The Use of Letters in Pride and Prejudice

            Jane Austen, the famous 18th century novelist, inherited the tradition of using letters and giving them a natural shape in the form of dialogues and further, making them a successful fictional composition. She reveals the same virtue of using letters as a dramatic device in her famous novel Pride and Prejudice. Letters play an important role throughout the story of this masterpiece. Jane Austin has used the concept so beautifully that it does not look odd or superfluous at any stage of the action but rather, the implication or even the introduction of a letter seems like natural phenomena. The great novelist has used the letters as a dramatic device to enhance the storyline, to give support to the revelation process of the characters, as well as to introduce the basic theme of the novel to the readers. .
             There are mainly six to seven letters overall in the novel which begin with the Mr. Collins's letter that claims the arrival of Darcy in the town. The letter exposes that there is a new character, significant enough to mention in the letter, which is arriving at the town and Mrs. Bennett has all the chances to decrease her miseries and concerns about her daughters. Thus, the storyline of the novel is developed through the letter. Later, there are sequences when Mrs. Gardiner writes a letter to Elizabeth regarding her concern about Lydia and Wickham's marriage. This letter literally proposes the marriage of the two. To create the interest and form an intriguing situation in the novel, Jane Austen uses the device of misdirecting a letter: Jane's letter about the critical situation of Lydia reaches someone else instead of Elizabeth . Thus, she uses the device of letters as something which contributes significantly in the development of the plot. In fact, the novelist uses the letters instead of dialogues with a specific objective; dialogues sometimes become too direct and predictable, which makes the plot dull.