Monday, June 22, 2015

Define genre and describe that of Pride and Prejudice.

Pride and Prejudice , similarly to the works of Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, and to a point Charles Dickens, is categorized as a "comedy of manners".


The "comedy of manners" is what we could consider in the 21st century as the equivalent of the romantic comedy, but it has specific qualities that makes the novel stand out from other types of social novels in that:


a. It uses witticism and sarcastic undertones to bring out the mannerisms and specific behaviors of the current societal memes. For example, the preocupations with social standing, marriage, the fashionable society, and being considered into the upper classes.


b. It questions the credibility of the most pompous character through exaggerating and basically satirizing them. Hence we have a Mrs Bennett and her rushing through getting her daughters married, and we often wonder how does this describe her as a good, christian woman.


c. In a comedy of manners there will be some form of love affair or ilicit affair going on which everyone might know about yet nobody mentions, or nobody knows but it is openly obvious.


d. The character in a comedy of manners do not challenge the characters that they openly satirize. The characters that are snobby, flippant, or arrogant remain the same, because (as manners require) you are to tolerate who is who in society, and your job (if you are below in echelon) is to be a mere observer--a witty and funny one at that.

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