Bits of Life 2

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Elizabeth and she confesses her true feeling for Darcy while he walks with her to her house.

Another important aspect we can explore in Jane Austen’s novels is the way she shows money matters in the lives of the characters in her novels.
Jane Austen knew of financial ups and downs in her life. All the members of her family had some income of their own except Jane until her novels were published at a much later date in her life.

So there was a crisis in the family’s financial condition when her father, George Austen died with no savings at all. He spent his money on luxuries like maintaining a coach, which was known to be expensive.

Similarities between George Austen and Henry Dashwood in “Sense and Sensibility” and Mr. Bennet in “Pride and Prejudice,” could Elizabeth was shown while they were walking in the woods at Netherland Park. And finally, be seen on close examination.

They have left nothing for the families to fall back upon in times of need.

Jane and her sister Cassandra had to move from place to place in order find suitable housing for themselves.

She couldn’t buy books or pretty dresses owing to lack of funds. She needed to be extraordinarily careful about her accounts. She maintained them quite meticulously too.

We can observe that people especially women need to be economically independent. This dependence on parental property or support from their brothers arose mainly because of lack of education or scope to develop skills which are functional nature.

Modern day women are so well advanced in this matter. Women who earn their keep and beyond are respected and command a better place in the echelons of society.

The other day while I was waiting for my call from the teller in the bank, I penned the following lines.

“Money is confidence
Money is many things
I realize its importance

As I go through trials
The lessons I learnt
traveling the lanes of need and want
I am glad I work and earn
Enough to have and spend at will.
.
Benefits and blessings of having
Enough to make a comfortable living
May the women of the world be as blessed
With money and prosperity for all times.”

Coming back to the travails of Liz Bennett’s finances, in the episode regarding Wickham, she is extremely grateful to Mr. Darcy because he was ready to pay the sum demanded by the former to save Lydia from scandalous circumstances.

We also note Mrs. Bennett’s concern for her daughters to marry into wealthy families. On the other hand, we sadly witness Lady de Borough’s seething contemptuous attitude to the Bennett family due to their inferior financial status.

However, it is a solace to know that money is not an equivalent of class.

Coming back to her fictional creations we notice that it was a curious fact of the eighteenth and the turn of nineteenth century England that money was not a synonym for class. It was also interesting to note that those who earned their money and those who inherited it, was a staple theme of the English novel since the eighteenth century. One’s worth or “capital” was measured in a number of different ways like, financial, social, personal and even physical.

Let us see how Jane Austen applied this concept to “Pride and Prejudice.”

In the novel, Elizabeth Bennett’s sole financial expectation was a forty- pound share in her mother’s two thousand pounds fortune. She had every justification, when she says to Lady Catherine de Borough,

“He (Darcy) is a gentleman; I am a gentleman’s daughter; so far we are equal.”

That wealthy can’t understand the embarrassments suffered by the middle class or even lower is proved by the character of Lady Catherine de Borough.

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Among the eighteenth century novelists Emile Bronte was famous for her dark tragedy named, Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff was a foundling. He was found by the elder Mr. Earnshaw. From the beginning of the novel, we see Mr. Lockwood narrating the details that take place in Earnshaw’s house.

Wuthering Heights is effectively a story-within-a-story. Jumping between the past and present, and spanning around 30 years, it is told by Lockwood, Heathcliff's tenant, and Ellen Dean, a maid at two houses called Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights. Both narrators are unreliable according to critics.

“Love and vengeance are the engines of the book… there's no boundary to the depths to which Heathcliff will go to, to make people pay”
Upon his arrival at the Heights as an orphaned young boy, he is a "ragged, black-haired child… a dark-skinned gipsy in aspect". Catherine even spits on him.

Later, he is physically abused by his drunkard adoptive brother Hindley Earnshaw, who treats him as a servant. Throughout, he is referred to as "dirty". His only solace is Catherine, with whom he roams the wild moors. But even then, despite her declaration, "I am Heathcliff… he is more myself than I am," and partly due to a misheard conversation, she marries the wealthy Edgar Linton of Thrushcross Grange.
Later, his revenge intensifies after the death of