Why Do People Like Pride and Prejudice So Much?

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Clarissa

June 6, 2011

I was leafing through Kindle Sunshine Deals and was surprised to discover how many sequels, prequels and rewritings of Jane Austen’s middling-quality novel Pride and Prejudice keep appearing on a regular basis. This author has written much better stuff, but it’s Pride and Prejudice that keeps getting rewritten and filmed obsessively. Can anybody explain this to me? The whole point of the book is that an intelligent, sensitive woman falls in love with a man she used to detest after she gets to see his big, beautiful, impressive, huge, desirable. . . house. What’s so inspiring about that?

I love Jane Austen but this particular novel always made me cringe because of the sheer shamelessness of the female protagonist who just sells herself so easily and unapologetically.

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5 responses to “Why Do People Like Pride and Prejudice So Much?”

GMP

June 6, 2011

Didn’t Darcy also save Elisabeth’s youngest sister’s honor after she had fled with Wickham (too lazy to look up spelling) by making Wickham marry her? And he assisted in the reunion of the eldest sister with his best buddy Bingley (the two were only separated because Darcy had meddled to begin with)?

This is my take on the book’s romantic appeal (obviously I am not a literary critic, this is just how it always struck me): Darcy is the ultimate fixer-upper. He starts off as a cold and arrogant asshole, but then he develops all these wonderful qualities like warmth and compassion and kindness as a result of his affection for Elisabeth. (You wrote about women’s attraction to “broken” guys here.) I think the house serves a dual purpose: to hint on his true self — he must be really great underneath it all to have grown up in such an awesome place (?!) plus we observe him interacting lovingly with his sister, and doubles as the reward Elisabeth is to receive for all the successful fixing up.

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A.Anon

June 6, 2011

Yes I have often felt the same way. Pride and prejudice is way overrated.
The only thing I can see going for it is that the heroine is vaguely intelligent, which cannot be said for any of the other female characters in the novel. Perhaps that is it?

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nominatissima

June 6, 2011

Reminds me of this issue of Hark, A Vagrant!: http://www.harkavagrant.com/history/austenfinal.png

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David Gendron

June 6, 2011

“sensitive woman falls in love with a man she used to detest after she gets to see his big, beautiful, impressive, huge, desirable. . . house. What’s so inspiring about that?”

At least, she hates him now… That’s better! This is inspiring for women because the large majority of them loves that kind of shit of what I call “legalized prostitution”. This is a kind of prostitution that is very common in couple relationships in this society. Another reason why we shouldn’t care much about the so-called “criminalized prostitution”….

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  June 6, 2011
  
  I couldn’t agree more. Hypocritical, that’s what it is.
  
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