On Jane Austen’s View of Marriage through Pride and Prejudice

韶关学院

毕业论文

题目：On Jane Austen’s View of Marriage through Pride and Prejudice

学生姓名：周丽娜

学号：0303111013

系（院）：外语学院

专业：英语教育

班级：2003级本（1）班

指导教师姓名及职称：蔡向凡（副教授）

起止时间：2006年11月—2007年4月

（教务处制表）

FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT

Shaoguan University

Declaration of Academic Integrity

I promise that the thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any institutes of higher learning and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published of written by another person, except when due reference is made in the text of the thesis.

I understand that to do so would mean that I had committed plagiarism, and that it is my responsibility to be aware of the University’s regulations on plagiarism and their importance.

Signed:

Date:

On Jane Austen’s View of Marriage through Pride and Prejudice

Abstract:The novel Pride and Prejudice which was written in 1813 is the masterpiece of the famous English novelist Jane Austen, and it is read widely all over the world. By describing several different marriages among young women of the middle class, the novel reveals that love is the foundation for a happy marriage, which should be based on a large amount of money. It is perfect for young women to enter marriage if they will get love and money at the same time. This is Austen’s original viewpoint and marital ideal.

Keywords: Jane Austen, love, property, marital viewpoint, marital ideal

从《傲慢与偏见》看简·奥斯丁的婚姻观

摘要：《傲慢与偏见》著于1813年，是英国著名小说家简·奥斯丁的代表作，被广泛阅读。书中通过对中产阶级妇女的几起截然不同的婚姻的描写，揭示了奥斯丁的婚姻观——爱情是幸福婚姻的基础，财富是婚姻幸福的保障。只有同时得到爱情与金钱的婚姻，才是美满的婚姻。这就是奥斯丁的婚姻观与她心目中的理想婚姻。

关键词：简·奥斯丁，爱情，财产，婚姻观，婚姻理想

Contents

1. Introduction (1)

2. About Jane Austen (1)

2.1 Life of Jane Austen (1)

2.2 About Pride and Prejudice (2)

2.2.1 Introduction of Pride and Prejudice...................................................... . (2)

2.2.2 The influences of Pride and Prejudice (3)

2.3 Other works of Jane Austen (3)

3. Analysis of Pride and Prejudice (4)

3.1 The Marriages Based on Property or Appearances (4)

3.1.1 The marriage of William Collins and Charlotte Lucas (5)

3.1.2 The marriage of George Wickham and Lydia Bennet (6)

3.2 The Marriages Based on Romantic Love and Understanding (7)

3.2.1 The marriage of Jane Bennet and Charles Bingley (7)

3.2.2 The marriage of Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy (8)

4. Austen’s Views of Marriage and Her Ideal Marriage (9)

4.1 Love is the foundation for a happy marriage (10)

4.2 Property is the guarantee of a happy marriage (11)

5. Conclusion (13)

References (14)

Acknowledgements (15)

1.Introduction

Love is the perpetual theme of art, so that there are countless works about love and so many writers are keen on love stories. They tried their best to create their own story, which can lead readers to get into different romantic world, to enjoy different feelings the characters bring to them.

Jane Austen, an English female novelist, had six works published. In her books, love and marriage is the theme. Among all the works, Pride and Prejudice is the most outstanding representative, in which Austen described several different marriages of the middle class women. Since marriage is the topic of the book, Austen had revealed her original marital viewpoint in it. In her idea love is the foundation of marriage, while property is the protection of happy marriage. She also described her marital ideal through her characters’marriage—the romantic marriage of Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy. So if readers can read the book attentively and thoroughly, they can understand Jane Austen much better.

2. About Jane Austen

2.1 Life of Jane Austen

Jane Austen was born in the village of Steventon, Hampshire in 1775. She was the seventh of eight children. Her father, George, had been a Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford and lately Rector of Steventon. Her mother, Cassandra, nee Leigh, came from an ancient family, linked to the Leighs of Stonehill. Jane and her sister, also Cassandra, were sent to school in Oxford and Southampton, before attending the Abbey School in Reading, and were encouraged to write from an early age. Jane started writing novels in 1790, at the age of only 14, while she was living in Steventon, although her first novel to be published, Sense and Sensibility, did not appear until 1811. 语法错误On her father's retirement, in 1801, the family moved to Bath. Jane's years at Bath were not happy. The family made acquaintances, but few friends. As was the custom, the sons of the family pursued careers (two of Jane's brothers joined the Navy), while the daughters stayed at home, awaiting marriage and involving themselves with

domestic affairs. A neighbour from their Hampshire days, Harris Bigg-Wither of Manydown Park (Wootton St. Lawrence) asked Jane to marry him in the winter of 1802. Though she initially accepted, a sleepless night saw the poor man turned down the following morning.

