On this date in 1813, the novel Pride and Prejudice was published anonymously.
It brought Jane Austen joy, if not financial security. She read most of her works to her family as she composed them, at night in drawing rooms and kitchens, as entertainment and conversation. When her family's lives changed, Austen would interweave their experiences in society with her characters' lives. Publication also ushered in a new era of fiction devoted to social and economic ties between the landed rural gentry of English society. Pride and Prejudice stands out as a novel by the very fact that it pulled back the curtain to reveal the burdens and dangers of such a society: the raft of too-many daughters, the burden of spinsterdom at the ripe old age of 27 and the lengths one would go toward in order to alleviate that spinsterhood, and the threat of social suicide by elopement, never to be seen in polite circles due to one's alleged impropriety. Austen explored these themes in a novel originally entitled First Impressions; through the long lens of history, we see that the first impressions are often lacking, but fascinating to revisit with age and maturity to change the perspective.
Erroneous first impressions must be adjusted to one's actual experience of other persons; for example, Elizabeth learns that her first impressions of both Darcy and Wickham were mistaken. Austen called the novel First Impressions until she saw the ending. Yet the novel's final title, Pride and Prejudice, is perhaps more apt, as it suggests the much more profound influences involved, and values at stake, in one's judgment of persons. "What Do I Not Owe You?": An Examination of Gratitude in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice notes that the theme of humility as a fundamental remedy manifests itself not only in terms of the judgments made by Elizabeth and Darcy, but also, perhaps more subtly, in terms of their developing love for one another, particularly as their gratitude for one another evinces itself in the novel. Indeed, the concept of gratitude garners elaborate treatment throughout the novel, particularly in the scenes and descriptions dealing with the evolving attachment between Darcy and Elizabeth. Pride and Prejudice reveals and celebrates the profound idea that gratitude is the proper response to the gift of self that is love, and, further, that gratitude is a sign and effect of authentic humility.
Marriage was the ultimate power play in Austen's rural society. "In Want of a Wife"--or a Husband--in Pride and Prejudice studies a novel that takes its first sentence and creates an entire theme. Witty as the first sentence of the novel is, there is another way to read it. “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” If we take this sentence at face value, it says that everyone understands that the single man’s life is incomplete, that once he has met his material needs, he must then be looking to meet some other kind of need, one that can only be filled by a wife. What sort of a need this might be is left unsaid. In fact, from one perspective, the rest of the novel is an exploration of what the individual lacks, and what each character is looking for in a mate. We are offered a parade of couples throughout the novel, each couple having a different basis for formation. They fare better or worse depending on the wisdom and affections of the people involved. One of the reasons the novel endures is because it takes as its subject marriage itself, and all the ways we both create relationships and decide what we'll settle into.
Are you a "Darcy jumps into the lake" viewer or a "Darcy stalks the moors in his nightdress" viewer? Lost in Austen: Screen Adaptation in a Post-Feminist World includes a reading/viewing of the television series Lost in Austen (Dan Zeff, 2008), based on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. This television series is situated in a large and expanding field of adaptations provoked by Austen's novel, including, for example, Pride and Prejudice (Robert Z. Leonard, 1940) considered by George Bluestone in 1957, Bridget Jones's Diary (Sharon Maguire, 2001) considered by Mireia Aragay and Gemrna Lopez in 2005, and the 2005 film Pride & Prejudice directed by Joe Wright. Relations of difference arise from the situation of a screen work in an intertextual field, and so provide a way of conceiving screen adaptations in a symbiotic relationship with source works and other works of art and, consequently, of reading/viewing them informed by differences that arise from the adaptation process.
Jane Austen rendered the reader gripped by the plucky central character, constrained (as Austen was) by a enclosed social world, where every step was watched and all moves had to be carefully planned. Elizabeth Bennet spoke to the reader's voice with unswerving satire and accuracy about what a young girl, unmarried but intelligent, had to consider when navigating this world. It was said that Elizabeth was the author's favorite of all of her own heroines. To transcend the trivialities of life in which the more foolish characters are overly absorbed was a staple of Bennet's experiences. Certainly Austen, and her character, have provided an enduring legacy as they told a life story set among the societies of Britain's rural elite.