Discuss the main examples of such changing identities in "Pride and Prejudice" and "Fathers and Sons".

Essay by valtanUniversity, Bachelor's April 2007

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The genre of the Realist Novel is best characterized as the fictitious attempt in narrative form to provide an effect of realism through the representation of often complex characters with mixed motives. In the case of these two novels, the language used depicts realism through a representation or illusion of reality by juxtaposing the moral and social conventions of society against the narrative. To achieve this, narrative devices such as "showing" and "telling" are used. For showing, devices such as dialogue are used to give dramatic effect so that readers can see and hear the abstract. For telling, devices such as focalization, free indirect speech or omniscient narrator are often used by the author to tell readers what actually happened.

In Pride and Prejudice, the main two characters, Elizabeth and Darcy, underwent the most significant changes. Right from the start, both characters had started out on the wrong foot, with each, forming their own prejudice against the other.

Elizabeth's initial prejudice against Darcy came about as a result of Darcy's snobbery and his refusal to dance with her for "she is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt" him (Auten,p. 13) Here, Austen uses dialogue as a device to create Elizabeth's first wrongful judgment of Darcy to help advance the plot as his rudeness and sense of social superiority has created a negative impression on Elizabeth, causing her to be prejudiced against Darcy. Dialogues are a very significant part of the novel as it reveals to the reader the characters and the plot progression. Elizabeth's pride is hurt by this comment despite her efforts to pretend that Darcy's comments do not matter to her. Hence, she was eager to give Wickham the benefit of the doubt on learning Darcy's breach of agreement from him, without even hearing his side...