Some time after the death of Jane's father in 1805, the family left Bath to stay with Jane's brother, Frank, who was stationed at the Naval Dockyard, in Southampton.

Jane's brother, Edward, had been formally adopted by a rich and childless relative, which led to his elevation as a country gentleman. He also owned Chawton House, Hampshire and in 1809 offered a home to his mother and sisters on the estate there. The family settled happily and it was here that Jane was to enjoy the success of the publication of her first novel. Initially, the secret of their authorship was kept, the author being referred to only as "a lady", but later, her proud brother, Henry, let it be known and she became instantly famous.

Her last completed novel, Persuasion, was not published until after her death. By the time of its completion, she was seriously ill and not expected to live. During the last few weeks of her life, she lived in College Street, Winchester, to be close to her physician. She died in Cassandra's arms in Winchester at the age of 41（1817）. The family exercised the right, as members of a clergyman's family, that she should be buried in Winchester Cathedral.(Goldwin Smith,2004)

Today, the museum at Chawton is visited by Jane Austen admirers from across the Globe. There are many mementoes of her life on display.

2.2 About Pride and Prejudice

2.2.1 Introduction of Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice was first written in the late 1700's, then rewritten in 1811-1812 and finally published in early 1813. It is probably the most-read of all of Jane Austen's novels and is a popular favorite among people.

Pride and Prejudice, originally entitled First Impressions, deals with the misjudgments that often occur at the beginning of an acquaintance, and how those misjudgments can change as individuals learn more about each other.

How to get a husband, and preferably a rich one, is the central theme of the novel, and the development of the love story of Elizabeth and Darcy is the plot. Their love

story represented the title. Through the description of the characters’ daily life, Austen led readers to get into the 19th century with her own visual angle.

Jane Austen wrote many books in her lifetime and each has its own charms, all of which are classics. But no one would dispute that her most outstanding masterpiece is Pride and Prejudice. Its main characters are so lively that we can believe that what had been written in the book was the real life of that period.

2.2.2 The influences of Pride and Prejudice

Even today, some situations still exist in our modern society, such as the marital ideal is still the dream of a large amount of young women. Because the drive for a happy marriage is the perpetual pursuit of most people. In England, an agency has been investigated in 2004, in the eyes of the modern British women, top 1 of “the dream man for dating”is Mr. Darcy of Pride and Prejudice. In 2005, BBC Radio4 has made a research too, which is about the literature works which had made great effect on female’s world view (especially for the marital view). Pride and Prejudice is the top1.(Wu,2005) From these research we can say Pride and Prejudice have made great influences among people since it was published.

2.3 Other works of Jane Austen

Jane Austen, an English female novelist, who first gave the novel its modern character through the treatment of everyday life. She was good at describing the daily life of the country gentlemen and ladies. She was keen on the topic of love story and marriage. Her writing style is easy and effortless, and her works combine romantic comedy with social satire and psychological insight.(Brown,1985).Besides Pride and Prejudice we mentioned above, Jane Austen wrote the following five books in her lifetime.

Sense and Sensibility, published in 1811, it was the first of Jane Austen’s novels to appear in print. Also the book went around marriage The drive to marry for money is not central to the novel, but it is a strong undercurrent—in this novel it is a more powerful drive for the young men than for the young women.

Mansfield Park, published in 1814, is the most complex novel and deals with many different themes, from the education of children, to the differences between appearances and reality. In this book, a central part of the story is devoted to a project in amateur theatricals, in which Jane Austen brilliantly reveals the characters and relationships of the young people.

Emma, written in 1814-1815, was published in 1916. Someone thought that it has more critical votes than Mansfield Park as Jane Austen’s masterpiece. As a study of a single character and her interaction with the people of her country village, it has a striking unity of action and character development.

Persuasion was written in 1815-1816, while Jane Austen was suffering from her fatal illness. She still kept on working on some revisions at the time of her death in 1817. Persuasion is a novel of second chances, expectations of society, and the constancy of love.

