Marxism is the idea that society is driven by money and the economy and it also divided up by the ruling class (bourgeoisie) and the workers (proletariat). So for example, Mrs. Bennet wants to marry off all her daughters to wealthy men. This to a Marxist would mean that she is driven by wealth because she wants to be wealthy but also wants to have a higher status than everyone else. In pride and prejudice it concerns itself with what class the characters belong to, but also by what means, or means of production, each character gained their status. Austen's novel is principally concerned with the social fabric of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century England, a patriarchal society in which men held the economic and social power, in an often satirical portrait of the men and women attempting to gain a livelihood. Pride and Prejudice contains many elements of social realism, and it focuses on the merging of the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy during the era of the Napoleonic wars and at the beginning of the industrial revolution. This shows that at that time the writer was influenced by the society in late 18th century to write the novel.
