Language In Clarissa, Evelina And Pride And Prejudice

Critics place great emphasis on the women of
Austen's novels and the treatment they receive at the
hand of males through inheritance and patronage.
However, the males of her novels, such as Mr. Bennet,
Collins, and Wickham, become intriguing characters as
they are also pawns in the settlement game. Their
language, their actions, and their futures depend on how
inheritance practice touches them.
Just as the Bennet women, like many women of the
time, lived out their lives according to whatever
accustomed pattern of privilege had been bestowed upon
them, these particular men must come to terms with events
they never considered would visit their lives. How they
deal with their inheritance circumstances sheds new
light on both Pride and Prejudice and on the power of
inheritance practice and language over men in the
eighteenth century. Rachel Trickett believes Austen
realistically portrays the social and financial status of
each of her characters in order to situate them among the
same class of which she was a member, a "section
expanding from the landed gentry down to the professional
families in the mercantile rich who had made their
fortunes in trade" (297). Trickett continues, pointing
out that Austen "locates every character of importance