A Critical Essay on Pride and Prejudice

Tony Tanner is writing about the terms of Charlotte Bronte’s criticism on Pride and Prejudice in “Knowledge and Opinion: Pride and Prejudice”. As sited in his article, Bronte states, “I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen in their elegant but confined houses” (103). Tanner wants to reconsider the reasons the appeal of the novel was so popular and what relevance, if any, it can still have for people living in very different social conditions. Also, he wants to show different ways to look at the novel to see why Bronte despised it and to find the novels relevance to us.
By adding Wickham in the novel, as a solider staying home, Austen showed that contemporary history does touch the periphery of this novel. Austen also added in money and courtship to her novel, as suggested by Tanner, to show potential problems that can occur in that social stature at that time period. Both focus towards the goal of achieving a satisfactory marriage. Marriage is...