There are also papers and researchers hold the views that in Austen’ s England, marriage was necessary and a good match was considered essential, yet occasions to meet eligible men and women were limited. Balls provided an arena for introductions, thereby facilitating the opportunity for courtships to be pursued.  The decorum of the participants at a dance determined their worth as inpiduals. This display of inpidual worth was evaluated not only by potential partners, but also by the spectators in the room, which included family and neighbors, wallflowers, and married couples. The relationships of Jane and Bingley and Elizabeth and Darcy exemplify the formula of first establishing themselves as suitable dance partner, paving the way for courtship, and triumphing in marriage.

1.3 Relevant research in the world

  Since the publication of Austen’ s P&P, it got a lot of attention and criticisms in many newspapers and magazines. And there are also many published books referring to this novel. Many foreign scholars like to talk about this novel as same as Chinese scholars. When talked about the writing characteristics of Jane Austen, Professor Kathryn Sutherland said “Jane Austen fills her novels with ordinary people, places and events, in stark contrast to other novels of the time”. The professor also considered the function of social realism in Austen’ s work and said “Jane Austen’ s social realism includes her understanding that women’ s lives in the early 19th century are limited in opportunity, even among the gentry and upper middle classes”. Therefore, doubtlessly, Jane Austen must understands that marriage is women’ s best route to financial security and social respect. Many of the crucial events of her stories take place indoors, such as ball. Often her plots move forward by means of overheard conversations. She writes some of the most natural and real-seeming conversations in literature. Rumour places a large part in transmitting news, and in her small, enclosed communities, everyone is a gossip.来.自>优:尔论`文/网www.youerw.com

  There are also many foreign scholars researching on the perspective of the ball as a narrative device in Austen’ s works. John Mullan, similar to Chinese scholars, hold the views that Austen loved balls in reality, which were the most exciting events in provincial life. In her novels, she uses them brilliantly for their combination of propriety and passion. In P&P, the mutual attraction of Elizabeth and Darcy is established through their behavior towards each other at a succession of ball. They approach and retreat, tease and repel each other, as in an elaborate dance. As you can see, all most his every novel has description of ball, at the balls in Austen' s novels, you can talk during dances, especially those that require some partners to wait while others perform. In Mansfield Park, we can feel the anticlimax when Fanny finally gets to dance with Edmund, the man she loves, and he tells her that he does not want to talk.‘“You will not want to be talked to. Let us have the luxury of silence’". In P&P, when Elizabeth and Darcy do eventually dance together they also have their most erotically charged conversation, a kind of verbal fencing match. It is a verbal intimacy to parallel their physical closeness. In the crowded room, everything seems to narrow to these two people. Once these two have danced together, they are destined for each other. 

  In Tycho Chen’s opinion, as for P&P, the ball is the stage of the debut of hero, Darcy and the heroine, Elizabeth. Therefore, the design of the ball, including which part of the assembly should be narrated directly in the description of the assembly, how to do with other things happened during the party, how to shape the characteristics and personality of the two main characters as well as other important role on the ball, is essentially significant to the character portrait for the whole novel. Mainly employing description of language and technique of comparative description, the plot about two balls in this novel is well-designed as three parts, before, during and after the assembly, which is efficient to the character figuring of the novel.