage prospects, women today have many more choices than those in Jane Austen's novels, for example. Education for a young lady was generally seen as a way towards becoming a school teacher or becoming a high society married woman. There were few choices inbetween. For independently minded women like Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice, then, there were relatively few options to transcend the general social expectations of young ladies such as herself. Nevertheless, the character rises above what is expected of her, while at the same time satisfying her own independence. It is a novel that is satisfying even to today's reader, because its themes are both era specific and universal.
In Austen's novel, Elizabeth Bennet is an independent, free-speaking woman who evolves, throughout the novel, towards maturity and more rational decision making processes. For Elizabeth, it is not as necessary to transcend the expectation her society and family have of her as a young woman. Instead, it is to use these expectations to her advantage and to ultimately become the independent and free thinking person she strives towards being. In order to do this, however, she learns to suppress her rash decisions and judgments about others and ultimately finds her match in her suitor, Mr. Darcy.
In order to become desirable to such a match, Elizabeth is obliged to come to terms with a general truth of the time; that men are somewhat more free to choose marriage partners than women are: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession...
Chapter 50 shows this in the gossip and the interest people partake in of the relationship of Mr. Wickham and Lydia. "How Wickham and Lydia were to be supported in tolerable independence, she could not imagine. But how little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue, she could easily conjecture." (Austen, 596) Good marriages, at least
" A woman, although not receiving an inheritance, knew that she would at least be under the roof of her husband. Johnson, in her book, Jane Austen: Women, Politics and the Novel, characterizes Austen as a novelist who "defended and enlarged a progressive middle ground that had been eaten away by the polarizing polemics born of the 1790s." She also states that Austen was a product of her times. She agrees
Therefore, the work of the magazine is one of a work in progress in many respects and continually changes to adapt the changing society over time. Pride and Prejudice is as much a part of our culture as Cosmopolitan magazine. However, there are inherent differences between the two. Pride and Prejudice is a classical work of literature. The content of the novel has not changed over the course of time. What
This has often made it very difficult for black individuals to become high educational and social achievers. Racists then twist the reasons behind this lack of achievement and use it as evidence that members of the group are inferior (Gimlin, 2005). Racism and discrimination are both common threads in prejudiced activity toward black women, and this works to perpetuate the problems that they have faced in the past and
al, 2002). In addition, change occurs quicker when leadership is diverse, as well (Hampton and Lee, 2007). Finally, ethnicity and diversity issues should be included in organizational behavior courses, so that all business and industry has more access to this information (Mamman, 1996). Change must occur in our society, and an end to prejudice must be achieved for our society and our workplaces to be truly free and equal. References Barnes
Lesbian Health Care Lesbian Health Issues in a Heterosexual Society The additional burdens placed on the lives of minorities as a result of social exclusion can lead to health disparities. Social exclusion theory has been used in previous research to investigate the health disparities that exist between socioeconomic classes and individuals of different ethnic backgrounds living in the United States, but it has not yet been applied to another important minority group:
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