Northanger Abbey, first accepted by a publisher in 1803, was eventually published posthumously in 1818. In it Austen weaves a romance full of suspense and comedy around the heroine Catherine Morland’s first foray into society. The style of the novel is a unique hybrid; along the way Austen parodies the eighteenth-century novel of manners, the Gothic novel, and even the educational treatises of the time.(Ruth Goode,1984:8-16)

3. Analysis of Pride and Prejudice

3.1 The Marriages Based on Property or Appearances

In Pride and Prejudice, Austen described several marriages. From their different endings, we can find out Austen’s martial viewpoints and martial ideals.

3.1.1 The marriage of William Collins and Charlotte Lucas

Among all the young women of the novel, Charlotte Lucas was the first one to get married. Her husband was the cousin of Elizabeth Bennet—William Collins, whose

character was “altogether a mixture of pride and obsequiousness, self-importance and humility.”(Austen,2001:79)

Their marriage was just protection of latter part of Charlotte’s life. She accepted him “solely from the pure and disinterested desire of an establishment.”(Austen,2001:140) All she wants was a comfortable home. As for William Collins, the reasons for marrying are: first, “a single man in possession of a good fo rtune must be in want of a wife.”(Austen,2001:3) This is the truth universally acknowledged. He deservedly should comply with it. Second, he thought it is a right thing to set the example for matrimony in his parish. Third, he got advice and recommendation from his patroness.

From all the reasons above, we can realize that love never exists between this couple. Charlotte was Elizabeth’s closest friend. She was a sensible, intelligent young woman. She knew it clearly that she was at the age of twenty-seven, without having ever been handsome. She also knew it very clearly that “Mr. Collins, to be sure, was neither sensible nor agreeable; his society was irksome, and his attachment to her must be imaginary. But still he would be her husband. Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honorable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasant preservative from want.”(Austen,2001:141) Such humorous and piercing description tell readers that in Austen’s time, many Lucas-like women had no other way to improve their social position except to marry a husband with a good fortune.(Huan,2002:30)

And how could a marriage based on sole and naked money-transaction to go forward? The author gave us answers in the following chapter when Elizabeth went to visit Charlotte after they got married.

In Parsonage, Charlotte enjoyed everything her marriage bringing to her, but her husband—Mr. Collins had nothing to do with it. He just would say something his wife might reasonably be ashamed, in such situation, Mrs. Collins wisely did not hear.表述不清楚。And Elizabeth also found that “When Mr. Collins could be forgotten, there was really a great air of comfort throughout, and by Charlotte’s evident enjoyment of it, Elizabeth supposed he must be often forgotten.”(Austen,2001:182)

Through those descriptions of Mr. Collins and Charlotte’s marriage, we may say, in some way, it is a piercing irony to the “truth universally acknowledged”at the beginning of the book.

3.1.2 The marriage of George Wickham and Lydia Bennet

The marriage of George Wickham and Lydia Bennet could be taken as another example to illustrate that a marriage lack of love would not be a happy one.

George Wickham, can be considered the villain of this book. From Wickham’s appearance, we can know that he was very handsome and charming, like a real gentleman, but as the development of the novel, his true colors came to light. Actually he was so depraved; he was extravagant and always in debts for gambling. He was good at speaking honeyed words, with his gentlemanlike appearance. He got attentions of many young ladies, even our intelligent lady Elizabeth, had had admiration to him.

Lydia Bennet was a stout, well-grown girl. Because of the favor with her mother, she had been brought into public at an early age. She had high animal spirits, and a sort of natural self-consequence. For Lydia, her biggest interest was to take part in ball, which would invite many young officers, and in those occasions, her easy manners help her get the favor of the officers.

The marriage of Wickham and Lydia was an exaggerated comedy. Because of the superficial love, Lydia ran away with Wickham, without thinking about the influences to act on her families. In the end, Wickham agreed to marry her, in order to receive financial help from Mr. Darcy. After their marriage, because of extravagant life, they went into a difficult position. Wickham’s affection for Lydia soon sunk into indifference.

