Quirky Monday: Austen Rant

Ok, soapbox time.

I recently saw Pride and Prejudice and Zombies with a friend. AND I LOVED IT. You know what the best part was? It made several things blatantly obvious that are hidden beneath the layers of the original. Not the least of which is:

Elizabeth Bennet is a conceited prig.

There, I said it, and I’m not taking it back.

Why? Well, first of all, because it’s the truth. Having been a fan of Austen from the time I was—eight(I KNOW!!!!); I have had/overheard countless conversations with friends/peers about her books. Chief among the subjects is something like this—“Mr. Darcy is a selfish arrogant snob that doesn’t deserve Elizabeth, blah, blah, blah.” But never never is Elizabeth faulted. Everything is laid at Darcy’s door, and some of those peers—who, understandably, have little understanding of Austen’s culture—deem him the villain of the piece. He isn’t. Not by a long shot.

Elizabeth is.

Here’s why: the class system of Austen’s world meant that those who were raised in the upper echelon of society were taught a form of etiquette where one of the rules was this: you do not speak to anyone who has not been introduced. Now, call me quirky, but if I had been raised by those rules my entire life, I’d have trouble “conversing with those of which I have no acquaintance”.  It isn’t snobbery; it isn’t anti-social behavior; it’s etiquette.

Additionally, if I was raised in a middle-class family with a scheming, rather embarrassing mother and a father who wanted to be left alone(and didn’t care a jot for society); and four sisters that were—well, they all had a fault of some kind—I would  certainly want to hide my hurt with something we all hold a little too dear at times. That something is called Pride. And when our pride is damaged, when tend to do and say stupid things, sometimes with the best of intentions.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that those of us with faults tend to tar others with the same brush. People familiar with both the book and the film will remember Elizabeth’s words to Darcy when he first proposes to her: “Your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain convinced me that you were the last man in the world I could ever be prevailed upon to marry!”

She calls him arrogant, conceited, disdainful. Anybody wonder if she picks those out because sub-consciously she has those faults herself? That’s called prejudice.; and it’s something Elizabeth developed long before that jackass Wickham came into her life. 

And ok, if someone I was attracted to(yes, she was attracted to him!!! it’s in the book)said I was “not handsome enough to tempt [him]”; and I was already aware that my fortune and family wouldn’t exactly get me the best match, I’d be ticked off too.

Pride and Prejudice doesn’t just get its name from the faults of one of it’s characters; the title comes from the faults of two. Both act—in part—according to how they were raised; and both have to overcome the faults in their upbringing to get their happily ever after.

The end.

Descending soapbox.

This post was brought to you in part by “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”, now playing in theatres and one of the few adaptions where the screenwriter gets both Elizabeth and Darcy right.