This essay will discuss gender in Pride and Prejudice, the timeless work by Jane Austen. It also discusses how a teacher might approach the subject of gender roles in a classroom environment based on a reading project featuring Pride and Prejudice. The different theories will include theories regarding gender as a social concept, gender roles and pedagogical implications. This essay argues that the gender roles in Pride and Prejudice can be used in an EFL classroom to increase students' awareness of gender and gender roles.

This essay analyses Curtis Sittenfeld’s novel Sanning och Skvaller as an adaption of Jane Austen’s Stolthet och fördom. The purpose of this essay is to take a closer look at how the characters and the plot changes in Sittenfeld’s version compared to the original. The character analysis mainly focuses on Mr. Wickham, lady Catherine de Bourgh and Caroline Bingley as characters, as well as Mary Bennet and how her sexuality is portrayed. Elizabeth Bennet’s relationship with Mr. Darcy and the importance of a proposal and a marriage is also something that this essay analyses. The reception of the novel is something that will be addressed by highlighting some of the negative, and positive, reviews that the novel received upon publication. The discussion at the end brings up whether or not Sittenfelds novel can be classified as an adaption after changing so much of the story, how the elements in the new version changes its believability and how the problematic aspects may ruin the story.

This thesis analyses protagonist Elizabeth Bennet in Jane Austen’s book Pride and Prejudice (1813) and protagonist Bridget Jones in Helen Fielding’s book Bridget Jones' Diary (1996) from a gender theory perspective. I use a comparative method to analyse how two themes are portrayed in the books: family and marriage and education and career.  The study shows that Elizabeth, from a gender perspective, is controlled by the society and her family's expectations that she must marry a man of the right table. Bridget, on the other hand, lives in accordance to the patriarchal norm, but this seems rather appear on a more personal level. Regarding education and career it seems to have gone from seeing this as an important part of being a woman not just for herself personally but also for being more attractive for men, to an objective perspective where education seems to define your work ability instead of the woman herself.  The study, in a didactic point of view, can be useful for teachers to help their pupils to see how gender is constructed and deconstructed from time to time. The syllabus of the subject of Swedish gives opportunities for the pupils to discuss and maybe first and foremost problematize gender and equality in both a literary historical perspective and a personal way.

Through a liberal feminist perspective, this essay investigates the unconventional marital views of the fictional character Elizabeth Bennet. These are analyzed and compared to the traditional marital opinions of the novel's social environment. Moreover, the historical context is important in understanding the marital views in Pride and Prejudice, because the novel was written at a time when the views toward marriage changed significantly. This paper argues that Elizabeth's behavior, expressed opinions and rejections of Mr. Collins's and Mr. Darcy's proposals depict liberal feminist ideas of marriage. The literary review supports the notion that there are two contrasting attitudes toward marriage in Pride and Prejudice: the traditional view and the liberal feminist view. The thorough examination of Elizabeth Bennet's character strongly suggests that she represents the unconventional view of marriage, while characters such as Mr. Collins, Mrs. Bennet, and Charlotte Lucas voice the traditional view of marriage. Furthermore, an analysis of Mr. Darcy's attraction toward Elizabeth indicates that it was Elizabeth's very unconventionality that made Mr. Darcy fall in love with her.

In this studyi apply a feminist-narratological grid to the works under discussion. I show how narration is used as strategy to highlight issues of concern to women, hereby attempting to make a contribution in the relatively new field of feminist narratology. Chapter One provides an analysis of Pride and Prejudice as an example of a feminist statement by Jane Austen. The use of omniscient narration and its ironic possibilities are offset against the central characters' perceptions, presented by means of free indirect style. Chapter Two examines The Tenant of Wildfell Hall as a critique of Wuthering Heights, both in its use of narrative frames and in its at times moralistic comment. The third and fourth chapters focus on Charlotte Bronte. Her ambivalences about the situation of women, be they writers, narrators or characters, are explored. These are seen to be revealed in her narrative strategies, particularly in her attainment of closure, or its lack. Chapter Five explores the increasing sophistication of the narrative techniques of Elizabeth Gaskell, whose early work Mary Barton is shown to have narrative inconsistencies as opposed to her more complex last novel Wives and Daughters. Finally, I conclude that while the authors under discussion use divergent methods, certain commonalities prevail. Among these are the presentation of alternatives women have within their constraining circumstances and the recognition of their moral accountability for the choices they make. / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (English)

In this studyi apply a feminist-narratological grid to the works under discussion. I show how narration is used as strategy to highlight issues of concern to women, hereby attempting to make a contribution in the relatively new field of feminist narratology. Chapter One provides an analysis of Pride and Prejudice as an example of a feminist statement by Jane Austen. The use of omniscient narration and its ironic possibilities are offset against the central characters' perceptions, presented by means of free indirect style. Chapter Two examines The Tenant of Wildfell Hall as a critique of Wuthering Heights, both in its use of narrative frames and in its at times moralistic comment. The third and fourth chapters focus on Charlotte Bronte. Her ambivalences about the situation of women, be they writers, narrators or characters, are explored. These are seen to be revealed in her narrative strategies, particularly in her attainment of closure, or its lack. Chapter Five explores the increasing sophistication of the narrative techniques of Elizabeth Gaskell, whose early work Mary Barton is shown to have narrative inconsistencies as opposed to her more complex last novel Wives and Daughters. Finally, I conclude that while the authors under discussion use divergent methods, certain commonalities prevail. Among these are the presentation of alternatives women have within their constraining circumstances and the recognition of their moral accountability for the choices they make. / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (English)

My thesis explores why beauty became so much more important in nineteenth-century Britain, especially for marriageable young women in the upper and middle class. My argument addresses the consequences of that change in the status of beauty for plain or ugly women, how this social shift is reflected in the novel, and how authors respond to the issue of plainer women and issues of their marriageability. I look at how these authorial attitudes shifted over the century, observing that the issue of plain women and their marriageability was dramatized by nineteenth-century authors, whose efforts to heighten the audience's awareness of the plight of plainer women can be traced by contrasting novels written early in the century with novels written mid-century. I argue that beauty gained more significance for young women in nineteenth-century England because the marriage ideal shifted, a shift which especially influenced the upper and middle class. The eighteenth century brought into marriage concepts such as Rousseau's "wife-farm principle" the idea that a man chooses a significantly younger child-bride, mentoring and molding her into the woman he needs. But by the end of the century the ideal of marriage moved to the companionate ideal, which opted for an equal partnership. That ideal was based on the conception that marriage was based on personal happiness hence should be founded on compatibility and love. The companionate ideal became more influential as individuality reigned among the Romantics. The new ideal of companionate marriage limited parents' influence on their children's choice of spouse to the extent that the choice lay now largely with young men. Yet that choice was constrained because young men and women were restricted by social conventions, their social interaction limited. Thus, according to my reading of nineteenth-century authors, the companionate ideal was a charade, as young men were not able to get to know women well enough to determine whether or not they were compatible. So instead of getting to know a young woman's character and her personality, they distinguished potential brides mainly on the basis of appearance.