Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen
Curricular Content by Katie Leonard
How little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue.
— Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Image by Rosaria Battiloro
About the Text
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The Story
From domestic realism to a cutting wit, Pride and Prejudice employs masterful use of irony and character sketches to relay the iconic courtship between forward-thinking Elizabeth Bennet and aloof Fitzwilliam Darcy at the turn of the 19th century. Though the characters form ill first impressions of each other, their feelings change upon further assessment of each other’s character. Amid regency-era pressure on procuring a husband, heroine Elizabeth pushes against gender roles and a host of external pressures, prioritizing a duty to herself and a motivation to marry not out out of pure necessity.
The Author
Born in 1775 in Steventon, Hampshire, England, authorial force Jane Austen (1775 - 1817) is credited with revolutionizing the novel through her timeless tales of middle-class domesticity and manners, including Pride and Prejudice (1813), her most popular work. Growing up in a land-owning, gentry family, she was the seventh of eight children and younger than her only sister, Cassandra, with whom she grew close. Austen’s father was a rector, and her mother was a witty storyteller, and both of them instilled within their children an affectionate devotion to learning. Between her family ties and friendships, intermittent visits to Bath and London, and neighborhood environment and community, she gained inspiration for her novels’ settings and themes.
Her writings begin in the late 1780s, ranging from plays and novellas to poetry and parody. Specifically, Austen experimented with the sentimental novel and comedy, as well as the epistolary form, often focusing on women’s societal fate. Her first three novels were all initially published under different titles than the ones by which they are known today, and, notably, Pride and Prejudice was initially declined after her father sent it to a London publishing company. Though Austen’s writing talent flourished within her stable everyday environment, her father’s 1801 retirement set off an eight-year period of instability, including her family’s series of geographic relocations and the deaths of, in 1804, her dearest friend and, in the following year, her father.
In 1809, Austen’s brother supported his sisters and mother through a move and resettling in Chawton. In the years following, Austen wrote novel after novel, seeing her stories printed and read widely for their “romantic melodrama” and “morality and entertainment.” As for her own romantic endeavors, Austen reportedly became engaged to marry Harris Bigg-Wither in 1802 but changed her mind the next morning, though other stories suggest she fell in love with someone who soon died. Ultimately, Austen remained unmarried until her 1817 death, but her novels live on through countless adaptations and reprinting.
The Context
Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English industrialization brought a boom of consumerism and growth of cities, resulting in a burgeoning disparity between those with and without wealth. Historians fittingly deem this Georgian period of British history the “age of manufactures,” where shopping became a social status-defining activity, from sophisticated London districts or poorer districts’ marketplaces. Amongst the wealthy, clothing were of upmost importance, along with fine dining and an ability to participate in consumer culture.
Concluding the Georgian period of extravagant consumption came the Regency era’s (1811 - 1820) notable culture of courtship, as featured in Pride and Prejudice. Within the gentry (i.e., upper-middle class, educated, often wealthy landowners), chivalry and forwardness were expected from the men, while a woman and her family primarily sought preservation of reputation, especially one of innocence, lest she fall prey to the looming threat of spinsterhood. Though men were obligated to initiate courtship, a woman’s most critical exercise of agency was in selecting a good husband, considering she would lose control of children, money, and land upon marriage. Though seemingly overbearing, the urgency with which Austen suggests Mrs. Bennet pushes her daughters into socialization would not be unexpected for a mother of her day.
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Authority and Freedom
“Until they become conscious, they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled, they cannot become conscious.”
“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing”
“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently… We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”
“It was curious to think that the sky was the same for everybody, in Eurasia or Eastasia as well as here. And the people under the sky were also very much the same—everywhere, all over the world, hundreds or thousands of millions of people just like this, people ignorant of one another's existence, held apart by walls of hatred and lies, and yet almost exactly the same—people who had never learned to think but were storing up in their hearts and bellies and muscles the power that would one day overturn the world.”
“The masses never revolt of their own accord, and they never revolt merely because they are oppressed. Indeed, so long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed.”
