Pride and prejudice, a story of marriages of four young people, centred around the love affair between Elizabeth and Darcy. Elizabeth was a lively young middle-class woman with a strong personality,whereas Darcy from a wealthy upper-class family was an apparently serious and unconsciously arrogant young man. They fell into love with each other because of pride and prejudice and found a better understanding of themselves.
However, in my opinion, this book is not only a love story,but also an illustration of the society at that time. Jane Austen perfectly gave the people in her works vivid characters and described the relation between money and marriage at that time .
In the book ,Mrs. Bennet was a woman who made great efforts to marry off her daughters to the wealthy gentleman. And her five daughters' characters were very different. Jane was simple, innocent and never speaks evil of others. Elizabeth was a clever girl who could always had her own views while Kitty liked to follow her sister Lydia's ideas. And Lydia was a girl who followed exotic things, handsome man, and was somehow a little profligate. On the other hand, Mr. Bingley, the ideal one for Mrs. Bennet to marry her daughter, was a friendly young man. While his friend, Mr. Darcy, was a very proud man who seemed to always feel superior than others. Above all , I reckon it was a reflection of people came from the society. And that is why I think this book was indeed the representative of the society in Britain in the 18th century.
Furthermore,after reading the book ,I came to realize that marriage sometimes can have nothing to do with love ,but economic foundation. Take Mrs. Bennet for example . She was so eager to marry off her daughters,especially to the rich guys that made most of people not like her. But If combining with the situation in Britain at that time,that is, only the eldest son had the privilege of inheriting his father’s possessions so that younger sons and daughters who are used to luxurious lives had no choice but marry a man or woman in possession of a large fortune to continue their comfortable lives,we can see that getting married is a way to become wealthier, particularly for women without many possessions. Jane Austen told us that money and possession determined everything, including marriage and love in her century.
Thinking of nowadays, although the marriage of economic needs have disappeared gradually,the idea "money is everything" is still rooted in people's mind, namely, we attached great importance to the materials beyond the personality. So thanks to Pride and prejudice, I can't help thinking : what is marriage ? what is happiness? I believe I can find my way to go in the following days.
