A Contemporary Feminist Understanding of Pride and Prejudice
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The Review: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Research Volume 17 The Review Article 9 2016 An Unfounded Universal Truth: A Contemporary Feminist Understanding of Pride and Prejudice Jenna DeForte St. John Fisher College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/ur Part of the English Language and Literature Commons How has open access to Fisher Digital Publications benefited ou?y Recommended Citation DeForte, Jenna. "An Unfounded Universal Truth: A Contemporary Feminist Understanding of Pride and Prejudice." The Review: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Research 17 (2016): -. Web. [date of access]. <https://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/ur/vol17/iss1/9>. This document is posted at https://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/ur/vol17/iss1/9 and is brought to you for free and open access by Fisher Digital Publications at St. John Fisher College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. An Unfounded Universal Truth: A Contemporary Feminist Understanding of Pride and Prejudice Abstract Many people have deemed Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen a timeless tale. This story has been adapted through many different mediums and has been reimagined in all different contexts. One of the most recent reincarnations of this story is a web-series on YouTube that spanned 100 episodes. The Lizzie Bennet Diaries builds a whole new world for Austen’s familiar characters to grow and develop in. Using a feminist lens, the original novel and adaptation are examined in how both works represented the female characters. Through the analysis of Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice it is clear that her characters befit the twenty-first century ideology effortlessly and, more importantly, thrive from the shift. This emphasizes the craft of Austen and her alignment with some feminist ideals. This article is available in The Review: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Research: https://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/ur/ vol17/iss1/9 DeForte: An Unfounded Universal Truth: A Contemporary Feminist Understandi An Unfounded Universal Truth: A Contemporary Feminist Understanding of Pride and Prejudice Jenna DeForte “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that Through the analysis of Pride and Prejudice a single man in possession of a good fortune it is clear that her characters fit into the must be in want of a wife” (1). This is how twenty-first century ideology effortlessly the famed love story of Elizabeth Bennet and, more importantly, thrive from the shift. and Fitzwilliam Darcy begins: with an oversimplification of what every man and Marriage Plot and Feminism woman aspires to have: a marriage. Jane Austen decides to begin her novel Pride and Pride and Prejudice follows a marriage plot Prejudice with this rather interesting line. and uses marriage ideology of the early The next 376 pages are dedicated to how nineteenth-century. Lori Halvorsen Zerne one family tries, rather successfully, to establishes that marriage ideology “demands marry off its five daughters. Fast-forward that gentlewomen find both financial and 200 years after the novel is published. This romantic fulfillment in marriage (1-2). familiar line is sarcastically recited as a 21st- Women take on specific pre-determined century Lizzie Bennet establishes that a web roles of wife and mother that limit their series vlog would be a far cry from its freedoms keeping them dependent on men. source material. The adaptation The Lizzie During Austen’s time a woman had few Bennet Diaries, a 100 episode YouTube options; she either got married and raised a series from 2012 -2013, switches focus and family, or she became a spinster. There was often surprises the audience in the ways it not much else for her to do. Education for decides to re-tell this famous story. women was usually nothing more than domestic understandings and left them at a There has been a debate about where Austen loss to maintain their own lives. Austen’s fits on a feminist spectrum, if she does at all. novel reaffirms and reinforces society’s While developing a full understanding of ideals about women and marriage by ending how The Lizzie Bennet Diaries adapts the the novel with three marriages. A happy original source material of Pride and ending is to fall in love with a very rich man Prejudice, this essay specifically examines and marry him, which is what her heroines the characters created by Austen, as they are do. The characters may challenge some of translated to The Lizzie Bennet Diaries the patriarchal notions and rebel against through a feminist perspective. The changes some restrictions placed upon them, but they made to these characters most obviously always end up falling into the role they were present a feminist perspective that at first destined for. glance seems to be new. Yet, upon further examination of Austen’s original writing Even though The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is an and characters, as well as with an adaptation it quickly separates itself from understanding of feminist ideals of her time, the marriage ideology underlying Pride and it is apparent that Austen’s characters are Prejudice. The opening lines and major plot less traditional. The web-series capitalizes points may all be the same, but the focal on a newly forming fourth wave of points are vastly different. Lizzie Bennet feminism that utilizes the Internet to bring quickly flips the immensely recognizable Austen’s characters into a new light. first line of the book on its head. She Published by Fisher Digital Publications, 2016 1 The Review: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Research, Vol. 17 [2016], Art. 9 skeptically wonders, “universal truth, The terms feminist and feminism did not really?” because she cannot fathom a come into use until the late 19th century and woman aspiring to only become a wife emerged from the French word “feminisme” regardless of the wealth of her husband (My (Oxford English Dictionary). This does not Name is Lizzie Bennet). Her mother’s mean, however, that there were not women obsession with marrying off her daughters is who found a voice on the subject of the presented as ludicrous and often allows second-class citizenship that women largely Lizzie to turn her mother into a caricature, experienced at this time. Mary something that she does through Costume Wollstonecraft is one of the most notorious Theater scenes. Lizzie does not buy into her persons who led the way in describing and mother’s convoluted plans because marriage advocating for women’s rights. is not her only objective in life. Whereas Elizabeth Bennet is concerned with A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was economic stability through marriage, Lizzie published in 1792 by Mary Wollstonecraft Bennet has some room for failure in her detailing her highly radical views of women society. In the 21stcentury, marriage is no to receive the same fundamental rights longer the only option for women. Through reserved for men. She applied these beliefs Lizzie and the other women, the series specifically to women’s education and focuses more upon women having a career morality. She is specifically addressing and and ambition. Education is finally available describing the women of the middle class to these women so they can possess the tools which she claims are in the most “natural they need to achieve success. They are state” (11). Her aim is to expose the creating their own financial stability rather injustice that women experience in their than relying on men for it. This Lizzie “slavish dependence” upon men (12). She Bennet is a graduate student whose goals for believes that women are not inherently her future are not centered on marrying a weaker than men and that women should rich man. thus receive the same benefits as their male equivalents. Women have a right to The utter rejection of the sentiment that this education other than just domestic first line of the book represents demonstrates understandings. They also should not be how this series has been born out of a new restricted in their morality because they are ideology fitting for a twenty-first century perceived to be weaker in mind and body woman. The main women characters are than men. unapologetic for taking the things that they want. These women find romantic Mary Wollstonecraft’s writings challenged relationships come second to their career her society’s constructs for women in choices. The strong female characteristics of education. She claimed that the male the book’s characters are only enhanced by dominance and fear of allowing women a the web series. The marital union that closes proper education “contribute to enslave the book is not the ideal for the ending of the women by cramping their understandings adaptation. While the book moves toward and sharpening their senses” (25). Women marriage, the web series moves toward are forced to be dependent on their husbands female autonomy and agency. Lizzie Bennet for everything from political participation to is trying to navigate her career opportunities economic stability, both in knowledge and and finishing her graduate degree, not trying lawful rights. This system forcibly makes to find a husband. women seem weaker; they are not allowed to grow in society as men are allowed to do. https://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/ur/vol17/iss1/9 2 DeForte: An Unfounded Universal Truth: A Contemporary Feminist Understandi It was believed at the time that if a woman Facebook in movements such as #HeforShe ever presented herself as independent she and #GirlsLikeUs. With these online actions would appear less appealing to male suitors. women can pick and choose what they Wollstonecraft states, “The woman who affiliate themselves with. strengthens her body and exercises her mind will…become the friend, and not the humble The Lizzie Bennet Diaries grows out of this dependent of her husband.” (33).