Language In Clarissa, Evelina And Pride And Prejudice

the passing cultural values and the progress of society.
Madame Duval fights her age through clownish makeup and
inappropriate dress and manners. She assumes a young
lover, but not another husband. Lady Catherine is
subtler, taking on many of the characteristics of her
deceased husband, assuming his role and placing herself
in the patriarchal position of authority and power. Both
understand that another marriage means losing their
money, their voice and their power. Lady de Bourgh,
Madame Duval and Mrs. Selwyn make us realize that the
eighteenth century viewed power in women as something to
make them masculine; money is a masculine form of power,
turning women into men or monsters.
Not only the women invite comparison, however.
There can be no more inviting or striking comparison than
between Villars and Wickham. Personalities aside, their
backgrounds and youthful aspirations and predicaments are
much the same. Lawrence Stone proposes that the number
of bachelors among the younger children of upper-class
families was growing in the eighteenth century, and if
they could not marry a fortune, they were pushed out of
the family into one of the professions (243). Both
Villars and Wickham are pushed out into professions. Mr.
Villars goes willingly; Wickham does not. Both men,