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Michael Rossi
December 1, 2009
Advanced Placement English Language and Composition/ Mr. George
Argue in two pages or less how Austen uses Lady Catherine to critique the class structure that pervades the novel.

The Wizard of Flaws

Pride and Prejudice has a vast array of insightful characters. Take Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth for example. Mr. Darcy was the only individual who could remark upon his peer’s inner motives and his own flaws with the delicacy of an evening’s greeting. Elizabeth learned to relinquish her self-indoctrinated prejudices and smooth her rough edges into a round character. In contrast, Lady Catherine has exhibited nothing less than an ostentatious display of her own selfish disdain of others. Austen uses Lady Catherine as a critique of society’s upper class.
Lady Catherine embodies what people of lower class strive to be. Conventional societal progression is determined mainly by monetary status, which is most commonly earned through hard work, intelligence, or a combination of the two. Lady Catherine has done nothing to achieve such good fortune besides simply marrying into the Longbourn family. Lady Catherine purports that she is naturally part of the Longbourn aristocracy. Her glaring inadequacy suggests that social status should not be determined by wealth, as the wealthy are not always worthy. Austen further exemplifies Lady Catherine’s absurdity through comparisons with Mr. Darcy. Mr. Darcy is emblematic of the other sect of the upper class. Mr. Darcy’s insight and selflessness make him the ideal recipient of aristocratic praise. The fact that he is without the influence of Lady Catherine, spur’s the reader into questioning the novel’s classist institutions.
Lady Catherine is like a weed in a perfect garden. The garden’s perfection is detracted by her very presence. All of the garden is sublime in its natural element while Lady Catherine is clinging on to whatever flora she may slither upon, using it as an attempt to rise to the surface
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with the other flowers. Lady Catherine’s desire to exert her influence is so intense that she utilizes her only known familial remnants to secure a long term position. Lady Catherine uses her daughter to seamlessly penetrate her roots deep into Mr. Darcy and further her family’s position. An ideal demonstration of this occurs when Lady Catherine explains to the importance of her daughter’s marriage with Mr. Darcy: “what is to divide them? The upstart pretensions of a young woman without family, connections or fortune” (Austen 272). Lady Catherine purports to Elizabeth that a plan is already in place and any resistance will be like swimming against the current. Lady Catherine constantly attempts to disperse her seeds of influence among those in her community: “’ No governess! How was that possible? Five daughters brought up at home without a governess! – I never heard of such a thing. Your mother must have been quite a slave to your education’” (Austen 127). Lady Catherine tries to keep a governess in every possible family so that she may have a tendril in any affair that tickle’s her fancy. Lady Catherine will not be satisfied until she is able to become a parasite for the every plant within the garden. Through Lady Catherine, Austen shows that this parasite ought to be thrown off by society.
Austen uses Lady Catherine as a critique of society’s upper class. Lady Catherine hides behind a veil of unwarranted power much like the Wizard in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. He uses machinery to portray himself as large and powerful when in actuality he is a small man cowering behind a curtain. Lady Catherine believes herself to be irreproachable, however, Elizabeth rebuked her justly and Lady Catherine offered no retaliatory strike. Lady Catherine and the Wizard looked to deal with their inadequacies through projecting them onto others. In the end, projection led Lady Catherine and the Wizard from their reigned superiority to their aristocratic destitution.
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Works Cited

Austen, Jane. Pride And Prejudice. New York: Oxford UP, 1998. Print.