Pride and Prejudice
- Category:19th Century Fiction, Romance Fiction
- Date Read:19 October, 2024
- Year Published:1813
- Pages:367
Skep
You’re telling me that nobody at the Reading Project has reviewed Pride & Prejudice yet?! Fine. Guess Skep’s gotta do it. Slackers.
Okay, listen, I’m a bona fide American man. This means I love everything that all true American men love: cars (actually I don’t like cars), women (respectfully), and burgers (okay I’ll cop to this one, I do love a good cheeseburger) (I even kinda love bad cheeseburgers).
So you can trust me when I say that Pride & Prejudice is absolutely worth your time. And even though I am largely speaking to my own demographic here – namely, people who would absolutely chew me up and spit me out just for looking at them funny – if I can convince you, I can convince anybody.
I’m aware that, at face value, this book has a lot of strikes against it for folks like us. Here’s a list of reasons you might have already discounted it:
- It lacks sex and violence
- It’s English
- It’s old and old things are boring
- It doesn’t contain a single cowboy
- The American education system did not adequately prepare you to tackle the challenge of interpreting the old-fashioned style of writing
- It’s a girly book
But I’m here to drop the truth on you, something that the stuck-up books snobs don’t want to admit: Pride & Prejudice is basically a reality show in classic literature form. I’m dead serious about this. First off, here’s some of the characters you’ll get to know should you choose to give this book a try:
- A protagonist who thinks she’s better than everybody else
- A snooty rich boy who calls the protagonist ugly and then spends a few seasons trying to get back with that
- A reclusive patriarch who is constantly making sarcastic comments about his family
- A tonedeaf matriarch who aggressively tries to hook her daughters up with nice wealthy men
- A self-obsessed sister who is constantly partying and flirting with random dudes
- A down-on-his-luck scoundrel who is constantly flirting with potential sugar mommas
- A controlling, manipulative grandmother figure who will criticize anything that doesn’t suit her tastes
You basically have an entire cast of reality stars right there. And if that’s not enough, here are some of scenarios that occur in Pride & Prejudice, which – while seemingly straight out of something made for MTV – are all real, honest-to-god things this book contains:
- Talking smack behind a person's back
- Talking smack straight to a person’s face
- Living in mansions
- A summer road trip
- Pressuring one’s friend to throw a rager
- Professions of desire by guys who just can’t bring the goods
- Sneaking through an ex’s house while he’s away
- Going out shooting with the boys
- The overt ogling of men in uniform
- So-called friends dropping off as soon as that boy breaks up with her
- Men violating the bro code by going after their best friend’s sister
- Sending a daughter away on vacation and her coming home married
- Proposing to somebody, being rejected, and then announcing a marriage to somebody else a few days later
Now you tell me that sounds boring. And again, this isn't your average rich Americans being American trashy; this is prissy rich Regency era English folks being American trashy, so it's even funnier. Turns out there is nothing more human than investing oneself in the self-destructive drama of other humans. So give in to your voyeuristic impulses and go read this book.
Skep has a summary of Pride and Prejudice which is both comprehensive and funny on his own website, Skep’s Place. To view the summary, chapter by chapter, click here.
A Selection of Videos for Your Enjoyment!
This 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice by Joe Wright is the kind of adaptation made with modern audiences in mind. Pride and Prejudice has been adapted for the screen since 1940, when Laurence Olivier played Mr Darcy, and Greer Garsom played Elizabeth. Since then, the novel has been adapted as many as seventeen times.
The 1995 BBC production of Pride and Prejudice, directed by Simon Langton and starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, is considered the gold standard of adaptations for many fans of the novel.
Bridget Jones' Diary, based on the novel by Helen Fielding, is a modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice. Colin Firth, who played Mr Darcy in the 1995 BBC production, stars alongside Renée Zellweger, a young woman striving to succeed in the publishing industry, who is pressured by friends and family to find a husband.
Lost in Austen provides a new perspective on Austen's original story by transplanting a modern woman into the Regency Period.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a modern reimagining of Pride and Prejudice in which the women of the story are capable warriors who fight the undead.
