The topic of contentment is something that I'd like to compare and contrast between the two novels Delight and Prejudice plus the Virgin Suicides. In this article, I'd like to discuss the similar and different ways in which the different individuals interact with the notion of happiness.
In Delight and Prejudice, pleasure for a woman is only attainable through relationship. As relationship was seen as the single greatest achievement a woman in the Take great pride in and Prejudice culture can obtain, enjoyment therefore pertains to whether a woman is happy or miserable with her matrimony. Throughout the novel, Austen describes the various varieties and types of marriages as well as the reasoning behind each of the several marriages. The relationship between Jane and Charles Bingley, as well as between Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy is seen to be always a marriage of real love. However, Lydia marriage to Wickham can be reasoned as being for sensual pleasure. Finally, the reason for the matrimony between Collins and Charlotte Lucas actually is economical and financial.
As marriage was seen to be the greatest achievement that ladies in society can achieve, Delight and Prejudice proved the ultimate form of pleasure through the matrimony of Elizabeth and Darcy. However only by eluding and overcoming numerous hurdles, troubles, and contemplation were the two finally able to find happiness in their love. The start of their love began with Elizabeth's satisfaction causing her to misjudge Darcy's figure and personality, and Darcy's prejudice to look down upon Elizabeth's social standing. In the end, happiness was achieved primarily through a mutual recognition of each other's fallacy. As Elizabeth dropped Darcy's first offer of relationship, he eventually recognized that "[he] have been a selfish being all [his] life[and] how inadequate were all [his] pretensions to please a female worth being glad" (Austen, p. 573). As for Elizabeth, when she realized that she herself was wrong in judging Darcy's persona and personality, she was emotionally disturbed because she thought highly of her ability to judge others' people. Once she could get past through her pleasure and accepted her misjudgement of Darcy's figure, she was then able to develop thoughts towards him and finally towards a happy matrimony. In their eventual recognition of the wrong assessment of identity and personality, both Darcy and Elizabeth gained the opportunity for true joy.
However, it could not be the truth that Elizabeth's love for Darcy was strictly emotional. On her behalf visit to Pemberley, Elizabeth was mesmerized by his beautiful real estate at Pemberley, and she later observed that was when her thoughts gradually evolved. "It has been approaching on so steadily that I scarcely know when it started. But I believe I must date it from my first discovering his beautiful grounds at Pemberly" (Austen, pg. 580). Therefore, the attachment of financial prospect may also be important to find true joy in relationship.
On the other end of the happy-marriage spectrum, Lydia was one of the disappointed identity in the book. Her marriage with Wickham turned out to be an unhappy and non-sensual marriage, opposite from what Lydia had envisioned. However, even though her fallen relationship brought shame to the Bennetts, she was unaware of her faults; she noticed no issue with asking her relatives for money. Her insufficient self-awareness was the hurdles that prevented her from obtaining pleasure; although she stated to love Wickham, he regrettably did not have the same way. As Elizabeth observed, "Wickham's devotion for Lydia. . . not equal to Lydia's for him" (Austen, p. 489). Thus, to accomplish lasting true enjoyment, characters in Satisfaction and Prejudice had a need to figure out how to attune their inclinations while working out good judgement and common sense.
Charlotte Lucas stands in the middle of the happy-marriage spectrum, neither being in love with Mr. Collins nor being spiteful of him. Regarding the matrimony between Charlotte and Collins, Austen has shown that folks can be happy too in a loveless marriage. In the book, Charlotte and Collins never demonstrated much love towards each other, nor were they personal and conversive. At first, Mr. Collins wanted to marry Elizabeth, or maybe the Bennett ladies, for the prospect of inheriting the Bennetts' property. He previously no sense of self-awareness and this was clarified when Elizabeth declined his offer of matrimony. Being so confident on himself, he was so sure Elizabeth would conveniently agreed to his matrimony proposal that he was incapable of pondering the reason that Elizabeth rejected him for. He even gone as far as to claim that "[he] know[s] it to be the established custom of your making love to reject a man on first request, as well as perhaps you have even now said the maximum amount of to encourage my suit" (Austen, p. 171). However, Charlotte simply thought we would marry someone to care for her and also to provide her with the financial stability. In the novel, she claimed that "[she] ask only an appropriate home; and considering Mr. Collins' persona, links, and situation in life, [she is] convinced that [her] potential for pleasure with him is as fair as most people can boast on joining the marriage express" (Austen, pp. 198-199). By knowing what she required in a marriage and thinking that "happiness in marriage is completely a matter of chance" (Austen, p. 32), Charlotte was thus able to feel happy about her relationship to Collins.
Throughout the novel, Austen concept about true delight is that it originates not solely from financial security or enthusiasm and sensual pleasure, but instead from an honest realization of every other's problems, exemplified in Elizabeth and Darcy's eventual acceptance and knowledge of each other's advantages and weaknessess.
