Everything

The third and final volume of Pride and Prejudice served as a dénouement of the novel. Both the couples involving Jane, Elizabeth, Mr. Darcy, and Mr. Bingley became married. The happy ending really shocked me. Up until this novel, the novels that we have been covering in AP Lit like All the Kings Men and Tess of the d’Urbervilles all had tragic endings. Thus, I always thought that an important trait of a true work of literature is a depressing or tragic ending. Pride and Prejudice has made me realize that a true work of literature may or may not have a depressing ending.
I found that Jane Austen left the majority of development part of Elizabeth and Darcy’s relationship until this last volume. In fact, Austen really didn’t develop Mr. Darcy until this last volume either. Throughout the first two volumes, the readers were under the false impression that Mr. Darcy was an arrogant and cold person. However, the Mr. Darcy in the last volume was shockingly different. He was warm and compassionate. He shed his arrogant image and became someone that seemed like a “true” gentleman. And it is with Elizabeth’s realization of Mr. Darcy’s true nature that makes her fall in love with him. The scene with both of them in the park is really memorable. When Mr. Darcy finally confronts Elizabeth of her feelings towards him, she is relieved that he has asked her this. With relief and joy, she states that her once animosity-feelings have all evaporated and that they have turned into love and affection. I believe that Jane Austen used both the couples to criticize society. During the time this book was written, people married not based on love but rather based on financial status. She is criticizing this practice by intentionally making the rather modest Bennett girls to marry into the upper social level hierarchy.
This week in AP Lit, we started to read the novel Grendel. Based on the epic poem Beowulf, Grendel is a novel that is cleverly written from Grendel’s point of view. There are many references of places in Beowulf throughout Grendel. For example, the tree in the middle of the lake where Grendel resides in Beowulf appears in Grendel as well. I believe that because we recently read Beowulf, we can understand and appreciate Grendel a lot more. These little references and intertextuality ties in with what Foster said in his novel How to Read Literature like a Professor. In other words, the reading of Beowulf enhances the text of Grendel.
My initial impression of Grendel was a bit peculiar. From Beowulf alone, I thought that Grendel was this demon like monster who was out to kill as many innocent human beings as possible. However, the initial description of Grendel in Grendel altered my view towards him. From the novel Grendel, it appeared that Grendel was a helpless monster who was rejected by society. And therefore had no choice but to kill the human beings. He realizes that this ideology is flawed, and he even calls his war with the humans “idiotic”. I’m excited to understand more about his character.