- Jane Austen's original title for P&P was 'First Impressions'. Do you think this title would have suited the novel better? why? What role do first impressions play in the novel?
- Would you say that Mr Bennet is a positive or negative character? Explain.
- How important is dialogue to character development?
- How important is social class in the novel, especially concerning Lizzy and Mr Darcy?
- Pride and Prejudice is a novel about women who feel they have to marry in order to be happy. Taking Charlotte Lucas as an example, do you think Austen is making a social criticism of her era's veiw of marriage?
- Was Charlotte Lucas a lesbian or straight? What makes you think this?
Tada, have fun. Everyone has to write a blog about one or more of these topics, (feel free to add any others you may think of), sometime within the next week or so. Have fun :D
Personally, I do believe that someone should tackle the topic of suppressed homosexuality as embodied by Charlotte. Just sayin'.
ReplyDeleteUm Leish all those topics seem pretty good except for the last one. Where did that come from?
ReplyDeleteI know it just seems like a silly, immature topic, but I think it's fairly valid. Charlotte doesn't place a lot on marriage, and gets married to Mr Collins as just a means to get a stable life. She, unlike the other girls in the book, did not even consider that marriage should be for love, and was willing to put up with a completely insufferable man. Conversely, she was devoted to Elizabeth, and loved her in a way she would never love her husband. At the time, homosexuality would have been abhorred, so if she was romantically inclined towards her friend, she would have had to suppress it. However, Austen was, in her own way, a feminist, even though she has a bad reputation for writing novels centred around marriage. It wouldn't seem out of place at all for a lesbian to feature in her books, even if it was subtle, an in joke of sorts. Opinions?
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