Thorny reading : A didactic and literary approach to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice

Sammanfattning: Abstract This essay has a gender perspective on didactics and literature with the aim to highlight the circumstances surrounding reading and understanding the novel Pride and Prejudice in a classroom context. Since Pride and Prejudice is written with a somewhat complicated language the pupils are likely to encounter some difficulties when reading the novel. This is something that I have chosen to focus my essay on. What is more, they are likely to also have difficulties to understand different episodes in the novel since they have little knowledge about the society depicted in Pride and Prejudice. This is referred to as a cultural and historical hindrance and they are present due to the fact that the story is set at the end of the 18th and beginning of 19th century England. However, there are various approaches which might diminish obstacles like those I have mentioned, for instance, by offering background information about the novel and recurring issues, such as marriage and financial heritance. The areas of importance in the novel that I have chosen to highlight, because of the limited background knowledge that the students have, are marriage and financial independence for women. Marriage is depicted to be very important for a woman, especially if they do not have a large fortune of their own. Due to lack of financial resources they needed to marry, since if they did not they could end up as old maids or even worse; having to support themselves by working as prostitutes. The chance of inheriting a lot of money was small, since the money from their father or mother was generally entitled to their closest male heir.