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
Truth and Language
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
“Orthodoxy means not thinking––not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”
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In-Text Concepts
Big Brother: leader of Oceania’s Party
Brotherhood: a ruse created to identify Big Brother dissenters; appears to be an anti-Party resistance group
Doublethink: simultaneously accepting contradictory beliefs (E.g., “War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength”; 2 + 2 = 5)
Ingsoc: English Socialism; the Party’s enforced political philosophy aimed at controlling citizens and curtailing free-thinking
Inner Party: elite leaders; the smallest, most powerful social class
Memory Hole: chute for documents to be wiped from public record
Newspeak: an ambiguous, limited language seeking to decrease the complexity of thought
Outer Party: educated workers
Proles: proletariat; the largest, lowest social class
Room 101: found within the Ministry of Love; where prisoners face their deepest fears
Thought Police (i.e., Thinkpol): the secret police of Oceania; monitor and exact retribution upon individuals seeking to contradict the Party
Thoughtcrime: composing thoughts defying Party ideology
Unperson: a person whose existence has been wiped from public record
Case Integrations
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Agustín, 15, is a tenth-grader attending a public school in Charlotte, North Carolina [1]. One Saturday evening, he posts a photo on Instagram of himself and a group of his friends (most of whom are also tenth-grade boys) with the caption “Me and The Crew.” The boys in the photo display a variety of hand gestures—peace signs, thumbs-up signs, and other signs whose meanings are unclear. Agustín’s school, which makes use of a third-party social media scanning program, is alerted by the company, whose algorithms have defined the photo as “suspicious.”
Monday morning, his school’s Principal, Mr. Raines, asks the school resource officer (SRO) to question Agustín about the post. Unsatisfied with the explanation that the photo just shows him and his friends enjoying each other’s company, the officer follows Agustín through the halls during class changes. The SRO also reviews footage of Agustín from school security cameras, and Mr. Raines alerts Agustín’s teachers that he is suspected of possible gang involvement. Later that day, Agustín’s smartphone is confiscated by his Biology teacher because was caught text messaging during class. On Monday evening, while doing homework on his school-issued Chromebook, Agustín confides in a friend via email that he is feeling depressed and anxious about the SRO, and angry at a mutual friend of theirs, Manuel. Within the hour, a different police officer knocks on the door of his home, telling Agustín’s parents that he is there to conduct a “wellness check” based on concerns raised by his email.
The ability of schools to keep tabs on their students is on the rise, particularly in the wake of accelerating technology adoptions brought on by widespread school violence across the U.S., as well as the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital learning platforms like Canvas and Moodle not only streamline students’ assignments and grades, but provide extensive data profiles on millions of students to private corporations each year. Web, email and social media “listening” platforms like Varsity Monitor, Gaggle, and Bark allow administrators to track student communications, web usage, and search histories, in school and out. District-level purchasing of these platforms saw a tenfold increase between 2013 and 2018. Cameras and facial recognition technology are now essential parts of schools’ security strategies, with the number of schools conducting video monitoring having risen from 19% in 2000 to 83% in 2018.
Administrators and district officials often argue that these strategies are common sense measures to keep students safe from harassment, bullying, and gun violence. Critics argue that students’ privacy rights are being violated with invasive technologies whose effectiveness is thus far unproven. Furthermore, for students of color, who often face disproportionate disciplinary measures in schools, new kinds of surveillance may be especially harmful.
Monday morning, his school’s Principal, Mr. Raines, asks the school resource officer (SRO) to question Agustín about the post. Unsatisfied with the explanation that the photo just shows him and his friends enjoying each other’s company, the officer follows Agustín through the halls during class changes. The SRO also reviews footage of Agustín from school security cameras, and Mr. Raines alerts Agustín’s teachers that he is suspected of possible gang involvement. Later that day, Agustín’s smartphone is confiscated by his Biology teacher because was caught text messaging during class. On Monday evening, while doing homework on his school-issued Chromebook, Agustín confides in a friend via email that he is feeling depressed and anxious about the SRO, and angry at a mutual friend of theirs, Manuel. Within the hour, a different police officer knocks on the door of his home, telling Agustín’s parents that he is there to conduct a “wellness check” based on concerns raised by his email.
The ability of schools to keep tabs on their students is on the rise, particularly in the wake of accelerating technology adoptions brought on by widespread school violence across the U.S., as well as the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital learning platforms like Canvas and Moodle not only streamline students’ assignments and grades, but provide extensive data profiles on millions of students to private corporations each year. Web, email and social media “listening” platforms like Varsity Monitor, Gaggle, and Bark allow administrators to track student communications, web usage, and search histories, in school and out. District-level purchasing of these platforms saw a tenfold increase between 2013 and 2018 [2]. Cameras and facial recognition technology are now essential parts of schools’ security strategies, with the number of schools conducting video monitoring having risen from 19% in 2000 to 83% in 2018 [3].
Administrators and district officials often argue that these strategies are common sense measures to keep students safe from harassment, bullying, and gun violence. Critics argue that students’ privacy rights are being violated with invasive technologies whose effectiveness is thus far unproven. Furthermore, for students of color, who often face disproportionate disciplinary measures in schools, new kinds of surveillance may be especially harmful [4].
