Art of Characterization of Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen (1775-1817), was a well-known novelist and representative of the Victorian age.
She was best known for her six major novels. Her plots often explore the need for women on
marriage in the pursuit of auspicious social upright and economic security.

‘Pride and Prejudice’ is a novel of manners. This type of literature generates a narrative that
emphasizes on social conventions and the upbringings of people of different classes, genders,
religions, and cultures. Pride and Prejudice specifically focus on the social setting of the English
aristocracy in the 19th century. This novel is a true representation of that contemporary society
that distinguishes the social class, the need for distinction, the necessity for marriage as a symbol
of social standing, and the dual face of society. She also typifies women by the weakness of the
times: They were property and half-educated. This was a specific issue that Austen wants to
draw. Her true talent revealed through her gifted talent for the portrayal and depiction of the
situation and characters in a vivid way. She depicts her characters honestly and convincingly.
She is insightful to every microscopic level of manner and conduct and as well as to any
variation from the standard. She has a limited variety of characters and thus limits herself to the
landed elite and scarcely touched the nobility until or unless to mockery at them.

Jane Austen's vivid characterization is one of the important aspects of Pride and Prejudice. The
main features of her depiction are her characters never repeated, individual but universal, real
three dimensional, and living beings like humans. Her characters reveal through conversation as
well as comparison. Jane Austen said of her heroine, “I must confess that I think her as delightful
a creature as ever appeared in print”. Sir Walter Scott describes her characterization in these
words, “Jane Austen confines herself chiefly to the middling classes of society, and those
which are sketched with most originality and precision, belong to a class rather below that
standard.”

Aristocracy is hardly touched for satirical purposes. In Pride and Prejudice, Lady Catherine is an
example. Lord David Cecil believes that “In her six books, she ever repeats a single character …
There is all the difference in the world between the vulgarity of Mrs. Bennet and the vulgarity of
Mrs. Jennings.”
Although, Jane Austen’s characters are complex; however, there are some shortcomings. Darcy
is real and convincing but performs only in scenes with Elizabeth. The minor characters are
generally flat but they also grow when we meet them. Thus each of these wide ranges of
characters is multi-dimensional with a mix of the good and bad characteristics, unveiling strong
individual peculiarities and personalities, at the same time distinctive of universal human nature.

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