 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
View the study guide below, or download the .pdf version.
Overview
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice deals with overcoming false initial beliefs about a person. (It's no surprise to learn that Austen's original title for the work was First Impressions.) Both Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy dislike each other from the start - or so it seems - and they must give up both pride and prejudice in order to be together at the end. All of this sounds very romantic, but Pride and Prejudice should not be confused with a modern romance novel. Austen is concerned with characters and emotions and changes of heart. Because she takes such great care in crafting the story and developing the characters, her novel remains a wonderful read.
Author
Jane Austen (1775-1817). Though very well-known to us, she was not famous during her lifetime; four of her six novels were published anonymously while she was alive, and the other two were published after her death. She was born to Cassandra Leigh and George Austen and had six brothers and one sister. For most of her life, she lived in Stevenson, Hampshire, South England, where her father was the local rector. An important family pastime was reading, which included reading aloud. Austen's father owned around five hundred books, and the family also borrowed books for the library. This upbringing influenced Austen to write and read her own work to her family for their enjoyment. From age ten to sixteen, Austen created a large juvenilia consisting of burlesque playlets, epistolary novellas, and picaresque stories. This teenage writing gave way to her writing of novels. Interestingly, despite her novels' interest in courtship, both Austen and her sister never married.
Adaptations
Pride and Prejudice (2005), starring Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet and Matthew Macfadyen as Mr. Darcy, is a well-made film that remains pretty true to the novel with witty Austen dialogue and with a well researched time period, even though it is a bit more dramatic, romantic, and faster-paced than the novel. (In his review of this version, one critic said that the filmmakers had "Brontëfied" Austen, and that seems about right.)
Pride and Prejudice (1995) starring Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennet and Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy won an Emmy in 1996 for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Costume Design for a Miniseries or a Special. Made by the BBC, this is the fourth version and is claimed to be an authoritative adaptation of the novel. Among all versions, this may be the most consistently popular. The entire miniseries includes six episodes, lasting a total of five hours.
Pride and Prejudice (1940), starring Greer Garson as Elizabeth Bennet and Laurence Olivier as Mr. Darcy, won an Oscar in 1941 for Best Art Direction, Black-and-white. While Austen's biting dialogue rarely appears in this version, and the time period is later than it should be to allow for wilder costumes, critics seem to agree that this version is enjoyable as a film.
Several other films have been inspired by Austen's novel. Bride and Prejudice: The Bollywood Musical (2004) starring Aishwarya Rai as Lalita Bakshi and Martin Henderson as William Darcy, is set in contemporary India, England, and America. It is considered to be a reinvention of the story rather than a retelling of the novel and has the critics disagreeing. Some say the film as a fun and an entertaining musical while others believe that the music numbers overshadow the characters and plot.
Becoming Jane (2007) starring Anne Hathaway as Young Miss Austen, seems to imply that a young man inspired and encouraged Jane Austen to write. Go ahead and try this one - but be warned: biographies of Austen state that her family fully embraced her writing, and so it appears that this movie is probably more Hollywood romance than truth.
Lectures
This lecture by Dean Brian Rosenberg (now president of Macalester College) was given in the winter of 2000. As Dean Rosenberg points out, the lecture raises more questions than it answers. Can Austen be described as a realist? Which things seem more "real" to us - family, money, and love; or war, worldwide hunger, and disease? Does Austen challenge or leave unchallenged the roles of women in her time? Dean Rosenberg also does a close reading of a couple of passages and ends by probing the similarities between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy.
http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/freshman_studies/lectures/9900/austenlecture.shtml
Visit the link below for all Freshman Studies lectures for the past ten years, including several on Austen.
http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/freshman_studies/lectures/
Questions
- Do emotions and feelings triumph over reason and sense? Which characters give themselves over to their emotions? Do they all? When and how do characters switch from being ruled by emotions to reason?
- In thinking of the title, readers often assume that pride refers to Mr. Darcy and prejudice to Elizabeth. Do you ever sense it's the other way around?
- How does the visit to Pemberley change Elizabeth? Why does she change? Does this presume that she has given up her defiance and independence to settle into a conventional role?
- What does the scene between Lady Catherine and Elizabeth do to further the novel? What does the scene reveal about Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy? Is Elizabeth pushed towards liking Mr. Darcy more or does she not need any encouragement at this point in the novel?
- Does this ending seem too good to be true or have Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy earned their happy ending? Is the ending satisfying? Why? If not, what would make it satisfying?
Links
Since Austen so often relies on our understanding of social customs it might be good to look more about Regency England. Here are a few places to start:
- "The Republic of Pemberley," easily the best of all the Austen sites.
www.pemberley.com - "A Regency Repository," with sections on the arts, education, and fashion from the period.
http://www.regencylady.net/repository/ - "Jane Austen Centre," the official site of the JA Centre in Bath.
http://www.janeausten.co.uk/