Judith Newton (1994) recognizes that Elizabeth is an autonomous and intelligent middle-class heroine while most of the male characters in Pride and Prejudice are pretentious and incompetent. Despite her lack of a solid economic foundation, Elizabeth defends her dignity courageously and maintains an independent personality. So the real power for her is intellectual ability rather than money. Given the equal opportunity as men, women could make achievements in such fields as economy and science. In this way, Newton offers a helpful perspective to the readers in studying Pride and Prejudice.
Margaret Kirkham (1997) places Austen's novels in the context of the Regency era and focuses on discussing Austen's views on the status of women, female education and marriage. It's very useful for us to understand the situation of British female education in the early 19th century.
In China, Jane Austen's works, especially Pride and Prejudice, are also very popular. Many thorough researches have been carried out on this particular novel by domestic scholars from a variety of perspectives, including the analysis of the characters, marriages, irony and female consciousness.
In 2011, Li Ming analyzes the character of the heroine, especially her intelligence in challenging the upper-class people. He points out that the creation of a new female image like Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice, a wise girl with independent thinking ability and profound insights pursing equal rights, is a challenge to the tradition and a revolt against the patriarchal society. In fact, Austen attempts to expose the inequality between male and female at that time.
Later Li Yongxia studies the education the middle-class women received in Pride and Prejudice, a manifestation of inequality between male and female in the field of education. She reveals in details the content of female education as well as the form of receiving education at that time and finally concluded that the main purpose for female education is husband-hunting. Her study is of great help to our study. However, her study mainly focuses on the female education in the late 18th century and talks less about the female education in the first half of the 19th century. 源]自=751-^论-文"网·www.751com.cn/
Then in 2012, Gong Yan makes a further study of female education in Pride and Prejudice from a historical perspective. In addition to the introduction of the content of female education, he also mentions one vital factor promoting the development of female education, that is, the appearance of a large number of novels and periodicals. Nevertheless, he lays the emphasis on the impact of female education like accumulating social wealth and pursing social status.
In 2013, through the analysis of five marriages in Pride and Prejudice, Xie Rencheng points out Austen's view on an ideal marriage is that a happy marriage must be based on mutual affection and mutual respect and supplemented by property. Therefore, the marriage between Elizabeth and Darcy is the most satisfactory in Jane Austen's mind. Ren also recognizes that Austen not only expresses her thoughts on marriage but also her views on feminism in the novel. Austen advocates that women should maintain a rational mind and be brave to pursue equal rights.
From the brief literature review, it can be seen that Pride and Prejudice has attracted considerable attention both at home and abroad. Although some scholars analyzed the female education in Pride and Prejudice, the development of printing industry, an indispensable factor in changing the situation of female education, is often neglected. Therefore, in this thesis, the author attempts to analyze the relationship between the print culture and female education in Pride and Prejudice on the basis of the previous studies from a historical perspective. The purpose of this study is to get a better understanding of Austen's female consciousness as well as to value the influence of novels on the development of modern education. 从《傲慢与偏见》看印刷出版文化对女性教育的影响(3):http://www.751com.cn/yingyu/lunwen_66078.html