Pride and Prejudice - a Transformation

Pride and Prejudice - a Transformation

  • Submitted By: gasana93
  • Date Submitted: 04/09/2013 8:06 AM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 1047
  • Page: 5
  • Views: 195

I’ve transformed Austen’s Pride & Prejudice from prose to four letters between Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Fitzwilliam Darcy. The main purpose of the transformation was revision and entertainment, which I tried to achieve through juxtaposing contrasting aspects of the characters’ personas. I also wanted to explore contextual factors, such as the rigidity of Regency society, to develop the characterisation of Darcy and Lady Catherine. My transformation was targeted at a mature audience. With the benefit of historical hindsight, I hoped to attribute specific aspects of the characters relationship to an epochal trend that Austen couldn't have been fully mindful of.
Throughout the base text and my transformation, Lady Catherine is shown to flout all of Lakoff's politeness strategies: for instance, her constant use of imperatives, 'it must at once', 'whatever affection... must be immediately abandoned', as well as frequent impositions, 'when I was informed that this had progressed to a proposal of Marriage on your part... I instantly resolved to travel to Longbourne'. Whilst I felt that this captured her persona, in the base text, Austen subtly suggests that Lady Catherine views Darcy with singular favour: 'she was... engrossed by her nephews, speaking... especially to Darcy, much more than to any other person in the room'[1]; to find a balance between her naturally dictatorial persona, and her respect for Darcy, in her second letter, I combined forceful imperatives such as, 'It is of a most urgent necessity that you remove from your mind', with a self deprecating use of words such as 'feebly', as well as her use of a more emotive valediction: 'Yours in humble sincerity'. In the base text Austen repeatedly refers to Lady Catherine having always gotten her way: 'I have not been in the habit of brooking disappointment'[2]. By showing Lady Catherine using manipulative compliments, for instance: ' I am certain that you possess that peculiar fortitude of...

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