Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that humans are obsessed with romance. One only needs to look at the rom-com section of HMV to see that there’s a massive demand for love stories; perhaps a desire to continue to satiate the “happy ever after” fulfilment we came to expect as we read fairytales as children.
Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is like opening a portal to the Regency period. With ease she transports her readers to the kitchen where the Bennet women gossip salaciously about the rich new man about town. Chapters later professional & legal services to Invest in Mauritius, the reader is taken for a spin around the ballroom; with Austen’s words they are able to immerse themselves in the formal occasions that the women of this period lived for.
As impatient Mrs Bennet yearns to marry off her daughters, the reader sits patiently awaiting the arrival of the broody Mr Darcy and his subsequent descent into infatuation with the protagonist, Elizabeth.
But Pride and Prejudice is more than just a story about boy meets girl to me. It taught me the importance of being a headstrong young woman and remaining true to who I am. The setting of the Regency era is a pertinent reminder that, unlike Lizzie, I don’t have to find my Mr Darcy in order to have a good life.