“Pride & Prejudice,” a book by Jane Austen written between 1796 and 1797, is about a woman named Elizabeth Bennet. The story is a romance between main character Elizabeth and a rather proud man named Mr. Darcy.
In the story, Elizabeth is the second oldest of five daughters to a middle class family. The story follows Elizabeth, or Lizzy, as she goes through getting older and facing challenges that were very common to women at that time. She struggles with love, both romantic and with her family.
I think that this story is perfect for people who like a slower paced love story that dives deep into the romantic pining between two unlikely characters. The story is also a realistic glance into the average’s woman’s life in the 1700s. The characters themselves show a level of complexity that I think is very important; even the side characters have their own stories and are therefore more than just supporting the main characters. The reader gets to know different characters and understand every choice they make.
It also helps that Lizzy is not perfect and she makes mistakes just like everyone else. I think it is very important to have a main character who is realistic. She makes decisions that are based on emotions, but she is also an intellectual thinker that is incredibly intelligent.
Her love interest, Mr. Darcy, is not perfect either. He is a proud and sometimes arrogant man. He is rich and very antisocial as well. He is in no way a ladies’ man and has clear flaws that make him undesirable. However, he is also kind and thoughtful. He is on the same level of intelligence as Lizzy and therefore complements her well.
I think the romance between the characters is written very well, especially because they do not get along the whole time. They argue and disagree with one another without being toxic, which is rare to see even in romance novels today. Overall, I think “Pride & Prejudice” is a great example of two people thinking lowly of each other and turning out to be more similar than they think.