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Is the fact that Agustín was outside school when he sent the email morally relevant?
How, if at all, do the privacy rights of minor students differ from those of their adult counterparts? What about those rights associated with freedom of speech?
How should schools balance the objectives of student safety with student privacy? What is the relative importance of these goals?
When, if ever, are schools justified in disciplinary interventions based on students’ personal communications?
NOTES
[1] This story is adapted from an illustrative compilation of student experiences by Barbara Fedders, “The Constant and Expanding Classroom: Surveillance in K-12 Public Schools,” North Carolina Law Review 1673 (2019).
[2] “School Surveillance Zone,” The Brennan Center for Justice
[3] “School Safety and Security Measures,” National Center for Education Statistics
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In recent years, location tracking services and apps have become popular among smartphone users. Friends can use Snapchat maps or Find My Friends to do precisely that—find their friends. A number of apps market themselves specifically as family locator apps: Life360, Swarm, Glympse, and others. These apps are used most often by parents to keep track of their children.
Sasha’s family of four is set up on one of these family tracking apps. Her mom, who pays the family’s phone bill, is its most dedicated user. She loves to stay updated on where her two daughters are and frequently checks the app to see what they’re up to. She claims she’s not using it to supervise her daughters’ every move, but instead to simply assure herself that they are safe and well.
Sasha has never really had a problem with her family using the app. She rarely goes on it and doesn’t care much whether her mom knows where she is. In other words, she doesn’t think she has anything to hide. Sometimes Sasha’s mom will text her if Sasha goes somewhere unexpected, but that just feels like sweet motherly concern.
On the other hand, Sasha’s little sister Jules hates the app and feels like it is overbearing and invasive. Perhaps because she is the younger sister, she gets more attention from their mother on the app. But from her perspective, she is beginning to feel like she has no privacy. If she stays late over at her friend’s dorm—something she feels is a normal thing to do in college—her mom will text her about it and ask what she’s doing. Jules feels that she comes under scrutiny for no good reason—she’s doing well in her classes, and most of the time when her mom checks in on her she is studying or watching TV with her friends.
Sasha has always listened to Jules’ complaints and has recently been fielding concern from their mother, too. Their mother will text Sasha asking whether she should be concerned about where Jules is and whether she should bring up her concern about how late she is out at her friend’s dorm, for example. Sasha feels increasingly unsure about the app and is starting to question whether it is a good idea for their family.
On one hand, the app isn’t really harming anyone. Sasha knows that Jules isn’t doing anything irresponsible, so she doesn’t understand why it should be a big deal if their mother knows what she is up to. From Sasha’s perspective, Jules is being too sensitive and defensive, which makes it look like she has something to hide. At the same time, Sasha understands that it would be tiresome to put up with the constant monitoring and questioning, however well intentioned. She also understands why, to Jules, it can sometimes feel like their mother doesn’t trust her or doesn’t see her as a responsible adult. Yet still, Sasha also empathizes with their mother, who derives a lot of comfort from being able to check in and see that her children are in a safe place. Moreover, given that their mother is the one paying for the phone bill, having this app seems like a reasonable concession for her to request.
Given all of this, Sasha is torn between sticking up for her mom or for Jules. She is also convinced that there are probably a lot of other families going through very similar arguments—in the end, these apps might just cause more problems than they solve.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Why is personal privacy important? To what extent, if any, is privacy still important even when someone doesn’t think that they have anything to hide?
What, if anything, is good or valuable about family (or friend) locator apps?
To what extent, if any, do family (or friend) locator apps conflict with their users’ privacy? If it depends, what does it depend on?
Classroom Activities
Deliberative pedagogies call for a rethinking and restructuring of the activities of teaching and learning. In calling on each person to engage with others in democratic, inclusive, and respectfully discursive practices, these methods help students better understand differing perspectives and the complexity of persistent problems that spring from ethical dilemmas. These recommended activities bring the deliberative pedagogy that lies at the heart of the National High School Ethics Bowl to the 9-12 classroom.
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Small Group Deliberations
These activities provide students with structured tasks designed to help them think through the central moral dimensions of cases collaboratively.
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In-Class Ethics Bowl
An In-Class Ethics Bowl can be a helpful way to get students thinking about tough issues with a structured form of friendly competition.
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Ethics Memo
The Ethics Memo develops deliberative and persuasive writing by having students frame a problem, propose a solution, and defend their reasoning.
