A Universal Truth
From the very first lines, Jane Austen’s classic novel ‘Pride and Prejudice’ pokes affectionate fun at Georgian England.
1813
From the very first lines, Jane Austen’s classic novel ‘Pride and Prejudice’ pokes affectionate fun at Georgian England.
1813
The opening lines of Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ (1813) are arguably the best-loved in all English fiction. In the drawing-room of Longbourn, a gentleman’s residence near the Hertfordshire village of Meryton, pretty but empty-headed Mrs Bennet is all of a flutter because there is a new neighbour in Netherfield Park.
IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.*
However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.
“My dear Mr Bennet,” said his lady to him one day, “have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?”
Mr Bennet replied that he had not.
“But it is,” returned she; “for Mrs Long has just been here, and she told me all about it.”
Mr Bennet made no answer.
“Do you not want to know who has taken it?” cried his wife impatiently.
“You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.”
This was invitation enough.
From ‘Pride and Prejudice’ (1813), by Jane Austen (1775-1817).
So famous is this, that no self-respecting TV adaptation can be without it. The BBC’s 1995 version quoted it almost exactly; ‘Bride and Prejudice’ (2004) placed it on Lalita’s lips as ‘All mothers think that any single guy with big bucks must be shopping for a wife,’ thus subtly missing Austen’s point. For Lalita, mothers and their daughters suppose any rich man has come with the intention of finding a wife, whereas in Austen’s mind mother and daughters neither know nor care about his intentions: Mr Bingley is the hunted, not the hunter. Note that ‘in want of’ does not mean ‘desires’; it means ‘lacks, needs.’
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate her ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.