Hello everyone! My name is Rachel and I am a senior English major at SUNY New Paltz. My favorite novelist/short story writer is Franz Kafka although recently I’ve been getting into some of Roberto Bolaño’s novels as well as Carlos Fuentes’.  Among my favorite poets are Sylvia Plath, Stevie Smith, Pablo Neruda, and T.S. Eliot. I like to read in Spanish as well as English.

Before I dive into the text of Pride and Prejudice and how it responds to James Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women, I just want to point the irony in the section titled “On the Importance of the Female Sex.”  Fordyce seems to lament that women in society are more highly scrutinized than men when he writes “The world, I know not how, overlooks in our sex a thousand irregularities, which it never forgives in yours; so that the honor and peace of a family are, in this view, much more dependent on the conduct of daughters than of sons…” (394).  However he has written two volumes worth of sermons telling young women how to conduct themselves and behave in society, only adding to the scrutiny.  I thought also there is much irony in the way he claims that women have so much influence over men because of their sexuality and therefore should act in certain ways.  It is incredibly sexist to want to control women’s behavior just because their sexuality, according to Fordyce, impacts men so much.

Elizabeth Bennet’s conduct in Pride and Prejudice completely undermines what Fordyce expects about how young women should act. Fordyce advises that women refrain from exercising wit and instead aim for piety.  For Fordyce, wit is something already to be frowned upon but it is “especially […] dreaded in women” (400).  Elizabeth on the other hand does not act very pious at all, in fact religion is scarcely mentioned except for when it is said that everyone attended church services.  Elizabeth engages in witty banter with Mr. Darcy and she is also highly sarcastic. When in the company of Miss Bingley and Mr. Darcy one evening at Netherfield she makes sarcastic remarks makes fun of Darcy right to his face.  She says  to Miss Bingley, “Mr.  Darcy is not to be laughed at!” (92) and continues “That is an uncommon advantage, and uncommon I hope it will continue, for it would be a great loss to me to have many such acquaintance. I dearly love a laugh” (92). She sarcastically says straight to Darcy “Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own and I laugh at them whenever I can.– But these, I suppose, are precisely what you are without” (92).  Despite her mocking him, Darcy seems to enjoy their conversation and they continue back and forth, much to Miss Bingley’s dismay.  Fordyce advises women to speak with grace and to never be rude.  And yet while Elizabeth is mocking Darcy, they both are enjoying themselves.  It is evident in Pride and Prejudice that wit does not make for dreadful women, it makes for fun and interesting conversation, fun and interesting women.