True love is not found in the goals of economic survival or social gain, rather it is found when two individuals join in marriage because they have genuine affection for each other for the other. In her novel, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen describes how love would be defined in a traditional Victorian era. Austen shows love as the focus of all society's attention, along with the influences society has on it. Through various characters, such as Mr. Collins and Mrs. Bennet, Austen demonstrates how money and status can largely shape love and the idea of who to love. Yet, with the characters of Jane and Bingley, Austen ultimately conveys that true love comes not from economic necessity or social gain, but from sincere affection. Society, as Austen describes it, is akin to survival of the fittest. . To get to the top, you have to do everything you can to get there, including manipulating your marriage. In the society of the novel, “family and marriage occupied a much more public and central position in social governance and economic arrangements” (Brown 302). The members of society in Austen's novel, especially Mrs. Bennet, will do anything, including marrying off their daughters to wealthy men, to gain respectable status among their peers. Marriage, therefore, becomes a way to get to the top of the social ladder. This focus on the importance of social order significantly influences the idea of love and who to love because it leads people to think that marriage is not a matter of love, but of status. It leads individuals to think that social benefits are what really matters in a relationship. In Vyas 2this situation, Austen illustrates how society is... means of paper... not money or status. By satirizing love, Austen shows true love in all its purity. Jane and Bingley have a pure and honest love, and this is the kind of love that Austen presents in her novel, which is what should be established in a real relationship. Money and society shape love and place certain implications on it that don't hold up. REAL. These implications shape the idea of love and who to love. In Pride and Prejudice, love is defined as materialistic, but true love can defy all, and does so when Jane and Bingley eventually marry. Through money and status, Austen constructs a premise of imperfect love, which she uses to mock society. However, this satire is precisely what communicates the true meaning of love proposed by the novel. Affection shapes love, not wealth or status. Love is not about what you have or earn; love is about who you spend it with.
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