In The Virgin Suicides, the community's obsession with pleasure was initially highlighted by Mrs. Karafilis, proclaiming her misunderstandings that she "could never understand. . . why everyone pretended to be happy on a regular basis" (Eugenides, p. 169). Mrs. Karafilis found the community to be under the facade of of pleasure, characterizing the community's obsession as being happy whatever the interpersonal situation that the character sees himself surroundeded in. The culmination of her misunderstandings was when Mr. Lisbon was seen by her to be stringing Holiday lights soon after Cecilia's suicide, further commenting that "we Greeks are moody people. . . putting up Christmas lights after your own princess does it - that makes no sense" (Eugenides, p. 169). In lights to the idea of happiness in The Virgin Suicides, Mr. Lisbon's action of stringing up Holiday lights had not been a subject of self-deception, of wanting to reassure himself that everything was alright; but rather Mr. Lisbon noticed it as his perceived duty to the neighborhood to do so. Therefore, alternatively than stringing in the Christmas lamps to lighten up the spirits of his family's misery, Mr. Lisbon instead have so because public convention dictates that he should do so for the good thing about the whole neighborhood, and its communal enjoyment.
Rather than contentment being an indication of an individual feeling, the delight exemplified in the Virgin Suicicdes appears to be a matter of communal contentment, or a kind of social condition that everyone in the community have to continuously reaffirms to for the benefit of others alternatively than as an indication of personal feeling. Moreoever, several other situations throughout the novel reinforced Mrs. Karafilis theory of delight. First, the school held a Day of Grieving to commemorate Cecilia's loss of life, which they regarded as a success even although Lisbon sisters thought we would hold out out the ceremoney by concealing in the toilet. Second, immediately after Cecilia's death, the neighbors obtained together to eliminate the fences throughout the Lisbons' house, without providing a second considered to removing any of the other fences around the neighborhood. The above instances defined a communial emphasis of contentment that depends on ritual and conventially accepted requirements of patterns over content and meaning. In stringing up the Christmas lights, do Mr. Lisbon hoped to lift up up the depressing disposition or did he just do so because contemporary society conveyed that it was the standard patterns to do during Holiday? What would be the purpose of the Day of Grieving, and how successful did it ended up being, if those who were most involved with it did not even care to wait it to begin with? And lastly, did the neighbors really looked after the well-being of the Lisbons and the community all together by detatching the Lisbon's fences? If so, they must have also removed all the fences around the city. With the above samples, it is noticeable to say that the neighborhood friends and the institution were not in any way concern for the overall well-being of the Lisbons, but rather they do what they have (Day of Grieving / removing fence) in an effort to strengthen the community's contentment. Therefore, the Lisbons' community community existed exclusively for the purpose of being there to continuously and communally affirmed each other's happiness, as evidenced by the aforementioned examples. Finally, the activities that culture conveyed as standardized in response to certain incidents takes over what is morally appropriate. Within this underlying framework of pretense, the technology of enforced contentment is merely another necessary mockery in dealing with life's tragedy.
The area community's silence following Cecilia's death inexplicably mirrored the community's refusal to recognize the fact that Mary resided through her first suicide try out. After her come back from a healthcare facility, Mary brought forth in to the community a eerie aura of certain death, and therefore the community's refusal to recognize and help Mary in her last month can be seen as the manifestation of the community's values that happiness can only just return to the community following her death. After Mary's go back from a healthcare facility, the neighborhood community's "veiled wish [was] that she would hurry up and obtain it over with" (Austen, p. 214). Once more, the idea of happiness in The Virgin Suicides is the forgery of communal pleasure, something that the community consistently reassert their beliefs on. Therefore, as the neighbors were alert to Mary's eventual second suicide look at, and that they did not do anything in seeking to avoid it because they thought that the tragedy must be allowed to run its entirety before the suicide curse can be raised off. In this situation, the community's beliefs and objectives of Mary's eventual loss of life suggested that Mary's fate of fatality was simply a physical manifestation of the community's concern with the suicide virus as well as their beliefs on how the curse can be lifted off.
In an additional attempt to reaffirm the communal pleasure, Dr. Hornicker and Ms Perl tried to rationalized the reasoning behind the young girls' suicides. Dr. Hornicker thought that their suicidal propensity was helped bring forth with a chemical imbalance in the torso, thus making the identification something treatable, curable, and an individuated event. Ms. Perl, on the other hand, published in her report that the women' suicides coincides with an astrological event, thus elevating the suicide situations to the borderline of insanity and absurdity. By doing so, both Dr. Hornicker and Ms. Perl have reaffirm to the community that there surely is nothing to fret about, that it's an individual individuated event that will not highlight any social problem within the city. By making the suicides as treatable or as a statistical outlier, the risk of the suicide virus is eventually raised off and the community's guilt in their helplessness towards the suicide situations more bearable. Finally, by confining the incident totally to the Lisbons' home, both Dr. Hornicker and Ms. Perl reports reassured the community's position quo and joy.
Throughout the book, Eugenides shows that the notion of happiness within the Virgin Suicides sits more towards communal happines, one that emphasize more to the forgery of contentment through looks and behaviors somewhat than specific personal contentment.
The theme of happiness can be seen from a new perspective from both books. In Take great pride in and Prejudice, pleasure sometimes appears as the ultimate goal in a woman's societal life. Achieving a happy matrimony is the epitome of a woman's life fulfillment, and dished up as the driving a vehicle force behind the several character's actions and behaviors. WITHIN THE Virgin Suicides, however, delight is not thought as a personal feeling or accomplishment, but rather as a community's facade of plasticized happiness. Through ritual that is ordained through social standardization, a nearby community achieved its joy by following standardized convention in their everyday activities. In cases like this, to be happy is to appear normal.
