“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a fortune, must be in want of a wife.” What does it mean that Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice starts this way, by insisting on the truth of a claim that cannot possibly be true, at least not “universally”? Some men in possession of a fortune may want to get married. Men differ from each other, women too—we all know this. As you read on, it quickly becomes clear that this “truth” is offered ironically, giving voice to the web of conventions, ambitions, and anxieties that surround the question of marriage. But as you read further, you might start to wonder whether there isn’t something true in or under that “truth.” The question of who wants to marry whom, and why, becomes, in this novel, a question that gets to the very heart of selfhood and self-knowledge. Not until she knows who she wants to marry does Elizabeth Bennet really begin to know herself.  What role does convention play in our lives, in forming our characters? To what extent are we utterly unique individuals and to what extent are we instances, iterations of our family and our society, shaped by their rote and habitual ways of understanding the world? Elizabeth Bennet can only fully become herself through a complex interweaving of the assertion of individuality and the acceptance of communal life. Is it so different for us?  

— Marsaura Shukla, Faculty Member