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 a way society secures its own continuity and minimizes the possibility of anything approaching violent charge. Tanner also suggests that readers, at first, would see this novel’s title as Dignity and Perception, and Austen has the readers learn to see the proper title Pride and Prejudice, because her book is most importantly about prejudging and rejudging. Tanner suggests that a very important part of the book is how it touches on some aspects of the whole problem of knowledge. Tanner then brings in John Locke’s view of knowledge. According to Locke, it is “worth while to search out the bounds between opinion and knowledge; and examine by what measures, in things where of we have no certain knowledge, we out to regulate our assent and moderate our persuasion” (106). He uses Locke’s view to help support his belief of the importance of knowledge.
Tanner puts an emphasis on the first impressions in Austen’s novel. Elizabeth’s lively
mind allows her to the quality of registering consciousness to affect the intensity of the registered impressions. She is capable both of complex impressions and of complex ideas. This liveliness is also one of the qualities which wins Darcy to her. According to Tanner, without experience there’s no reason and without impressions there’s no experience. This suggests the particular importance of first impressions, because, although they may need consecutive correction, complements, and so on, they constitute the beginning of experience. However, Tanner explains that opinions are constantly changing as people’s behavior appears in a different light. Elizabeth most importantly comes “to wish that her former opinions had been more reasonable, her expressions more moderate” (111-112). The passages in Austen’s novel, according to Tanner, describing her changing reaction to Darcy’s letter are among the most important in the book.

The first half of Pride and Prejudice, according to Tanner, has been a dramatic performance, but in the second half a mixture of narrative, summary, and scene carries the plot towards the conclusion. As he says, “this reveals that Austen felt able to take advantage both of scenic representation and of authorial omniscience using third-person narrative” (121). But there is another interesting aspect of the combination of the dramatic and the epistolary, particularly bearing in mind that the word performance fades after Elizabeth receives Darcy’s letter. If the human being is to be fully human, then to the energy of performance must be added the wisdom of reflection. Tanner suggests that Austen believed in the value of social rituals such as balls, dinners, and evening entertainments. Within these social rituals, people meet for the first time, and first impressions happen.

The characters in the novel have a major influence on the ideas presented by Austen. Tanner begins to evaluate each character and explaining why they help support Austen’s ideas. Mr. Bennet ignores his fatherly role by always taking refuge in his library, and Mrs. Bennet looses herself in her performance. These gestures show disengagement from the necessary rituals of family and society. The two extremes in the novel are Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Mary Bennet. They both find themselves superior to people who they also see as being useless. Lady Catherine thinks this because of her social stature, and Mary Bennet thinks this because of her intellectual superiority. Darcy changes from being just like Lady Catherine to being in harmony with his reflecting self at the end of the novel. Jane Bennet is incapable of role distance, but she has such a generous and high-minded conception of the roles she has to perform that she strikes us at all times as being both sensitive and sincere. The same could be said of Mr. Bingley because he shows us so much vulnerability. Elizabeth shows us that she can perform all the roles through her irony in the situations presented to her.

There is another aspect to the problems which can be posed by lack of social space. In a clearly stratified class society, such as Austen shows, there are invisible restrictions, boundaries, and separations, which the properly deferential person will not dare to traverse. According to Tanner, “There are quite a number of malicious remarks about people in trade made by some of the members of the landed aristocracy” (128). In this society, as in any highly structured society, it is a matter of some moment just who may be connected to whom. One of the gratifications of the book is that Elizabeth and Darcy seem to demonstrate that it is still possible for individuals to make new connections in defiance of society. Tanner says that Austen portrays “a society which stresses social control over individual ecstasy, formality over informality, sartorial neatness over bodily abandon, and alert consciousness over the more Romantic states of reverie and trance” (130). Her society is concentrated on how men and women may live in harmony with each other. All this, according to Tanner, influenced the notion of love and its relationship to marriage.

Elizabeth’s quality of liveliness is what Darcy is said to lack, and it is the main quality that Elizabeth will bring to their marriage, according to Tanner. Social rules tend to fix people in groups. Elizabeth is happy to leave the social group if it means she can laugh and live. Tanner says marriage is a part of the social grouping and is also a restriction. Darcy is attracted to Elizabeth through her playfulness and her ability to not have society control her. Society depends on the tension between playfulness and regulation. “In their gradual coming together and Darcy’s persistent desire for Elizabeth we do witness the perennial yearning of perfect symmetry for the asymmetrical, the appeal which ‘playfulness’ has for ‘regulation’, the irresistible attraction of the freely rambling individual for the rigidified upholder of the group” (136). The satisfaction produced by the match is generated by the happily united Elizabeth and Darcy by the end of the book. According to Tanner, in the figure of Elizabeth Bennet, Austen shows us energy attempting to find a valid mod of existence within society.

Tanner strikes up a good point when he starts his article with the goals of a satisfactory marriage. I agree with Tanner when he suggests that money is a problem that needs to be overcome before entering into a successful marriage. However, I disagree with his idea of readers calling the book Dignity and Perception. When I read the book, I automatically saw the title Pride and Prejudice being relevant to the book, how Elizabeth had to overcome her prejudice against Darcy, and Darcy had to overcome his pride to create the ideal marriage between the two of them at the end of the novel.

I agree with Tanner’s emphasis on first impressions in the novel. And by using Elizabeth to support this point was a good idea considering the entire book is based on the actions and thoughts of first impressions, especially hers. I disagree, however, with Tanner when he suggests the book is broken up into a drama section and a plot and summary section. I believe the whole novel has a plot in some way or another and is entirely filled with drama; otherwise the book wouldn’t be as interesting to read as it was for me. I agree with his view that this particular society focuses on balls, dinners, and entertainment to meet with others of the same stature and, at theses function, first impressions are made which is proven by Darcy and Elizabeth. I also agree with Tanner when says that people use theses events as ways of separation. I believe theses events help segregate the social classes so that society can go on functioning the way the aristocracy want it to function.

I agree with Tanner when he suggests that a successful marriage depends on the harmony of men and women in a society, but I also think that it’s about learning to find the harmony so that living together is possible. It’s not as easy as just having the harmony, to me. I agree with Tanner’s use of Elizabeth and Darcy as an example of this harmony. Elizabeth and Darcy both have to come to realize that they have a harmony together, but in order to do that, they had to find that harmony throughout the novel and it wasn’t always easy, just as I suggested.
I agree with most of Tanner’s points. I really disagreed with his view on the plot of the book. He needs to re-read the book and take a good look at all the plots in the first half and the drama in the second half. Overall, I think he makes some very good observations about the novel. I think that he could put some more emphasis on some of those points though, such as the harmony in society.

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