10: P&P essay

Choose one of the prompts below. Write a 4-5 paragraph essay (600-1000 words) on that topic.

1. How does the author use foils in the novel? Use two or three examples in your analysis.


2. Discuss why and how a novelist would use caricatures, using some examples from this novel.


3. Discuss the use of the letter as a plot device and its unique function in a novel, as applied to Pride and Prejudice.


4. How does the author hold the readers’ interest in the novel? Focus on one technique or a few related techniques.


5. Discuss the point of view, or narrative voice, of the novel, and how the author uses it to affect the way we read the novel.

Draft due: Friday 7 May

Essay Moodled in: Monday 10 May

Name your file last name + pride. Mine would be called kilmerpride.docx.

Here's the sample we wrote together in class on Wednesday:

Why are details of setting important in the novel?

setting as reflection of character

Authors often provide information about settings for their novels, and those descriptions add to the mood of the novel and a sense of realism. However, one reason to provide setting details is to provide a sense of characterization for those associated with that setting. Because of the limited third person point of view and the thematic significance of perspective in Pride and Prejudice, the narration does not allow the reader to perceive characters in an objective manner, and that objective view is important to the foreshadowing and the readers' expectations. Therefore, Austen uses the details of specific settings to give information about characters that bypass Elizabeth's perspective of those characters or suggests an outcome of which Elizabeth herself is not aware.

topic sentence:

One example of this is Pemberly.

Because Elizabeth's perspective is so significant to the novel, if Austen wants to develop characterization that disagrees with that perspective, she can use details from a setting associated with the character to do so.

If you remember, we started with a fairly simple idea and found more and more complexity as we explored the possiblke examples. Notice the bad topic sentence and the better topic sentence.