Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”


This passage fits into the novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen because it was the first sentence that helped imply what the book would be mainly about. The novel was about women who were looking for a rich man and he was expected(if single) to be in search of a wife as well. The fact that Austen used this sentence to open the book was smart on her behalf because she managed to keep it light, and interesting while it was could still be viewed as skeptical so that the reader would want to read more into the novel rather than to just stop there.
This passage is important in relevance to the book's message because it hinted that not all assumptions in the novel, especially the ones made by women, would be correct. For example, Elizabeth was prejudiced toward Mr. Darcy because he was wealthy, and this is similar to the fact that many of the women in the novel had different thoughts regarding wealthy men, and what a wealthy man's thoughts could be.


I selected this passage because it was interesting and I liked the way Jane Austen used a complex sentence that would open a book that almost contradict it's topic sentence. To me, this sentence was most likely spoken by Mrs. Bennet because she was the one who always assumed that men were always in search of a women and especially the wealthy men. I especially liked how the first sentence did not say men in general, but it specifically chose wealthy men. It seems that the novel, and many women all around the world, only want to be associated with wealthy men. I wonder how different the book would be if the leading men were not wealthy, but when I think about it, I know that the book would not have been well known at all. It seems to be that the topic which the first sentence is speaking of is a topic which many different people ponder, including wealthy men themselves. Jane Austen chose the perfect first sentence in my opinion, and it is one of the factors in her book that makes it so memorable. The first sentence was intriguing, and it is meaningful in a different way. The rest of the novel seemed to be in contrast to the opening sentence, but for an inexplicable reason, many people still believe that the opening sentence was perfect. Maybe it was because it implied that the book was very satirical towards women and the way they view rich men. Regardless, I agree with many people and felt that the opening sentence was intriguing to me.
-Mitchell Mirtil