MODULE A ESSAYS
A deeper understanding of relationships and identity
emerges from pursuing the connections between Pride and
Prejudice and Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane
Austen.
Compare how these texts explore relationships and
identity.
Topic Sentences
• Despite a difference in context, both Austen and Weldon share
a critical view of the restricting nature of education and the way
in which it often limits one’s personal and moral development.
• Austen and Weldon are united in advocating the importance of
reading to the advancement and growth of the individual.
• Austen and Weldon are connected by the way they criticise
superficial and ineffectual education using their novels to
promote a more meaningful and moral education.
• Through their respective texts, both Austen and Weldon are
interested in examining the female experience. However it
becomes clear through their treatment of marriage, that there
has been a shift in the expectations and rights of women.
• In reading P&P and LTA one can see how the social expectations of
women, particularly their ability to make independent choices, has
shifted across the two different contexts.
• The shift in the social expectations of women from limited freedoms to
the ability to make independent choices is illuminated through a study
of Pride and Prejudice (P&P) and Letters to Alice On First Reading
Jane Austen (LTA).
• The comparative analysis of Austen and Weldon’s criticism of
women’s roles, especially through the treatment of marriage, allows
for the individual’s understanding of both texts to be heightened.
• Austen and Weldon correspondingly advocate the importance of
reading in empowering the individual by enabling one to grow.
• An examination of the misuse of power by authoritative figures in
society allows both Weldon and Austen to challenge notions of social
responsibility.
To what extent does your comparative study of Pride and
Prejudice and Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane
Austen, demonstrate that the conflict between an individual
and society is an important universal concern?