Pride And Prejudice by Jane Austen

From time to time I read a critical opinion on “Pride and Prejudice” that, while acknowledging its excellence, wonders why Jane Austen could not in her genius provide some more gravitas. To be sure, it's rather more observant and intelligent than your run-of-the-mill romance, say such judgments, but a romance it is at bottom. No political savvy, no real attempt to face the role of women in Regency England, just a cute love story with an enjoyably satirical bent. Miss Jane herself seemed to agree with that assessment - she once called it "a little bit, two inches wide, of ivory". Decorative, but hardly important.

Would someone please tell me what these people were reading? It certainly isn't the same book that I read. Or the one that thousands of people have fallen in love with and has produced at least four separate movie and television versions (which is a detail that allows me to give away certain plot points below, confident that most people already know them).

It is indeed a very romantic love story, if by romance we mean the attempt of people to open themselves up and accept each other with their good and bad qualities - not only accept each other, but admire each other and want to be together just as they are. That process is difficult enough in this day and age, with the whole lot of us positively encouraged to be as frank as possible. Back in Miss Jane's day it seems to have been a good deal harder, what with the restrictions placed on people in the way of acceptable behavior and the disastrous consequences for breaking the social rules.

If, however, we understand "romance" to mean the story of a woman who doesn't know her own mind, who has been so hurt that she can't stand the thought of love, who is too headstrong to allow anyone to tame her, and/or who eventually finds her way into the arms of a muscular hero type and melts on the spot (which is, after all, exactly what happens in plenty of perfectly good romance novels), that's not precisely what we have here. To be sure, the heroine of “Pride and Prejudice” does indeed begin the story entirely too headstrong to submit to marriage for its own sake, and she certainly finds her way into the arms of a man she previously despised (offstage, of course, and vice versa), but she doesn't exactly melt. It would be more accurate to say that she learns to think for herself. Whereas before she rejected her society's more foolish standards by reflex, she gradually comes to accept or reject what she's told by thinking it over first. And people think that Jane Austen didn't consider the place of women in her world? That there's no understanding of the big picture in “Pride and Prejudice”? Baloney.

Now, “Pride and Prejudice” doesn't mention the big picture very often, although it's always present. The Bennett sisters get into trouble largely because a company of militia moves into a nearby village, and you and I both know that they're there to drill and train because at some point they will probably have to go fight against Napoleon Bonaparte, even though no one ever mentions his name. The sisters also have problems because they have no brothers, and know that a distant male relative will therefore inherit their house when their father dies. Rather than complain about these various disasters, though, the author shows us what their effects are upon the family in its daily life - the temptation to a group of young woman of handsome men in uniform hanging around, the scramble for advantageous marriages, and of course the question of whether one ought to seek a man one loves or a man with money if one can't have both. Great authors know, especially when it comes to two-inch pieces of ivory, that it's much more powerful to show the impact of great historical events than to talk about them. Jane Austen was a very great author.

If she simply showed the workings of her society, though, she would have been simply a very good essayist, not a great author. Fortunately for us, she was also an extraordinary stylist, and she had an enormous gift for irony, very much on display in “Pride and Prejudice” right from the famous first sentence. That same twinkle remains in Miss Jane's eye right through the first sentence of the last chapter - "Happy for all her maternal feelings was the day on which Mrs. Bennett got rid of her two most deserving daughters." Few authors would dare spend hundreds of pages setting up two weddings and then dismiss them both like that. It's positively delicious. With that kind of language, that sly inclusion of social criticism and such intriguing characters as Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy, you can call “Pride and Prejudice” a cute little romance if you want, but I'm warning you - it has hidden depths.

Don't let that scare you, though. I told you, it's delicious. Dive in and enjoy.

Benshlomo says, Grown-up readers deserve grown-up books about grown-ups sometimes.