Form & Structure

Analysing form and structure is a key skill at GCSE. It means looking at how the novel is built — the narrative perspective, the three-volume structure, the use of letters, and how Austen controls pace and tension. This lesson gives you the tools to write about structure confidently.

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The Novel of Manners

Pride and Prejudice is a novel of manners — a genre with specific conventions:

Convention	How Pride and Prejudice fulfils it
Focus on a specific social class	The landed gentry and their associates
Social interactions as drama	Balls, dinners, visits, and letters drive the plot
Manners reveal character	How people behave in society reveals their true nature
Ironic narrator	Austen's narrator observes and comments with detached wit
Marriage as resolution	The novel ends with the "correct" marriages achieved
Domestic setting	The action takes place in drawing rooms, country houses, and parks

The novel of manners vs the Gothic novel

Austen was writing in deliberate contrast to the popular Gothic novels of her time (Ann Radcliffe, etc.):