Peer feedback #1 (My 1987 AP Exam essays)

(Thought I'd publish it for reading convenience. Please critique anyone if you can :)

Question 1

Out with the old

Unlike the cultured citizens, cosmopolitan and world conscious civilization of today, wherein society engages in a plethora of intellectually beneficial, meaningful, activities for enlightenment as well as leisure, there was once a time when leisure was synonymous with intentional ignorance. George Eliot connotes this antiquated conception of leisure, individuals preoccupied within shallows of forced ignorance, content with monotonous labor, simple unequivocal thought, with an arsenal of rhetorical strategies. Employing deliberate/specific diction to paint an image, adumbrate her view of “old time leisure” and its indulgers as myopic ignorance content husks, coupled with a structure constructed to detail contrast between leisure old/new, alongside a noticeably sardonic tone, Eliot indeed conveys her perspicacity on leisure of the past as well as her perspective on the more cultured leisure of her own time.

As the old saying goes, self-applied ignorance of old time leisure was too many “bliss”. “Life was not a task to him but a sinecure.” Eliot expresses the central dogma of old time leisure with her diction use of sinecure. Eliot describes the widespread practices/perceptions of old leisure individuals to regard life as simple, something requiring little or know effort to exert beyond physical, a sinecure position. “[he was] happy in his inability to know the causes of things.” George Eliot further supports her view of old time leisure denoting with “happy in his inability” the embrace of ignorance common to the general populace, people content with not knowing “the causes of things” they fearing anything more contemplative/complicated then the direction of a plow. Brilliantly utilizing structure, Eliot additionally uses the rhetorical strategy to convey her perspective as illustrated in the following. “Prone to excursion, art museums, periodical literature, and exciting novels-prone to even scientific theorizing, and cursory peeps through microscopes. Old time leisure is quite a different personage: he read only one newspaper, innocent of leaders, and was free from the periodicity of sensations we call post time.” The aforementioned excerpt depicts the contrasting structure of Eliot as she compares the leisure of her time, cultured and embracing of questions/modern thoughts “even scientific”) whilst she disparages the old time lack of literacy/ critical thinking. Eliot founds old time leisure as limited/uninterested or close minded in global conscious or affairs as people of that time “lived chiefly in the country.” She connoting their limited political perspective/ minds shackled to only their most immediate and local of state or region. Indeed Eliot does not perceive the values of old time leisure to be educated or culturally, critically contemplative, all of this conveyed thru diction and contrasting structure.

“Fine old leisure! Do not be severe upon him and judge him by our modern standard.” George Eliot, with a completely sardonic tone, blatantly despises the leisure of old. Their lives veiled by self-obscured binoculars, sinecure in unquestioning, ignorant content, thought as her specific diction delineates time and time again. Even Eliot’s structure has been deployed as a strategy to convey her hostility, she contrasting the cultured and civilly conscious leisure of her time to the settlement-bound, academically, analytically, unsound leisure of old. But, like George Eliot connotes, we should not be “severe upon him” we should not “judge him by our modern standard.”  We should merely take note, a note of caution, ensure/endeavor to maintain our tenets of cosmopolitan thought, avoid the innately creeping leisure of old, though it may be the easier road. We must strive to rid, to be out with the old views, and in with the new.

 Question 2

As timeless as any contemporary piece of literature, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is a paradigm of sociopolitical attitudes. The respective author offers her own social commentary, what she perceived needed to be changed, if not utterly demolished in her own time, but even her thoughts are relevant to our own. Depicting in vivid degrees the hauteur arrogance of elites, Austen’s work wished to abolish the unscrupulous pride, the prejudices and proclivities present in upper Elizabethan society. Austen desired to defeat the materialism motivated, power propelled practices such as marriage for wealth, rank and status, undoubtedly a social commentary we should take in light.

Perhaps the most unabashed symbol, prominent portrait of pride, of prejudices and practices Austen deemed deplorable was manifested in the actions of Mrs. Bennet. A conniving vehicle of ulterior motives, Mrs. Bennet endlessly persisted in marrying her daughters to any and all wealthy potential suitors. Austen characterizes her as a hopelessly eccentric, materially motivated fool, a joke really, she capitalizing on the character’s various follies (such as her inane attempt to marry Elizabeth to the equally conniving Mr. Wickham for a concrete example) to criticize the entirety of power over passion marriage elitists. “Lady Catherine seemed quite astonished at not receiving a direct answer; and Elizabeth suspected herself to be the first creature who had ever dared to trifle with so much dignified impertinence!” Lady Catherine serves as another symbolic character, she symbolizing the pride of elitists in this passage as she is offended by Elizabeth refusing to answer as well as refusing to avoid marrying Darcy. Ultimately the pivotal characters Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy are tools to which Austen wishes to reconstruct her society with. Both Elizabeth and Darcy begin with unparallel pride, tantamount prejudices towards each other with Darcy being yet another analogue for upper class snobbery (for say refusing to dance with Elizabeth on the supercilious superficial grounds “she is not beautiful enough, nor handsome to tempt me.”). Elizabeth realizes, as Austen believes about her society or at least hopes for, Darcy is in fact a redeemable and humble individual eventually shedding his pride after saving the Bennets from Wickham/Lydia’s social/material debt (i.e. Wickham refusing to marry without proper pay, a failed marriage unacceptable in social status to snob upper class). Indefinitely Austen deliberately created the dynamic character arc of Elizabeth/Darcy to depict that in fact, love and passion can/should prevail over pride, sociopolitical wealth or power.

   Nearly as timeless as the “sin” of pride itself (not really) Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is rife with undertones, her attitudes, social and political that she wished to improve or abolish. Desiring the demolition of pride conveyed by the fallible actions of the conniving Mrs. Bennet Austen detailed the need to halt the practice of marriage for power, social rank and political status, over love, passion. Lady Catherine attests to Austen’s disposition towards the snobbery, the prevalent pride and prejudice of upper class elitists, unable to even comprehend a refusal to their request or haughty words. Even the primary protagonists Elizabeth and Darcy were proponents of Austen’s attitude that love is more important then money and power. The titular characters personal journeys, their conquer of pride of their previous prejudices towards one another, culminating in marriage for love-sake, a marriage of matrimony, not money stands testament to Austen’s belief that love is always first. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice aided our arguably love valuing society; we should take pride for our lack of prejudice, but not too much.