Jane Austen
Jane Austen is known mainly for six published novels. When she died at the age of forty-one in 1817, only four of her novels had been published and she had only had modest success. >Northanger Abbey, an earlier work, and Persuasion, were both published posthumously. Other juvenilia and unfinished works were later published, some well into the latter half of the 19th century. The driving narrative concern of Austen’s novels is the problem of young women making a good match in marriage. In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth makes the ultimate match when she and Mr Darcy overcome their early animosity. Mr Darcy is extremely rich, and this pleases Elizabeth’s mother even if Mr Darcy’s manner originally offended her. Austen’s novels satirise the sensibilities of English society in her time. They are witty and funny. Jane Austen, herself, never married, although it is possible she may have been attracted to Thomas Lefroy, the nephew of a family friend. The family sent Lefroy away, possibly to separate him from Jane. Neither Jane Austen nor Thomas Lefroy had money to marry, and this would have been considered a major obstacle from the point of view of the Georgians.
The Military
The prime interest in Pride and Prejudice is romance and the getting of husbands. Set during the Napoleonic wars, there is a regiment of soldiers posted nearby, which is of interest to young women in the area. The uniforms of officers at the time were bright and smart, and added to their appeal. This image shows Adrian Lukis as Mr Wickham in the BBC mini-series made for television in 1995. Here, Wickham is a particularly debonair young soldier who quickly wins the approval of the Bennett sisters.
Georgian Architecture
The formal architecture of the Georgian period reflects the sense of order and class felt by the upper echelons of English society. The architecture of the period is reflected by its symmetry and balance, its ornate decoration, its beauty, elegance and stately appearance. Mr Darcy’s home, Pemberley, would be a supreme expression of this style. The architecture also reflects the character and manners of the period: cultured, controlled and acting within strict parameters of social etiquette.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Pride and Prejudice transcends its original cultural context. It is now popular as a romantic story and as social satire, but it has also been widely adapted for modern audiences. Apart from various movie and television adaptations, as shown by the trailers at the end of this review, it has also been re-imagined as a modern romance, Bridget Jones’ Diary (2001) (again starring Colin Firth, who played Mr Darcy in the 1995 BBC production, as Darcy). In Lost in Austen (2008), a modern fan of Austen, Amanda, finds herself transported to Regency England in the place of Elizabeth Bennett. Austen’s novel has also been adapted as crime fiction. In 2011 P.D. James adapted the novel as a murder mystery in Death Comes to Pemberley (the novel was adapted for television for the BBC in 2013). Wickham is accused of the murder of Captain Denny and is made to undergo a trial. A more outlandish adaptation of Austen’s work is Set Grahame-Smith’s adaptation of the original novel, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies to form a hybrid story in which England is overrun with zombies. Director Burr Steers adapted the novel for the screen in 2016. Set firmly in the Regency England, but with a modern sheen to its décor and dress, the Bennett sisters are independent modern women with incredible fighting skills, honed to take down the living dead.
King George IV and the Regency Period
Pride and Prejudice was written and set during the Regency Period of Britain. The Prince Regent, George, Prince of Wales, the son of George III, effectively assumed control of the throne from 1811 with the passing of the Regency Act, which recognised that George III was incapacitated with mental health issues. For Americans, this would be the equivalent of invoking the 25 Amendment, which replaces the President with the Vice President in the event of death or incapacity. When George III died in 1820 the Prince Regent succeeded his father as George IV. Technically, the regency period covers these years, but it is more commonly accepted to include the period beginning with the early Napoleonic Wars, all the way to the accession of Queen Victoria to the throne in 1837.
The period is characterised by poverty and war for the main part of the population, and the increasing industrialisation of work and the concentration of the population in cities. But it is also remembered for its fine architecture and fashion, as well as the rise of the Romantic movement, which includes English poets like William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Pride and Prejudice was published in 1813, two years after the Regency Act and two years before the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Despite this, Austen is not strictly a Romantic writer (though her subject includes romance) since she writes in reaction to the Romantic movement, especially in Northanger Abbey. But this is so even in Pride and Prejudice, in which rational choice and an interest in the strict social hierarchy of English society continues to inform Austen’s satire.
The painting, above, by Thomas Lawrence, shows George IV wearing his Coronation Robes in 1820 after the death of his father, George III.