Introduction to Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen’s most popular work, Pride and Prejudice, was published in 1813 and over two hundred years later, it is still a big fixture in popular culture with over a dozen movie and television adaptations, the most recent being released this year. 

The iconic story is set in Regency England and follows Elizabeth Bennet, her parents and her four sisters, Jane, Kitty, Lydia, and Mary. The Bennet family lives on an estate that is not to be inherited by any of the sisters upon their father’s death because it has been entailed away to the closest male heir, Mr. Collins. Upon finding out Mr. Bingley, a rich, single man, is moving into the neighbourhood, Mrs. Bennet sets it upon herself to marry one of her daughters to him. She hopes that this favourable connection will allow her other daughters to improve their connections and marry rich as well, thus making the inevitable loss of the estate less of a problem. Mrs. Bennet also tries to make Elizabeth marry Mr. Collins to keep the estate in the Bennet family, but upon her refusal, Mr. Collins marries Charlotte Lucas, Elizabeth’s closest friend. Upon his first meeting the Bennets, Mr. Bingley immediately takes an interest in the eldest daughter, Jane. During their first meeting, Elizabeth also becomes acquainted with Mr. Bingley’s friend, Mr. Darcy, whom she dislikes almost immediately. Her dislike of him is later fuelled by the deceptive Mr. Wickham, an estranged childhood friend of Mr. Darcy’s. He only helps her confirm her perception of him as a proud and angry man with many faults. She eventually learns of Mr. Wickham’s deception and Darcy’s true character comes to light. By the conclusion of the novel, her feelings for Mr. Darcy have completely reversed and she falls in love with him. 

I will be looking at Robert Z. Leonard’s Pride and Prejudice (1940), the BBC television series Pride and Prejudice (1995), and Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejudice (2005), which are more direct adaptations, taking place in or around the Regency era. The other works are Gurinder Chadha's Bride & Prejudice (2004), a Bollywood film that transplants the story into modern-day India, and The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (2012), an online vlog adaptation of the novel that also takes place in the present day. Though aspects of gender, race/ethnicity, and sexuality are heavily influenced by the source material, the time in which these adaptations were produced also has a strong influence on how these aspects are portrayed. 

I will not be analysing certain adaptations, such as Bridget Jones’ Diary (2001) and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016), because they are both adaptations of novels that are adaptations of  Jane Austen’s work. I chose to look specifically at adaptations that are more directly connected to the original novel to see exactly how they interpret the source material.