It is written by Jane Austen in 1813. Two centuries ago. Surprisingly, through the story, I can imagine how people in that era lives. Technology was not a thing in the 19th century. Social status is measured by what kind of people do we know. Although that kind of measurement still exists, the current trend also measured by how many people followed our social media account. In the 19th century, the job is not as important as the annual income. In fact, most of the characters I supposed do not actively work. Nowadays, having an ‘important’ job is as important as income. Those are two aspects that strike me when I read Pride and Prejudice.
What is it about?
The story started because of two things. One, Mrs. Bennet, a mother of five daughters, eager to have their children married and even better if their children married to rich persons. Two, Mr. Bingley, a rich bachelor recently arrived in the neighborhood.
Throughout the story, I learn how two characters embodied the title. Mr. Darcy, the pride, and Elizabeth Bennet, the prejudice develop their romance. I just realized the connection between the title and characters when I almost finished the reading though.
One of my favorite moments in the story happened when Elizabeth Bennet, the second oldest daughter, rejected Mr. Collins. Mr. Collins thought Elizabeth was playing with him. He thought she’s not being serious about rejecting him and playing hard to get. Later on, he realized that she’s not joking about it. What a realistic story and it still happens nowadays.
General thoughts
It is written pretty realistically. The location was real at the very least. The characters are rich. They have kind-hearted persons, prideful man, flirty and girlish daughters (one of them are more foolish than the other), bookworm, warm uncle and aunt, pragmatic friend, boastful cousin, cocky and arrogant lady, liar man, bold daughter, witty and ignorant father combined with twitchy and easy to panic mother, loyal servants, and a few more that I surely fail to recall.
Lately, I’m looking for free books to read and classic literature is free to access. Have to say, Pride and Prejudice is one of the gems in English classic literature. Sadly, Indonesia, my country doesn’t exist yet so I cannot find similar old classic literature and imagine how they lived their lives in the past. Still, I enjoy the experience of reading it. I would love to imitate and learn to write some parts of the book.
Who would like it?
I feel people that are interested, or even slightly interested, in classic English literature would find this book amazing. It needs a bit of patience for me to understand the vocabulary. It took me a while to differentiate who is referred to when Mrs. Bennet or Miss Bennet is used in the sentence. Because of the realistic theme, people who want to know what kind of lives in the English 19th century would also find this story fascinating.
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