Topic Three: Pride and Prejudice

                    English 110 / MA2  — Approaches to Literature

Value :                                                                                                                                    20 %

Write a 1000 word paper on one of the topics listed below.  The paper should contain a single, central thesis and argument.  Make frequent and specific reference to evidence from the text. Do not fall into the trap of using low-quality on-line sources. Nonetheless, if you do decide to use low-quality on-line sources of any kind, you are required to provide accurate citations for those sources.  Any citations should conform to MLA formatting. Please provide a list of works cited in MLA form. In general, do not use the “five-paragraph” model, which is suitable only for high-school writing.

Topic One:  Into the Wild

“If you don’t bet your ass, you ain’t bettin’ at all.” To put the same thing in more formal language, the Chris McCandless Philosophy of Risk-taking is that extreme risk-taking is only meaningful when (1) failure means death, and (2) a successful outcome is not assured. Jon Krakauer, the author of Into the Wild, implies that in a very young man who knows the risks he is taking, this attitude is entitled to some respect, even if (1) the consequences are tragic, and, (2) the young man is “arrogant”. Is Krakauer right or wrong?

Topic Two:  Romeo and Juliet

Write a paper in which you undertake a detailed analysis of one of the three following patterns of imagery in Romeo and Juliet: (a) “earth”; (b) Juliet as the bride of death/Juliet’s grave as her wedding bed; or, (c) light and dark. Be sure to explain the significance of the imagery and to use your evidence to make an interpretive or analytical argument.

Topic Three:  Pride and Prejudice

The context.  In Pride and Prejudice, Charlotte Lucas is Elizabeth Bennet’s closest friend. Despite her intelligence, Charlotte marries Mr. Collins, who is “a conceited, pompous, narrow-minded, silly man” (105). Even before marrying Collins, Charlotte knows that she can never love, like, or admire him, and that she can just barely tolerate his company. Charlotte’s motivations in marrying Collins are not emotional; instead, they are exclusively economic or financial. Charlotte’s only goal in marrying Collins is to avoid life-long spinsterhood and the poverty that she would have to endure after her father’s death. Elizabeth Bennet believes that in agreeing to marry Collins, Charlotte has “sacrificed every better feeling to worldly advantage” (96, emphasis supplied). Elizabeth also believes that if Charlotte were capable of having any “regard” for Collins, Elizabeth would “only think worse of [Charlotte’s] understanding, than [she] does now of [Charlotte’s] heart” (105, emphasis supplied). In short, Elizabeth believes that since Charlotte’s decision to marry Collins is motivated exclusively by economic and social pressure, and is not motivated by affection or respect, then Charlotte’s decision is morally wrong.

In his article “Irony as Discrimination: Pride and Prejudice”, Marvin Mudrick implies that Elizabeth is misguided in condemning the morality of Charlotte’s marrying Mr. Collins. Mudrick writes that Elizabeth “underestimates the strength of the [economic and social] pressures acting upon [Charlotte]” (108 – 09). Mudrick adds: “[Elizabeth’s] pride is in her freedom … to choose; her continual mistake is to forget that, even [for herself, marriage is the only area in which a woman has a choice,] and that this choice is subject to all the powerful and numbing pressures of an acquisitive society.” (123).

The question: Is Marvin Mudrick (1) right, or (2) wrong in his assessment that Elizabeth Bennet forgets the power of economic and social pressure “in an acquisitive society” when she condemns as morally-wrong Charlotte’s decision to marry Mr. Collins? Who is right: Mudrick or Elizabeth?

Outline of the central thrust of the chapter titled “Irony and Discrimination: Pride and Prejudice” from Jane Austen: Irony and Defense and Discovery by Marvin Mudrick (1952). (pp. 94 – 126).

OUTLINE

According to Marvin Mudrick, the central subject of Pride and Prejudice is marriage and courtship “in an acquisitive society” (107). When Mudrick speaks of an “acquisitive society”, he means a society that is based primarily on market or economic principles, and in which economic considerations often shape decisions about marriage. Mudrick suggests that initially Elizabeth is not fully aware of, or fails to take account of, the social and economic pressures to which women and men in an “acquisitive society” are subject in choosing their husbands or wives: Elizabeth “likes to believe” (1) that an intelligent woman or man who has a “complex” personality should be able to exercise “free will” in deciding who he or she should or should not marry, and, (2) that anyone who allows him or herself to be swayed by social or economic pressure in deciding who to marry is weak, unintelligent, or a moral failure (109).

Accordingly, Elizabeth (says Mudrick) “underestimates the strength of the pressures acting upon [Charlotte Lucas, when Charlotte decides to marry Mr. Collins]” (108). At the beginning of the conclusion of the chapter, at page 123, Mudrick writes: “[Elizabeth’s] pride is in her freedom … to choose: her continual mistake is to forget that even for her[self], there is only one area of choice [for a woman, i.e., marriage], that this choice [of who a woman will marry] is subject to all the powerful and numbing pressures of an acquisitive society.”

(Nonetheless, you should read most of the article, with particular attention to the following portions: pp. 108 – 109; pp. 115 – 116; pp. 123 – 124.)