Abstract

As the first female novelist in the British history, Jane Austin created many world-famous works among which Pride and Prejudice is listed as one of the enduring top ten novels in the world. It takes the reader to that dramatic and idyllic England in which the author lived. This paper begins with a brief introduction to Jane Austen and her masterpiece Pride and Prejudice, and then makes an attempt to analyze the inequalities presented in this novel respectively in terms of different professions, the polarization of social hierarchies and the discrimination against women, and ends with the conclusion that the inequalities of different forms are actually the by-product of social development, and only with the joint efforts of the mankind can this phenomenon be totally eliminated.

Key words: Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, inequality

摘 要

作为英国历史上第一位女性小说家，简•奥斯汀创作了许多闻名于世的经典作品，其中《傲慢与偏见》更是被列为经久不衰的世界十大小说名著之一。它把读者带到作者生活的那个极富戏剧性的，田园牧歌般的英格兰乡村。本文从简要介绍简•奥斯汀以及小说《傲慢与偏见》入手，进而分别从不同职业、社会等级分化和性别歧视三个方面探讨，以此说明不同形式的不平等皆是社会发展的副产品，最终得出结论：只有经过人类共同的努力，才能彻底消除不平等。

关键词：简•奥斯汀;《傲慢与偏见》；不平等

1. Introduction
Jane Austen is an English novelist whose novels, set among the English middle and upper classes, are notable for her wit, social observation and insights into the lives of the late 18th century and the early 19th century. She is the first novelist who gave the novel its modern character through the description of everyday life. The most urgent preoccupation of her bright, young heroines is courtship and finally marriage. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen’s famous masterpiece, originally entitled First Impressions, was published in early 1813. It is probably the most-read of Jane Austen's fictions and is a popular favorite among them.