The Great Misrepresentation of "Pride and Prejudice"

Modern love stories are full of cliches but the most prominent- and most dangerous- is the cruel and often violent male love interest that serves opposite to the innocent yet spunky and quick-witted female protagonist. This is seen in almost every single modern romance story, including prominent ones such as Fifty Shades of Grey, as well as amateur writing, like After. For a dive into the dangers of the troupe, read my article “He’s Not Mean to You Because He Likes You”. The seeming origin of this cliche is deeply misunderstood and misrepresented.

Jane Austen wrote her most famous novel, Pride and Prejudice, in 1813. Since then it has been analyzed and studied by students, scholars, and the casual reader and yet tragically is completely misunderstood by most people. One prime example of this is the way Prime and Prejudice is used in the young adult novel After by Anna Todd. The discussion by the main characters shows how misunderstood the author is on the actual relationship of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy and misuses it as an analogy for the dysfunctional romance between her own characters. The short conversation is as follows*:

Tessa: ...Mr. Darcy is so cruel and says hateful things about Elizabeth and her family so I didn’t know if she would forgive him, let alone love him.

Harry: ...Women want what they can’t have. Mr. Darcy’s rude attitude is what drew Elizabeth to him…

Tessa: That isn’t true, about women wanting what they can’t have. Mr. Darcy was only mean to her because he was too proud to admit he loved her. Once he stopped his hateful act she saw that he really loved her.

Harry: If he loved her he wouldn’t have been mean to her. The only reason he even asked for her hand in marriage was because she wouldn’t stop throwing herself at him.

*Excerpt taken from Anna Todd’s original story After on www.wattpad.com

The worst mistake most people make when reading or watching Pride and Prejudice is incorrectly assuming that the “pride” and “prejudice” refer to Mr. Darcy when in fact it refers to Elizabeth, at least for most of the story. The moral of the story is to not let “pride and prejudice” get in the way of judgement, as Mr. Darcy initially did towards Elizabeth and Elizabeth did later towards Mr. Darcy. A common misconception is that Darcy was “cruel” and “mean” to Elizabeth for most of the story. That is simply not true. Besides his initial introduction to Elizabeth, describing her as not “handsome”, Darcy is pleasant and even friendly to her. It is only Elizabeth’s own dislike of him that blinds her to his real feelings. Darcy’s friends- namely Mr. Bingley, Miss Bingley, Mrs. Hurst, Colonel Fitzwilliam, and Georgiana Darcy- describe Mr. Darcy as friendly and agreeable, despite the way he is perceived by Elizabeth and her family. This seems to point to Mr. Darcy being somewhat shy, like his sister proves to be later- and cold toward those he hasn’t met. At the first ball he attends in the story, he dances and speaks with only those he knows, giving the impression of being very cold, although he warms up to individual characters as the story progresses. After this first impression with Elizabeth, Darcy compliments her, asks her to dance, and attempts to start a relationship with her. Though Darcy has his flaws, especially his criticism in the first place, he is nowhere near the level of “cruel” and “mean” that modern romantic interests are, despite the numerous comparisons to sophisticate their writing. And that is the great tragedy of misunderstanding Pride and Prejudice. By comparing Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth’s relationship to that of an innocent girl intoxicated by a rich man’s cruelty, it is undermining the complexity of their characters and the significance of the story, which has real relevance in our society as a warning against prejudiced judgement. By comparing their cliche and shallow love story to such a classic devalues the story while demonstrating how misunderstood authors are of the complex romance behind Pride and Prejudice.