Men Are Presented as Being More Powerful in Society Than Women. Explore the Presentation of Men and Women in the Light of This Statement. Focus on the First 4 Chapters of Pride and Prejudice and the First Three of the French Lieutenant’s Woman

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Men are presented as being more powerful in society than women. Explore the presentation of men and women in the light of this statement. Focus on the first 4 chapters of Pride and Prejudice and the first three of The French Lieutenant’s Woman In both ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and ‘The French Lieutenants Woman’ a key theme established is the portrayal of men and the power that they have over women within society. Many techniques are employed by Austen and Fowles to present men as being superior beings within society, for example through Jane Austen’s authorial intervention and John Fowles’ representation of the Patriarchal society. However both authors also use methods to counter act this view such as the use of imperative verbs in regards to the women giving orders. Women are portrayed as having a lack of knowledge in both novels. In ‘Pride and Prejudice’ this is often shown through the character of Mrs Bennet, who struggles to understand her husband. Mrs Bennet’s character is described through Jane Austen’s authorial intervention, who describes her mind as ‘less difficult develop’ and explicates how even ‘three-and twenty years had been insufficient to make [Mrs Bennet] understand’ her husband’s character. Here, Austen as the omniscient narrator is directly manipulating the reader to perceive that a man’s judgment and intelligence is greater than that of a woman’s and also sets the readers up to distrust the character judgement of Mrs Bennet throughout the novel. This idea of women lacking knowledge and having a bad sense of character judgement is also displayed in ‘The French Lieutenant’s Woman’. Fowles internalises Charles inner thoughts, as ‘to whether Ernestina would ever really understand him as well as he understood her.’ This suggests that Ernestina is easy to read, perhaps a typical woman such as Mrs Bennet, who is perceived as never truly understanding a

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