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Love and Property: Why Pride and Prejudice Is Not Simply about Marriage

In this analytical essay on Pride and Prejudice, the student responds to a prompt that asks if the novel is simply a story about marriage. The student argues that marriage is just one concern among many others, and that Jane Austen also explores ideas of love, women's rights, and societal pressure, in addition to the titular concepts.
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This essay received a B by one of Kibin's paper graders. Click here to see what was done well and what needs improvement.

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This essay received a B by one of Kibin's paper graders. Click here to see what was done well and what needs improvement.

More essays like this:

Not sure what I'd do without @Kibin
- Alfredo Alvarez, student @ Miami University
Exactly what I needed.
- Jenna Kraig, student @ UCLA
Wow. Most helpful essay resource ever!
- Chris Stochs, student @ UC Berkeley

View other essays like this one:

Bridget's feedback:

"You've crafted a lively discussion that engages with the characters and how their relationships comment on the novel's themes and concerns. With your claims and evidence down on the page, I would recommend a general tightening up of the argumentation at the levels of organization and the writing itself. I wonder if defining marriage as the "situation" for Austen's ideas and explorations would help streamline some of the discussion, which sometimes works too hard within a paragraph to explain why something (e.g., love, society) is related to marriage but not only about marriage, creating a somewhat meandering discussion. Marriage is the "stage" for Austen's messages and themes, to give one way of looking at it.

In terms of streamlining the writing at the level of prose, let's look at para. 4's first few sentences: sentences 1-3 overlap a lot, with the opening being very general ("back then"), the second sentence being more specific, and the third sentence getting pretty broad again. Try synthesizing these three sentences into a single punchy opening sentence that gives us the point about societal expectations and the specifics about when the novel was written.

In terms of writing mechanics, watch out for overuse of commas and some informal language (e.g., "guy she just met"). In terms of "loved... with all her heart," you might consider words that help convey Lydia's naivete, such as "infatuated" or "blinded by love.""

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