Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice & Image Research

This assignment asks you to write a 500+ word analysis, investigating the relationship
between the novel Pride and Prejudice and one visual representation of it. This can be an
analysis of one book jacket or book cover or one illustration accompanying a version of
the text.
The point of the assignment is to think about the kind of message a cover image (or an
accompanying illustration) is meant to convey about the text of Pride and Prejudice or its
author. How is the novel–or Austen herself–being marketed to readers, from what this
image shows? How would you describe the connection between your chosen
representation and the actual contents of the novel?
It is important to choose your image carefully, looking for one about which you think you
have some things of significance to say. You may use any image you like that
accompanied Pride and Prejudice, from any moment of Jane Austen’s publication
history. (Frontispiece illustrations first appeared in Austen’s fiction in the 1830s, and
illustrations beyond the frontispiece appeared starting in the 1870s. Book jackets and
book cover illustrations followed in the decades thereafter and continue to the present
day.)
The rationale for this assignment is threefold:
• To allow an opportunity to practice close reading skills in formal academic writing.
• To advance skills in connecting image to text, studying the history of the book and
the history of illustration, as well as connecting issues of authorship, audience, and
marketing.
• To think about “Jane Austen” as a celebrity with a changing image and reputation and
her novels as living documents that have been differently understood and represented.
RESEARCH
To complete this assignment successfully, you must choose a meaningful image or
illustration—one with enough depth to reward paying close attention—in Austen and
visual culture. You may find that you need to go through several possible image choices
before finding one you decide it will be fruitful to pursue. For this reason, we encourage
you to get an early start on this assignment.
PROCESS
You might begin by skimming many of the kinds of images you intend to choose. For
example, you might compare recent book cover images of Pride and Prejudice or look at
early twentieth-century illustrations by Hugh Thomson or C. E. Brock. You might also
begin by looking at Margaret C. Sullivan’s Jane Austen Cover to Cover [Philadelphia:
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Quirk Books, 2014] < http://www.scribd.com/doc/244167072/Jane-Austen-Cover-toCover-Gallery>
and Janine Barchas’s New York Times article, “The 200-Year Jane
Austen Book Club” (< http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/13/the-jane-austenbook-club/?_r=0>.
As you look at them, notice some things that make them similar to and different from
each other and/or the text they represent. Choose one image about which you have
several points to make by way of connecting the image to the text. Then ask, “What
makes this image significant or interesting? What does the image suggest about the kind
of story that will follow or about the author of the work it represents? Does the image say
something about Austen’s own time period or that of its own creation or both? Why do
you think so? How does the image pave the way for reading the work in a particular
way?”
Answering these questions should provide you with the parts that will make up your
paper and your overall argument about the image’s relationship to the text. You may, in
the course of your argument, talk about why you do or don’t like or approve of the
image—why you think it does or doesn’t “work” for the book—but that should not be
your primary purpose. You should strive to be both analytical and evaluative—that is,
emphasizing what you think the image means or why it matters, rather than focusing on
how you feel about it.
Begin your paper with a descriptive title. Provide the image you have chosen, by
scanning it or by dragging and dropping it into your Word document. Followed that with
the full Modern Language Association (MLA) bibliographical reference for
the work.
Your Name
ENG 364, etc.
Taking a Twihard Look at the Cover Image of HarperTeen’s Pride and
Prejudice (2009)
Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. New York: HarperTeen, 2009. Print.
Once you select your image, you should do your best to determine who has
created it and when. Include that information early in your paper. (Book cover images are
often credited on the back cover or on the copyright page.) Can you learn anything about
the artist or publisher that might be interesting to your analysis? Can you learn anything
about the style of the image and determine whether it is echoing another image?
For instance, in order to “read” the example image above, you’d want to recognize its
connection to the Twilight series. In offering your analysis of this image, consider
Austen’s 1813 novel and its associations with that contemporary series. Is P & P like
Twilight? Why or why not, in your opinion? Why might a publisher want you to think so?
What might you go into this edition of P & P expecting to find there, based on this
cover? You might comment on the colors, the size and placement of objects, and the
meaning of using these particular flowers in relation to the story of Pride and Prejudice.
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This cover also offers opportunities to read words as well as text, as it includes the tag
line “The love that started it all.” What do you think of this line? Is it in the text? Who is
speaking it? How does the image and the tag line set out to appeal to readers? (If you did
more research into the HarperTeen series, you would learn that similar book covers were
published for works by Shakespeare, the Brontës, and others, and you’d want to think
about what that meant in relation to Austen as well. Austen’s appearing in the
“HarperTeen” imprint itself allows you think further about this edition’s packaging.)