Critique of Masculine Romanticism in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

Abstract

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is about Elizabeth’s relationship with the aristocratic male William Darcy. It is principally concerned with courtship rituals of the English gentry. It refers to the late eighteenth century social convention of the genteel society that relied heavily on the exaggerated expression of emotion, highly genderized mannerism of sensibility that came from the supposed delicacy of women that related to the female’s nervous system. Austen was quite discontent with the society she lived in because it was biased towards women. She was preoccupied with the social norms and values and the vision of the Eighteenth century rationality. So Pride and Prejudice is Jane Austen’s expression of the consciousness of women. She attempts to awaken females regarding their genuine condition with her social experience in male-governed society. Austen criticizes masculine Romanticism and asserts feminine Romanticism as an alternative version that believes on relational self.