There marriage was a bargain for Wickham, an impulse for Lydia. In Austen’s opinion,their marriage was also a breach of duty for their family. Because of her impulse and giddy attitude, Lydia had to taste her own bitter consequence. Soon after their marriage, their love had gone, Wickham always went to enjoy himself, and because of their extravagant behavior, Lydia had to learn to tolerate poverty. Naturally, the shameless couple were willing to ask help from their rich sisters, and brought troubles to their family. We can get a lesson from this kind of marriage. that a marriage is not just the business of the couple, it would also affect our family and society.

3.2 The Marriages Based on Romantic Love and Understanding

Jane Bennet and Elizabeth Bennet can be considered the happiest girls in the book. They are beautiful, kind and intelligent. They can marry their beloved men, and live a happy life in the end.

3.2.1 The marriage of Jane Bennet and Charles Bingley

Jane and Mr. Bingley are the only couple falling in love at their first sight. In the assembly, Mr. Bingley believed that “She is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld!”(Austen,2001:12) After the meeting, Jane expressed to Elizabeth how much she admired him “He is just what a young man ought to be, sensible, good humoured, lively; and I never saw such happy manners! —so much ease, with such perfect good breeding!”(Austen,2001:15)

In the following days, their favorable emotions deepened with acquaintances. They agreed in tastes and temperament. Mr. Bingley almost intended to propose to Jane. But a disjunctive change happened. His best friend—Mr. Darcy thought that this is the scheme of the Bennet family, and he did not agree Jane had special sensibilities to Mr. Bingley. Mr. Darcy indicated his viewpoint to his friend. His poor friend believed that, and then he left Netherfield, departed from Jane.

Their separation made Jane sink into suffering. The root of the separation is Mr. Bingley’s lack of definite view, his irresolute and hesitant personality. He did not have enough confidence in himself, he was not sure about whether Jane loved him or not. And Jane was very reserved, although she admired and loved him, she didn’t show it unequivocal. So the misunderstanding appeared. But fortunately, finally the misunderstanding was cleared up, and they knew they loved each other. Mr. Bingley came back for Jane, and proposed to her.

Their marriage was not thoughtlessly as Lydia and Wickham’s They built up their marriage on love and understanding. This marriage tells readers that love can overtop everything. Although they had misunderstood each other, Mr. Bingley had hesitated to

be relative of the Bennet family All these problems became nothing when they knew love was between them. So they got married. Because of their excellent understanding and the general similarity of feeling and taste, they lived a happy life. So we can say love and understanding is the foundation of their marriage At the same time, Mr. Bingley’s property made the effect of adding flowers to the brocade. This is the happy marriage Austen would agree.

3.2.2 The marriage of Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy

The marriage of Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy is the major one Austen described. The title Pride and Prejudice was set for them. Pride represented Mr. Darcy’s natural character, while Prejudice represented Elizabeth’s attitude of mind for Mr. Darcy. From these two words, we can imagine they would not fall in love with each other like Jane and Mr. Bingley, more than that, they did n’t have good feelings when they first met.

They knew each other in the assembly. When he walked into the assembly room, “Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien......till......he was discovered to be proud, to be above his company, and above being pleased”(Austen,2001:11)At that night, Mr. Darcy rejected to dance with Elizabeth proudly, his proud manner brought about Elizabeth’s prejudice.

Elizabeth’s prejudice became stronger in the following days, not only by Mr. Darcy’s manners, but also by Wickham’s shameless slander. But on the other side, Mr. Darcy could not help holding good feelings on Elizabeth. He had at first scarcely allowed her to be pretty, but “he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes...he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and pleasing; and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those of the fashionable world, he was caught by their easy playfulness.”(Austen,2001:26)With the growing attention, he can’t control his admiration and love, so after his struggle, he decided to make an offer of marriage to Elizabeth. “He spoke well, but there were feelings besides those of the heart to be detailed, and he was not more eloquent on the subject of tenderness than of pride.”(Austen,2001:217) In our proud Mr. Darcy’s mind,

he hadn’t imagine that Elizabeth would reject his offer in such stern words, “From the very beginning, from the first moment I may almost say, of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance , your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form that groundwork of disapprobation...”(Austen,2001:222)

Mr. Darcy realized his fault through this failure, and tried hardly to correct his proud manners. He also helped a lot in Lydia’s elopement events. All the changes were kept an eye on by Elizabeth, while the true colors of Wickham came to light, her prejudice and misunderstanding was removed. She felt in love with Mr. Darcy, and accepted his second offer of marriage.

