Women’s Empowerment in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice

Abstract

Austen’s Pride and Prejudicetraces out the contemporary issues regarding the real condition of women of her time. The characters presented in the text are more or less of the similar nature and thought. Bannet's role is in fact typical in the sense that she has been made to represent the women of the time, who wanted to release themselves from the net of patriarchy but failed due to their inclination to marriage institution. The unconscious desire of every woman was that they had to marry for the security of the entire life. The very mind-set was created by the patriarchal structure of the society and its biased ideologies. In the beginning of the novel, Elizabeth is portrayed as a revolutionary character with wit and sensibility to argue in the social affairs but finally she does fall in the trap of marriage institution which is the space for men to exploit women. Despite the fact that Austen has made a number of efforts to empower her characters especially Elizabeth Bennet, she fails to do so. Her failure in empowering women is due to patriarchy and its deep-rooted ideologies.