Pride and Prejudice, for the Everything Austen Challenge

[tigerlily]

Pride and Prejudice drew me in much more easily than Emma or Mansfield Park did. Either I'm getting used to 19th century novels or it was just a more entertaining book. I can easily see it being the latter. 

It's not the romance that entertains, as much as the character Elizabeth herself. I see her as both a brilliant specimen of humanity and an ordinary person with ordinary flaws at the same time. I can see right away why Mr. Darcy would fall in love with her,  yet she is not some already perfect human being who reforms an asshole with love. Instead, the novel follows her growth as she has to let go of her preconceptions,  showing both her flaws and Mr. Darcy's virtues, without idealizing or demonizing either. It seems like a human relationship with human characters. Their love for each other rests on their recognition of the others human virtues and their willingness to overcome their human flaws, on a tension that arises not from being complete opposites who dislike each other, but from equals who can learn to look past the social trimmings that they wear.  In Elizabeth, we have an absolutely charming character whose ordinary flaws drive both her internal conflict about her feelings toward Wickham Darcy, and the external events such as Lydia's eloping, Mr. Darcy's change and his subsequent actions. This creates a gripping story with little to no melodrama that absorbed me, made heart pound and left me warm and joyful.