In the end of the novel, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy led a comfort and elegant family life in Pemberley. Their marriage set another example for perfect marriage, also it is Austen’s ideal marriage.

4. Austen’s Views of Marriage and Her Ideal Marriage

From the four different marriages above, we can catch some ideas about Austen’s marital viewpoint and her marital ideal.

As we all know, Austen was unmarried all her life, but it didn’t mean she had no chance to be in love or get married. She had been in love with two young men when she was young, but none of them could go to a good ending. When she was twenty-seven years old, a man with great fortune asked her to marry him Austen agreed, but after a sleepless night, she regretted. When she was thirty-three, she almost agreed to marry a clergyman who was in middle age, but at the end, it was settled by leaving unsettled. All these experiences brought her special marital viewpoint (at least it did not humor perfectly to the society she lived in).

In short, Austen’s viewpoints are: love is the foundation for a happy marriage, which should be based on great fortune. Although property is the guarantee of happy marriage, a marriage lack of love is unaccepted. Austen did not agree to marry for

money, although in her mind, it is perfect for young women to marry, while they can get love and fortune at the same time.

4.1 Love is the foundation for a happy marriage

From the four different marriages, we can know that a marriage lack of love will not be happy, such as the marriage of Charlotte Lucas and Mr. Collins Charlotte just enjoyed her comfortable house and her beautiful garden She would not hear what he had said when he made her feel embarrassed, and she always liked to forget Mr. Collins to make herself more comfortable. In my opinion, Charlotte’s marriage was formed just by herself There was no room for Mr. Collins—a man in the name of her husband, they are not the real couple They are two individual persons living in the same house. What’s the reason of this situation? It is clear that their marriage was not built up on love They married for duty (Mr. Collins), for consideration of life guarantee. Their purposes decided the future of their marriage.

Another counterexample was the marriage of Lydia and Wickham. Wickham always wanted to benefit from marriage, so he had enticed Miss Darcy; and turned from Elizabeth to Miss King while he knew Miss King could take much more heritage than Elizabeth. Finally, he married Lydia But if Mr. Darcy hadn’t promised to pay his debts and give him a job, would he marry her? Of course not! So in the end, when their affection became indifferent, the immoral couple enjoyed themselves individually.

The luckiest women in the novel, Jane and Elizabeth, were totally different from their younger sister They met the right men, felt in love with them, and founded happy families with them. Though Mr. Bingley had mistaken Jane didn’t have different affection with him, Elizabeth had hated Mr. Darcy because he had been conceited and arrogant, they could improve themselves, remove misunderstanding, get rid of other difficulties, and then enter marriage with their beloved. Their marriages were so romantic that can be taken for the marital ideal, not only for Austen, but also for most young women across the world since the novel had been published.

4.2 Property is the guarantee of a happy marriage

Pride and Prejudice is considered as a romantic love story, but we also can find some realistic views in it. Marriage is the theme of this book, while money is the unavoidable topic. The story took place in the time of the Regency in Britain. At that time, Britain was at the period of transition from the earlier stage of capitalism to Capitalist Industrialization. In the countryside, the aristocratic family still held great power and right that country squires were likely to fawn upon them. However, as the development of Capitalism and the expand of the rank of rich people, the distinction between social strata was becoming smaller and smaller, while money was getting more and more important in people’s mind about social value. A western literature critic once said that “even David Ricardo (a British economist) had a unlikely clearer understanding about the function of money in daily life as Jane Austen had.”(Zhu,1985:178) It is exactly because of the secure pledge in finance that the country squire society could be existing strongly and solidly.

The beginning of the novel is “a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”(Austen,2001:3) Maybe readers should understand this sentence in the way of “a single woman with small fortune must be in want of a husband with great fortune.” The key words are “fortune” and “in want of”They mean that in Austen’s society, for the middle-class young women, who were well-educated, with small fortune, there were no other ways for them to improve their financial position but only to marry a man with a great amount of money. There are many examples to support this idea:

The marriages I had mentioned are the typical ones for this truth. Charlotte chose Mr. Collins to be her husband, because he can provide comfortable home. The business of Mrs. Bennet’s li fe was to get her daughters married, because each of her daughters can only get one thousand pounds when their father leaves. It means that there will be no other guarantee for their daughters’ future lives, but their perspective marriages. Therefore, ther e is no wonder that Mrs. Bennet will take Mr. Bingley as “the rightful property of some or other of their daughters”(Austen,2001:3) though they know little about his personality, she has not even seen him.(Jiang,2005:7)

