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Pride and Prejudice : A literary phenomenon
Téa
Do you know this classic of English literature ? You
know, the story of a family of five daughters, unmarried,
who chase after a man who proves to be proud and
distant despite his great fortune...Still have no idea ?
Come on, it is Pride and Prejudice of course !
‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single
man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want
of a wife.’
The author
Today, Jane Austen has a great notoriety not only in
England (she is even now on the banknotes!) but also
all around the world. She was born in 1775, in
Steventon Rectory. She was one of the seven children
of a large family.
She began to write at the young age of twelve. Her
most famous books are Sense and sensibility (1811),
Pride and Prejudice (1813), Northanger Abbey (1818)
and Emma (1815). She was published during her
lifetime, despite the fact that she was a woman, for
whom, the only « right » job was housekeeping.
Women were disregarded at the time, that’s maybe
why most of Jane Austen’s characters are women,
such as Emma Woodhouse (Emma), Anne Elliot
(Persuasion), Elinor and Marianne Dashwood (Sense
and Sensibility). Perhaps the novelist intended to
denounce the lack of consideration toward women and
their capacities and rights.
The Benett girls in Joe Wright’s 2005
film — From left to right : Lydia, Jane,
Mary, Kitty and Elizabeth.
An outstanding couple
The success of this novel is due mostly to the love
story between Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy
whom Jane Austen tackled in an unconventional way.
Indeed, they didn’t fell in love immediately. Onthe
contrary, at first, they hated each other ; the adjective
used by Darcy to describe Elizabeth was ‘tolerable’…
These two opposed characters who at first sight
seemed to have nothing in common unexpectedly and
through various situations and quiproquos finally found
similarities and qualities in each other.
To begin with, Elizabeth is a young girl who reflects a
lot, she doesn’t find pleasure in seeking a husband, like
most girls, or in what society wants her to do. She is
more interested in reading, contemplating of nature
and she occasionally plays the pianoforte when she
feels like it.
Jane Austen, sketchportrait by her
sister Cassandra.
The story
The story takes place in Great Britain, in the 18 th
century. We follow the journey of five daughters,
coming from a gentry family (i.e. landowners without a
nobility title). They heard a rumor that a rich man
recently arrived in their region. Their mother, desirous
to marry her daughters, decided to make them
participate in a ball which would allow them to make
the acquaintance of this mysterious man… who is in
fact, coming with his dear friend, apparently richer than
him. She saw in it the perfect occasion to marry, at
least, one of her children. The first sentence of the
novel brings us immediately into the context :
Her lover, Darcy, is none of this. At first, he is distant
from the others who are not aristocrats and he shows
disrespect toward them. He is selfish and proud.
Thanks to his love for Elizabeth, he comes to change
his vision of them and ends up liking people of her
rank. He finally admires her intelligence and her beauty
when he tells Caroline Bingley (talking about
Elizabeth):
‘ Your conjecture was totally wrong, I assure you. My
mind was more agreeably engaged. I have been
meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair on
fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow.’
The paradox between these two characters contributed
to the success of Pride and Prejudice. The proud
Mister Darcy became an emblematic character. More
than an hundred years after the publication of this
novel, we could talk about « Darcymania », especially
after the production by the BBC of a mini-series
adaptation in 1995.