Comparative study between Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Great Expectations and Lord Jim

It is hard to make comparative study between the novels- Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Great Expectations and Lord Jim. As all these novels deal with love and marriage, it is natural that we will find some similarities between them, though they are written by different writers. We can find very less dissimilarities. We will also make comparison between characters. Here, readers will also find compare and contrast between these novels.

Except Pride and Prejudice, the other three novels- Jane Eyre, Great Expectations and Lord Jim belong to the Victorian Age. For this reason, we can find the treatment of love and marriage in two different periods. Love and marriage have direct connections with society and culture. With the use of these two themes, the writers also tried to portray the condition of the women of contemporary England. In England, during the Victorian Age, women did not have any rights and they could not inherit their fathers’ property. They always had to depend on male members of the family. Their only duty was to take care of the house, give birth to children, cooking and cleaning. That is why, they chose to marry rich person and by doing so they could gain financial security and saved themselves from spinsterhood. In Pride and Prejudice, we can see that Mrs. Bennet’s only tension is to get her daughters married with rich grooms. In Jane Eyre, the heroine Jane loves Rochester and wants to marry him, but she is at the same time well aware of the social division. In Great Expectations, Pip loves Estella and wants to marry her. To be able to marry her, he wants to become gentleman and rich. However, in Lord Jim, Jim loves Jewel and wants to become happy with her. But love and marriage get less importance in this novel.

The interesting thing is, though Jane Austen belonged to the Romantic Age, her ideals were totally different compared to that time. Instead her ideas were more or less similar to that of the Victorian idea. It looked like that she was not that much influenced by events like the French Revolution. The main reason behind this is she mainly lived inside her house and did not go out that much. Therefore, we cannot find that much romantic elements in her novels.

Compared to other three novels, Lord Jim is different because there is very short description about love and marriage. Love and marriage is not the main focus of this novel. Readers can find the love relationship between Jim and Jewel at the last part of this novel. Till now, we can see Jim’s suffering after he abandons the ship ‘Patna’ and his establishment in Patusan. Neither of the characters gets married. It seems that Joseph Conrad has showed this relation just to show tragic end of this novel.

Like Lord Jim, Great Expectations did not have a happy ending. This novel ends without any clue whether Pip and Estella get married or not. Their marriage was the most anticipated one as Pip tirelessly pursued Estella for love. None of the important characters of this novel had a happily married life except Joe and Biddy. In Lord Jim, we can see that Jim died and Jewel stays alone in her whole life.

We can find many similarities both in Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice. Both these novels had a happy ending. Jane Eyre suffered a lot in her life but at the end of the novel, she is united with Rochester. They get married and live happily ever after. We can see almost similar ending in Pride and Prejudice. Bennet sisters- Jane Bennet and Elizabeth Bennet- get married with rich grooms. Lydia was an exceptional one. She eloped with Wickham. Later they get married.

Elizabeth was the central female character of Pride and Prejudice. Similarly, Jane Eyre was the central character of the novel Jane Eyre. If we look at them carefully then we can see similarity between them. Both these characters cannot be considered as ideal heroines. There is very less description about their outlook appearance. As a heroine of the novel, they are not that much beautiful and attractive. However, both of them have strong personality. They did not want to sacrifice their independence and honor for silly things.

Both Jane and Elizabeth are romantic heroines. They esteem love and want to marry a person who will love them and respect them. They do not want to lead a married life lack of love. Jane Eyre did not agree to marry Rochester when she came to know that Rochester is married and his wife is still alive. But when Rochester lost everything, including his wife and eye sight, she came back to him and tried her best to take care him. Same thing can be said about Elizabeth. When she meets Darcy at the Marryton ball, she develops a kind of attitude towards him. After realizing that Darcy really loves her, she accepts Darcy’s proposal.

Jane Eyre is different from other novels in a sense that Charlotte Bronte not only depicted the condition of Victorian women but also tried to depict love and marriage from a woman’s point of view. Jane Eyre wants to love and wants to be loved without sacrificing and harming herself. Her fear of losing her independence motivates her refusal of Rochester’s marriage proposal. Jane believes that “marrying” Rochester while he remains legally tied to Bertha would mean rendering herself as a mistress and sacrificing her own integrity for the sake of emotional gratification.

Like Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre is also written by female writer. For this reason, condition of women gets much focus in these two novels. Love and marriage are two things which can beautifully portray women’s condition of the contemporary England. So, it can undoubtedly be said that love and marriage play the most vital role of these novels.

Unlike Jane Eyre, Great Expectations does not show happy marriage. At the end of the novel, Pip learns his lessons and reconciles with his friends and family members. But there is no hint of marriage between Pip and Estella. So, readers cannot come to know whether Pip and Estella get married or not. Love and marriage are shown more like part of the overall experience of growing up. None of the major characters of this novel had a happily married life except Joe and Biddy. However, in Jane Eyre, Jane is united with his lover Rochester and they get married and live happily ever after. In this novel, love and marriage are shown connected to each other. From this point of view, Great Expectations has similarity with Lord Jim. In Lord Jim, we do not see happy marriage. Jim, who is the title character of this novel, dreamt of becoming happy with Jewel, but in the end, it did not happen. Jim sacrifices his life and establishes the truth.

Both in Jane Eyre and Great Expectations, the central female characters Jane Eyre and Elizabeth Bennet mainly struggle to establish themselves as human beings in the society. In order to get love or being married with a rich groom, they did not sacrifice their individuality and self-respect. Elizabeth accepts Darcy’s proposal when she realizes that Darcy is no more an arrogant and proud person. Same thing can be said about Jane Eyre. She returns to Rochester after he loses everything, including his wife and eye sight. 

In the conclusion, it can be said that all these novels perfectly dealt with the themes of love and marriage. Writers showed both good and bad sides of these two themes. By going through these novels, one can come to know how love and marriage affects a person’s life. However, true love has been rewarded and fake love or love for specific purpose has also been discouraged. They have also discouraged people choosing their life partner whom they do not love or respect either. So, in the end, it can be said that to be happy in life we should lead a very simple life and try to be happy with our life partner. So, we can say that Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Great Expectations and Lord Jim are romantic novels. These novels are full of examples of love and marriage. Except Lord Jim, the main focus of other three novels was love and marriage.