Among which, Pride and Prejudice was undoubtedly the most well-known and most popular one, being translated into many languages and widely read as well as praised。 It could be regarded as one of the greatest love novels in the world。 And inspired by the novel, a large number of by-products emerged, such as movie, travel and art festival, which brought plenty of benefits to Britain。 Furthermore, Maugham regarded Pride and Prejudice as one of the world’s top ten novels。 He thought that Austen possessed profound observation and rich emotion, and her humorous words made the observation with more power and vitality as well as the emotion。

The novel Pride and Prejudice vividly reflected conservative and occlusive British country life at the turn of the century。 The story followed the heroine Elizabeth Bennet as she coped with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education and marriage in the patriarchal society of late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century。 It was worth mentioning that the heroine Elizabeth was the one who was most similar to the author and could best represent her。 Through depicting heroine Elizabeth’s attitudes towards love and marriage, the viewpoints of Austen were unfolded vividly。 Critics had debated for years that to what extent Pride and Prejudice could be referred as a feminist work。 In my thesis, Austen’s feminism consciousness was indeed showed by the process of shaping her characters while that kind of consciousness did have limitations。

1。3 A Feminist Perspective of Jane Austen’s Works 

    1。3。1 Definition of Feminism

According to Collins English Dictionary, Feminism is “the belief and aim that women should have the same rights, powers, and opportunities as men” and “a doctrine or movement that advocates equal rights for women”。文献综述

Feminism can be defined as a movement which calls for re-management for the world based on gender equality; the movement opposes to distinguish inpiduals based on gender and cancels all sexual privileges and gender burden, sparing no efforts to recognize the common humanity based on laws and customs。 (Teresa Billington Greig 1911:694, 703)

American feminist Adrienne Rich once mentioned that the Feminism implied that women refused to be obedient to “fathers” and found out that what “fathers” had said were not all true; the Feminism implied that women realized the inadequate and distorted male consciousness; with the arising of the consciousness, women started to have their own thoughts and actions。

The philosophic idea of feminism is the belief of inpidual importance and confidence regardless of gender differences。 The feminists firmly hold the faith that everyone is born equally and freely and everyone should be treated as a human-being, no matter about sex, class and ethnicity。 With the firm faith, feminists call for equal rights as men for women in every sphere in the social society。