The five seasons of pride and prejudice by sara wingard - dissertation example

The Five Seasons of Pride and Prejudice by Sara Wingard

The paper ” The Five Seasons of Pride and Prejudice by Sara Wingard” is an excellent example of a literature dissertation.
Pride and Prejudice is a novel that extends the emotions and situations of its characters to the events that are occuring in its environment, i. e. the changing of the seasons. In Sara Wingard’s analysis, she points out that Austen conforms the changes of the seasons to the conditions of each character.
The novel begins and ends with autumn wherein it is seen as a season of “… preparation and a foreshadowing of new life and growth“ (Wingard). In the novel, three autumns came to the Bennets. These were the arrivals of Mr. George Wickham, Mr. Charles Bingley with Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, and Rev. William Collins. These three arrivals promoted the arrival of new life for the Bennet family and the growth of love for the characters of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy as well as Jane and Mr. Bingley.
Upon the entrance of winter, gloomy moods have shadowed the characters – the novel shows that Charlotte Lucas’s marriage to Rev. Collins was during this season. Their marriage was described as infertile and cold. This then conforms with the literary depiction of the said season. Spring and Summer were both gloomy, especially for Jane and for Elizabeth. This reversion of supposed events in these seasons then made Austen’s work unique. Here, we see that, she satirizes not only with her characters‘ actions but also with the season to further allow the complementation of the events in her characters‘ lives with those of the changing seasons. For example, many authors would have allowed Elizabeth to accept Mr. Darcy’s proposal in late spring and early summer, but still, to provide a strong contrast to this, Austen made Elizabeth reject Mr. Darcy’s proposal.
Finally, in order for the cycle of the seasons to be completed, Austen lands in to autumn again where the birth of a new beginning arises. Here, Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley were back at Meryton where they were not only going to hunt but they were also about to propose to Jane and Elizabeth. Jane gladly accepts Mr. Bingley while Elizabeth finally accepts Mr. Darcy’s proposal. From the first gash of autumn, we were introduced with the change in the Bennet family, particularly in Elizabeth’s and in Jane’s lives, in this conclusion, their lives, after being changed, was entering a new beginning, just like autumn.
Wingard’s analysis of the various settings of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice very much captured my interest. This is because instead of dealing with the usual setting analysis of the places that Elizabeth and Jane had traveled, she delved deeper in her analysis and I pretty much agreed with her points since they did help in shaping the readers‘ view in the characters and in maximizing the effects of the events.