Pride and Prejudice
Women in society today have come a long way from those in the 18th and 19th centuries. In terms of education, work, and marriage prospects, women today have many more choices than those in Jane Austen's novels, for example. Education for a young lady was generally seen as a way towards becoming a school teacher or becoming a high society married woman. There were few choices inbetween. For independently minded women like Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice, then, there were relatively few options to transcend the general social expectations of young ladies such as herself. Nevertheless, the character rises above what is expected of her, while at the same time satisfying her own independence. It is a novel that is satisfying even to today's reader, because its themes are both era specific and universal.
In Austen's novel, Elizabeth Bennet is an independent, free-speaking woman who evolves, throughout the novel, towards maturity and more rational decision making processes. For Elizabeth, it is not as necessary to transcend the expectation her society and family have of her as a young woman. Instead, it is to use these expectations to her advantage and to ultimately become the independent and free thinking person she strives towards being. In order to do this, however, she learns to suppress her rash decisions and judgments about others and ultimately finds her match in her suitor, Mr. Darcy.
In order to become desirable to such a match, Elizabeth is obliged to come to terms with a general truth of the time; that men are somewhat more free to choose marriage partners than women are: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession...
In other words, young men who are bachelors are expected to be as desirable as the wealth of their fortunes, while young women are expected to be as desirable as the conventions of femininity and beauty of the time suggested.
Both Darcy and Elizabeth appear to violate these conventions by falling in love with each other. The road to their union is, however, a difficult one, precisely because of the expectations imposed upon them by society. Elizabeth's headstrong nature serves only as a stronger attracting factor for Darcy, while Darcy's apparently aloof nature creates a strong alluring force for Elizabeth. The difficulty of their path creates for readers a satisfying romance that far exceeds the period of its writing.
The timeless nature of the novel, even more than Austen's other works, is confirmed by Francus, who cites derivations of Austen's work, such as The Diary of Bridget Jones, The Jane Austen Bookclub, and other derivations of her work that have appeared in popular culture. These have truly solidified Austen's work in Pride and Prejudice as indicative of timeless concerns with love and dating. For Elizabeth and Darcy, these concerns related to a society that wanted to curb the wild…
