Book Review: Pride and Prejudice

This book was written over 2 centuries ago and yet continues to be relevant even today. Either Austen was a true visionary when it came to human emotions and psyche and societal paradigms or we just progressed really really slowly. I guess the answer is that society remains inherently the same, no matter how much we progress technologically.

Austen’s most famous work, Pride and Prejudice was set, written and published in the 19th century, in Victorian England. It follows the lives of the Bennett family, mainly Elizabeth Bennett and deals with subjects like love, feminism, landed gentry and inheritance.

The story

Mr. Bennett is the owner of a small estate called Longbourne in Hertfordshire. Mrs. Bennett’s sole purpose in life is to marry off her five daughters into good, respectable families. When the amiable and rich Charles Bingley and his mysterious brooding friend, Mr. Darcy come to live nearby, Mrs. Bennett immediately resolves to get one of her daughters married to him. Jane, the eldest, is sweet-natured and beautiful and Elizabeth, the second eldest, is described as sensible and pretty but not as pretty as her sister.

Elizabeth, although practical and sharp, makes a snap judgement about Mr. Darcy and he, in turn, dismisses her as “not pretty enough to tempt me”. Against his own will, he falls in love with her. He even refuses to admit to himself that he has fallen for a girl out of his class. She, on the other hand, considers him rude, proud and arrogant and resolves to “despise him forever.” Hence her rejection when he reluctantly proposes to her.

As the book progresses, Elizabeth learns, bit by bit, that she was wrong about him. When her dim witted and flirtatious sister runs away with the unscrupulous Mr. Wickham, Mr. Darcy goes and finds them and gets them married. He does all he can to help her family, especially when they are constantly embarrassing themselves in public. Finally, she realizes she loves him too and marries him, while Jane marries Charles Bingley.

The review

Elizabeth is a proud woman, despite her social standing. She bluntly rejects Darcy’s proposal of marriage even though he had all the things her family could only dream of. He, on the other hand, is prejudiced to the extent that it interferes with his conscience when he falls in love. The romance between them is the epitome of “don’t judge a book by its cover”.

The book explores a lot of ideas. For instance, marriage and what it means to each sex. Women back then had to take whatever offer of marriage they got because that was the only way they could be guaranteed safety and security in the world.

Women had only their looks and familial connections to count on when it came to securing a good life for themselves, because nobody really cared about their intelligence. Their prospects solely depended on how agreeable they could make themselves to the first decent man they met.

They had to make good and respectable marriages to ensure their family’s well being, especially if they had no brother because then, their father’s property, including the house they had lived in for most of their life before marriage, would pass on to the next male heir, usually a cousin, and they would then be at his mercy, so to speak. He could do as he pleased with the estate and even had the right to throw them out on the street. In such cases, one of the daughters would be married to the said cousin so that the estate and property would remain in the family.

The fact is, when you’re conditioned to think in a certain way, its hard to snap out of it and ask, “Why?” Its very hard to look at things in a purely logical way and think, “No, this doesn’t seem right.” If society has decided on set gender roles, then its hard for most people to even understand that this is morally wrong. It is wrong to deprive women of their rightful inheritance, to prohibit them to own property, to not teach them the same things men are taught, or even to not allow them to drive or vote. Its not easy for someone to think that men and women should be treated equally, when everywhere around them, the norm is the opposite.

Equality, secularism, freedom, human rights, these are considered radical ideas because not many people are able to comprehend them, not in the right way anyway. Because while a nation’s constitution may state that “all men must be treated equally” the interpretation is all white men, because nobody at the time even considered black men as human beings. Similarly, it doesn’t even mention women because nobody at the time even considered women as worth being treated equally.

This is why Pride and Prejudice is an evergreen classic, still relevant today. It addresses feminism, acknowledging it as a thing, back when nobody knew it existed. It was a radical idea. And until we’re fighting for equality, Pride and Prejudice will continue to remain relevant.