In the novel, we can find the characters often mentioned about one’s property, such as “a single man of large fortune, four or five thousand a year”(Austen,2001:4), “the report which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year”(Austen,2001:11). In this novel, people will judge others not

only by their personal characters but also by their financial position, and also they will judge different marriages whether they are perfect or not by how large the property the couples own are. There are many evidences can prove this idea:

When Lydia eloped with Wickham, the Bennets had been generally proved to be marked out for misfortune; but when all the neighbors in Meryton got the news that Jane will marry Mr. Bingley—a handsome man with great property, the Bennets were speedily pronounced to be the luckiest family in the world. When Elizabeth told her mother the surprise that she had accepted Mr. Darcy’s offer of marriage, Mrs. Bennet was too shocked to say one word at first, and after she began to recover, the disagreeable person—Mr. Darcy, became a charming, handsome man in her eyes. She could think of nothing else, but ten thousand a year Others became nothing at all. Even Elizabeth, our intelligent, strong-minded leading character, though she had refused to marry for money twice, can not avoid the influence of money completely. After she had rejected the proposal, she went to visit Pemberley. When she was walking in the rooms of Pemberley, she could not help thinking that “And of this place, I might have been mistress! With these rooms I might now have been familiarly acquainted! Instead of viewing them as stranger, I might have rejoiced in them as my own, and welcomed to them as visitors my uncle and aunt...”(Austen,2001:280)

From all above, we can understand the author wanted to tell us how great the influence of money is It can work upon people’s life, people’s fate, and people’s marriages. To lead a happy life, we can not be short of money. It is as the same as for marriage. In Austen’s opinion, it is wrong and unacceptable to marry for social position or fortune, but it is hardly for people to get rid of the effect of those factors. So her marital viewpoints are: love is the foundation for a happy marriage, which should be based on a large amount of money. It is perfect for young women to enter marriage if they will get love and money at the same time.(Ma,2006:3)

Look back to Austen’s life, as we all know, she falls in love with young men, and almost marry for guarantee of her future life (like Lucas) It is a great regret that such an intelligent, graceful woman can not get a perfect marriage. Because of her own regret, Austen gave the best ending to Elizabeth and Jane (especially for Elizabeth).(Bai,Tang,2002:2) Their marriages were based on romantic love They had

excellent understandings, general similarity of feeling and taste with their mates, and certainly they can own love and fortune at the same time. This kind of marriage is the ideal marriage of Jane Austen.

Conclusion

There are many novels written about the theme of marriage in the world, but scarcely can another author be like Jane Austen, exposing the marriage from “sense and sensibility”so deeply. In Pride and Prejudice, her most outstanding masterpiece, Austen described several different marriages, those marriages reveal her marital viewpoint and marital ideal, and give an announcement to everyone. No wander that David Dax, a western Marxism had said, “in the aspect of exposing the economics of human beings’behavior, Jane Austen, to some extent, had been a Marxism before Marx’s being born.”(Watt Ian,1963:11) Austen was unmarried all her life, she had struggled between “sense”and “sensibility”, at the end, she stood on the side of “sensibility”, refused to marry for money (like Elizabeth). It is so regret that she can not find her Mr. Right during her life.

(Word count total: 4633)

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Acknowledgements

First of all, I am deeply indebted to my supervisor, Ms. Cai Xiangfan, who led me into the field of academic research and roused my interest in it. Without her enlightening instruction, stimulating comments, patient encouragement, and insightful guidance through the process of my writing, this thesis should never have come into the present version.

I would like to give my special thanks to her.

Needless to say, all the remaining errors are my own responsibilities.

论文结构基本完整，思路比较清晰，格式基本正确，在初稿的基础上做了一定的修改。但还存在几个问题：

1）文章目录部分的格式、字体、大小写等还不是很规范，请参考我的修改提示和毕业论文模版，仔细修改。

2）结尾部分需要修改，具体修改意见已经在文章中提出，请斟酌。3）参考文献的书写格式还有些问题，请参考毕业论文模版。

4）论文中存在不少语法问题。望作者完成写作后反复通读全文，或和同学交叉阅读，互相发现问题，及时改正。

蔡向凡

2007年5月5日