Pride & Prejudice & Hard Times

In those contexts, both authors make clear who they believe has the power in society. To Dickens, the rich capitalists and their underlings control society, and they do so through exploiting and controlling the poor and the working class on every level of society. To Austen, it is the men who control society (at least on the surface), specifically the small realm of society upon which she focuses her critical microscope. Power in Austen's world is a matter of women (for the most part without power or money, to speak of) trying to land a husband (who has that desired power and money). Women such as Charlotte, for example, knowing they are about to marry a man they do not even respect, do so anyway because they know the alternative is to be marked morally, socially and economically as isolated outsiders. The same, however, can be said for the wor

. . .
r is to be left out of the dance. At least the workers in Coketown can openly protest, can see clearly the nature of the system whose power abuses them. The suffering in Austen is so quiet, so genteel, that each of the characters seems not to be suffering at all. In fact, they are in a constant state of excruciating self-consciousness, in which they try to use their meager personal power to charm the opposite sex. The pleasures of life, such as music, have been perverted into indicators of the worth of individuals, and underlying every activity is the understanding for women that worth is a matter of their worth as partners to men: [Mary's] performance was pleasing, though by no means capital. . . . Mary, . . . in consequence of being the only plain one in the family, worked hard for knowledge and accomplishments. . . . Mary had neither genius nor taste; and though vanity had given her application, it had given her likewise a pedantic air and conceited manner. . . . Elizabeth, easy and unaffected, had been listened to with much more pleasure, though not playing half so well (Austen 17). If women have power, it is the power to attract men. Elizabeth, in that sense, has more power than Mary, but both are, after all, slaves to the po
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Rosings Austen, Thomas Gradgrind, Hard Times, Dickens Austen, Accordingly Dickens, Stephen Blackpool, Blackpool Dickens, Coketowners Dickens, Coketown Dickens', Josiah Bounderby's, hard times, dickens' novel, abuse power, workers coketown, thomas gradgrind, social structure, control society, system power, modern life, women power,
Approximate Word count = 1645
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

More Essays on Pride & Prejudice & Hard Times