In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen effectively employs wealthy, idealized characters to reveal the separation between men and women in the 1800's. In the early 19th century, as Austen herself had experienced, women were extremely limited and powerless because of their social power. Austen throughout her novel criticizes the clear inequality between men and women through satire and irony. It was evident that women needed to rely on men for their social power, as they were instantly looked at as the inferior gender. Austen experienced this separation of classes after rejecting her only proposal and was thus rejected by society and forced to sleep on friends’ couches. By employing characters in her novel such as Mr. Collins and Mr. Darcy, Austen conveys the condescending attitude that men treated women with in the early 19th century. Both men understand their gender and social class advantage over Elizabeth, a pretty, but less wealthy woman. However, while Collins attempts to exploit his social power to his advantage, Darcy feels ashamed of liking a woman of a lesser class. While Darcy and Collins utilize their superior social class in different ways, they clearly exemplify the divide in power between men and women.
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