An Analysis of Satire in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Satire has been predominant in literature for a very long time, since the Ancients first began composing their epics, although men have largely been in control of it. When female writers began to use any form of satire, men would turn it against them and destroy their careers. Even so, some women covertly fought against this patriarchal system, including the author of Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen. Austen worked around the system by coating her satirical, feminist work with a layer of submissiveness. Through use of the character Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen is able to mock the patriarchal society the world lives in without attracting undue attention. From the very start of the novel, Mrs. Bennet seems to be the perfect example of the emotion-driven, mindless woman that a patriarchal society expects. However, it is through her behavior that Austen shows just how nonsensical these stereotypes are. On page 5, Mrs. Bennet says to her husband, “Ah! You do not know what I suffer,” even though she lives the normal pampered life of a wife of the time. She says this not only because of the emotional turmoil traveling through the house at the time – she wishes desperately for her daughters to marry – but also because she is recognizing the oppression that the phallocentric community has placed upon women. Austen didn’t have Mrs. Bennet say this outright because she wanted to avoid ridicule from male writers, so she clothed it in a context that shifts the sympathy to Mr. Bennet on the first reading.

Only when Mr. Bennet’s roughened attitude towards his wife and daughters reveals itself upon rereading does this sub-context become apparent. Later in the novel, Mrs. Bennet makes herself seem ignorant of the workings of the world to her husband, and hence to the reader, by saying, “I do think it is the hardest thing in the world, that your estate be entailed away from your own children; and I am sure if I had been you, I should have tried long ago to do something or other about it”. Mrs. Bennet is pointing out the fact that Mr. Bennet’s estate goes to whomever his daughters marry rather than directly to his daughters, due to the law of the time that only men could own land. Additionally, she is complaining about how little control women have of their lives in this community. Women cannot own their own place to live, women cannot receive their inheritance without their husband, women cannot speak their minds directly without being ridiculed by men. All of these are hidden beneath the surface idea of Mrs. Bennet wanting Mr. Bennet to find a way to give his daughters his estate against social tradition. At the same time, Mr. Bennet cannot see how disproportionate the system in his society is, and sees his wife as spontaneous and irrational, a view that the reader would share on first reading. Jane Austen is able to share these ideas with a cover of silliness and ignorance in Mrs. Bennet. Austen also brings up the idea of rational thought in order to mock patriarchal society. When Jane and Elizabeth try to explain the process of an entail to their mother, Mrs. Bennet stubbornly refuses to understand the concept. “Jane and Elizabeth attempted to explain to her the nature of an entail. They had often attempted it before, but it was a subject on which Mrs. Bennet was beyond the reach of reason”.

An entail in this context is the passing of an estate down to the next male heir. In a patriarchal society, it seems a perfectly logical, rational system, as everything is to the benefit of and under the control of men. However, Mrs. Bennet simply refuses to understand it. On the surface, this goes along with the stereotype that a woman’s mind thinks irrationally and follows no logical thought. However, when delved into a little deeper, the true depth of Mrs. Bennet’s understanding can be questioned. She may truly not understand the concept, but it is more likely that she is just refusing to accept the system for what it is. To her, a system that gives one gender all of the benefits and leaves the other at the mercy of the former is not a rational system, so therefore she questions it. On the other hand, if she were in Mr. Bennet’s position of supremacy, she would be too nearsighted and concerned with self-preservation to question the overall fairness of the system, which is exactly what Mr. Bennet does. Mrs. Bennet recognizes this, which is why she poses all of her questions to him. She is trying to force Mr. Bennet to realize that every situation is a win-lose situation, where the male wins and the female loses, a message that Austen is also sharing with the reader about patriarchal societies. Mrs. Bennet’s need to marry off her daughters also serves to mock the patriarchal system present in the novel. Earlier in the novel, the idea that the Bennet daughters would become destitute if their father died before they married became ingrained in Mrs. Bennet’s head.

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As a result, Mrs. Bennet developed an obsession with marrying her daughters to men that are sure to have some form of social status. However, her daughters have a different idea of marriage; Elizabeth in particular is mentioned. “Had Elizabeth’s opinion been all drawn from her own family, she could not have formed a very pleasing picture of conjugal felicity or domestic comfort,” and henceforth places the blame for this on Mrs. Bennet’s “weak understanding and illiberal mind”. Elizabeth and the other daughters had the idea that marriage would be a very romantic event, being instigated by true love. Mrs. Bennet, recognizing that her society does not work in that fashion, pushes her daughters toward more frugal choices. According to Elizabeth, she could not form an image of a happy life with any of her mother’s choices, and blames that on her mother’s “illiberal mind.” This is another reflection on the stereotype that women think irrationally. In this case, Mrs. Bennet is the one that has the right idea. She has a firm grasp of what society expects from women and from men, and looks to take advantage of that system. This situation is almost ironic, as a woman is utilizing a patriarchal system to better her daughter’s life. Through this twist, Austen makes use of marriage to mock the patriarchal system. Satire can be very subtle when an author uses it right, and Jane Austen certainly achieved that in Pride and Prejudice. Through the various quirks of Mrs. Bennet, Austen was able to mock the patriarchal system, and thereby promote the ideals of feminism. Mrs. Bennet’s silliness and ignorance, irrational thought, and determination to marry her daughters create a perfect model of a woman from a patriarchy, while at the same time scorn those same qualities. If one is looking for a model of a woman with two different stories happening at the same time, the character Mrs. Bennet is prime for the picking, for she is a professional at being a submissive activist.

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