Society and Culture in Pride and Prejudice and Great Expectations

Pride and Prejudice and Great Expectations are considered as classic novels in English literature. Though main themes of these two novels are love and marriage, society and culture of that time were also beautifully portrayed in them. In these two novels, we also can see the issues of dignity of human beings in the society, and among the different social classes and culture of people.

Pride and Prejudice was written during Romantic Age and Jane Austen belonged to that age, but still we cannot find much of similarity between Austen’s works and that of other contemporary Romantic writers including William Wordsworth, Coleridge or Shelley and Keats. One of the reasons behind this is that Jane Austen did not travel that much, so she was not exposed to the other world as much as other Romantic Age writers. Naturally, her knowledge of outer world did not develop to the extent she could write on issues other than those she found in her limited social boundaries. So, she did not find enough of opportunities to associate with many people. She just portrays in her works what she has experienced in her society. 

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The society that we can see in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is the society of middle class people of contemporary England. Here, interestingly the main theme is women’s condition in the society. The story revolves around the condition of five Bennet sisters and they are at the center of all attention in this novel. Bingley’s family is rich but Darcy is the richest among them. Jane Austen has beautifully portrayed the middle class ethos of the society. She shows that how the entire society of middle class people is engrossed in the idea of getting their girls married to good grooms. This very common trait of contemporary middle class England was aptly captured in this novel. Readers can clearly observe the tension of Mrs. Bennet about the marriage of her five daughters. She wants her daughters to get married as early as possible because the entire property of her husband, Mr. Bennet, will go under the possession of a distant relative named Mr. Collins upon the death of Mr. Bennet. A highly discriminating inheritance system of contemporary England did not allow daughters to inherit any wealth or property from their father. This leads Mrs. Bennet to become tensed with the marriage of her daughters. No doubt, this was really an injustice to the women of that time.

When it comes to culture, Jane Austen has clearly shown that not everyone’s culture is good in that society. Mrs. Bennet is the wife of an educated middle class family, still her culture is not up to the mark and lack of education is perhaps the reason. Mrs. Bennet is not that much educated, though Mr. Bennet is highly educated. It is true that education does not always ensure elevated culture as we can later on see in two sisters of Bingley. Though they are moderately educated, they do not possess good culture and they have developed jealousy in their nature. Their elevated place in the society and higher status do not come to of any use due to their lack of good culture. The same thing goes with Darcy’s relative Lady Fitzwilliam. Despite being highly rich, she possesses a culture of low quality and the harshly manner with which she insults Elizabeth cannot be expected from someone of such dignity.

On the other hand, Great Expectations is written and set in the Victorian era. Like many of Dickens’ novels, it also portrays the lives of poor, lower class people as well as their plight and struggles. Pip comes from poor background and luckily comes to the attention of Miss Havisham. He loves Estella from the bottom of his heart, but she mocks at his being poor and rejects his love. Though Pip’s deep love for Estella recurrently comes in the forefront of the novel, the main focus of this novel is put on the social system of Victorian Age. It was a period when the society was going through several changes and formation with the old fading and the new emerging. A new emerging society put several challenges for the people. Rural people were flocking into the cities with the hope of getting work and the structure of both the rural and urban society was going though a huge change. Though Pip gets some money through the imprisoned criminal, he does not get respect upon coming to the city. Neither does he get Estella’s love, nor is he treated with dignity by his city friends.

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Pip develops a kind of arrogance in his character after coming to the city and he begins to feel inferiority complex due to the social background he belongs to. So, in the beginning, he neglects Joe which eventually turns into hatred. It is really frustrating because when Pip sinks into huge debt and faces imprisonment, it is Joe who stands beside him and saves him from going to jail by paying off his debts with all his savings. So, we can see that there existed a kind of instability in the contemporary society which Charles Dickens delicately portrays.

About culture, what we can learn from Great Expectations is that there is no certainty that people with good fortune or high education would possess elevated culture. People may have huge wealth or are highly educated, but still they could have culture of low quality. Rich people may have better means or standard of living, may enjoy abundant of food, may have good taste for attire, but when it comes to personality or mannerism they often lag behind those coming from the middle class or poor background. For example, the kind of culture Joe exhibits is unmatched to Dickens’ any other characters in the novel. Though Pip makes many mistakes, commits several wrongdoings, he still has the power to correct himself and the will to get changed which is definitely a praiseworthy quality. This is also an essential part of good culture. On the other hand, Estella or Miss Havisham gets spoilt with Pip’s money and they have no intention to change themselves. However, Estella towards the end realizes her past mistakes and attempts to correct herself by finding the true meaning of life, but the reality is that we find most of the characters of Great Expectations lacking elevated culture. Their sense of good culture is limited to maintaining a good standard of life by enjoying good food, good living condition and having good quality of attire. Dickens though this novel criticizes the contemporary society which is mostly devoid of qualities like good personality, mental will to become good and some other moral qualities and he proves that these are all essential elements of a good and elevated culture.

In their novels Jane Austen and Charles Dickens attempt to prove and justify that culture should not be limited to having good fortune or higher education. The contemporary society of England was not an ideal place for good, honest and cultured people. In fact, those wanted to follow the path of honesty and goodness failed miserably and became the victim of harsh reality in a society which itself was corrupt and lifeless. People did not have right attitude towards life and often they used to act abnormally. That is what we see in Pride and Prejudice where many people dislike Elizabeth despite her honest and elevated personality. In terms of quality, there can be no comparison between Elizabeth and the two sisters of Bingley, but what we see in reality is that both the sisters do not let go even the slightest of opportunity to poke fun at Elizabeth just because of their financial power. On the other hand, in Dickens’ novel Great Expectations, Pip upon realizing his mistakes tries to correct himself, but still he does not get the due respect from the society. The reason is same: his poverty-stricken background.

Both Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, through the characters of Elizabeth and Joe, attempt to say that a person’s dignity in the society should be measured by his or her personality and characteristics, not by wealth.