Despite having a love for reading, until recently I had never picked up classics of my own accord and had only read one or two during my English classes at school. I think my main concern was that I wouldn’t be able to understand the way in which they were written. With many being written in the 1800s, I assumed that reading Old English would be tedious and not that enjoyable.
Now at university, I have decided to move past this mindset and I originally started myself off by reading some modern classics (so that I didn’t have to worry about the whole Old English language ordeal.) But then I began to realise now was as good a time as any to give a ‘proper classic’ a good go. And as soon as two of my friends suggested Pride and Prejudice, both claiming it to be their favourite book, I caved and started the journey back into time.
I began by watching the film because whilst I would usually prefer to read the book first, I wanted to make sure I would actually enjoy the concept of the book and wanted to know what to expect before throwing myself in. I quickly found that I LOVED the film and ended up bingeing the BBC TV series just a few days later. This was slightly slower paced (as to be expected, as more content can be covered in a series than a film) but after reading the book this series seemed to be the most realistic in comparison.
Now, down to the actual reading of Jane Austen’s most famous work. Whilst the language was at times slightly old-fashioned, with more flowery terms than I expected and embedded with numerous words of detailed description – I did find myself enjoying it. Normally, I would consider myself a fast-paced reader but even though the novel was only around 300 pages, I found it took me longer than expected to get through it and more of my attention and concentration was required.
But reading this novel wasn’t just for the purpose of being able to mark it down as a classic I’ve read, I wanted to also explore the question I had seen pop up frequently in relation to this book – is Pride and Prejudice still relevant in today’s society?
Written between 1796-1797 and originally titled First Impressions, the novel was published anonymously in 1813, meaning this year it is 201 years old. A lot has shifted politically, socially and culturally since then. For this reason alone, many argue that a novel of that age cannot be entirely relevant today. And it isn’t (at least not wholly), but at the same time with society moving so rapidly, it is becoming increasingly harder to find books that still reflect a completely perfect representation of the current period.
Some say they find it hard to relate to someone living in Regency England, and the issues that arise throughout the story also make it hard for them to imagine themselves in positions that the characters are put in. So, it goes without being said that a lot of the systems Jane Austen pokes fun at, aren’t really relevant to us anymore.
Lots of women today (admittedly, still not all) no longer live in a society where marriage is seen as the only option for them. With multiple research surveys showing that majority of women in their 20s put careers before their love life, this is something that wouldn’t have been fathomable in the 1800s – it was practically unheard of for women to have careers and most were married by the age of 22. Along with that, most of us don’t have to worry about our house being left to an incredibly annoying cousin or being caught up in the scandal of a younger sister. And that’s just Elizabeth. People find it even harder to relate to the broody Mr Darcy.
Many don’t like the portrayal of Mrs Bennet and I am one of the many that found her character to be beyond irritating. She is easily perceived as silly and irrational and personally, I found myself rolling my eyes a few times at her over-dramatics. But the problem with her character being presented in such a way meant that a lot of people view women from that time to be self-obsessed and pathetic, with their only concern being money, dresses and gossip about people’s love lives. At the time, women were put into a box where careers weren’t typically an option for them and men had a lot of control over their lives and hobbies, many didn’t even like women reading too much as they didn’t want to risk a woman being smarter than them.
On top of this, like I previously mentioned, the dialect and Jane Austen’s writing can, at times, be difficult to understand and it is not the way we are used to reading and writing now. So it’s fair to say that it is not as accessible to a wide audience as it once was.
Despite this, I would argue that whilst those problems may not be entirely the issue of today’s generation, I don’t think Jane Austen needed us to wholly sympathise with the characters. She often wrote in a highly satirical way, that often made fun of the society she was a part of. I believe she wanted the message to be that we all have an inner desire to be perfect and we all inevitably make mistakes. She teaches about recognising those flaws within ourselves so that we can accept healthy relationships and improve ourselves. Also, as humans we will always have feelings of ‘pride’ and there will always be people who have experienced treatments derived from ‘prejudice.’
In some ways it is also a great historical documentation of the systems of society back then but also how some things haven’t changed, e.g. classism and the ignorance of some people in powerful positions.
The fact that many consider the novel to be a classic is enough in itself to show that it clearly has some significance and influence upon people. The definition of a classic, is a novel that has stood the test of time. As a book that is still widely read, with many adaptations and is the source of inspiration for lots of other novels and film/TV productions - I’d say Pride and Prejudice is just that, a classic.
Of course, there are always going to be arguments that debate reasons why the famous book doesn’t deserve such a title. But I think there are two types of people – people who enjoy reading classic literature and those who refuse to pick up something written over a hundred years ago.
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