Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. It is in the Romance genre, but is also a humorous, witty and engaging read. It is set in rural a rural, English community called Hertfordshire, in which the general population has no great social status or connections. Pride and Prejudice has a wide audience, with the only possible issue for any reader being the now old-fashioned language. However, it is loved by both literary scholars and the regular public, and has been adapted multiple times into new books, films and television programs. The 2005 Pride and Prejudice movie has been very popular, starring Kiera Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet, the main character. The BBC produced a television series of Pride and Prejudice, with Colin Firth as Mr Darcy, Elizabeth Bennet’s love interest. A book was written by Seth Grahame-Smith named Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in 2009, which was then also adapted into a film. Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is written to challenge the idea that women must marry "well", into a wealthy and well standing family. Austen writes about women who marry for love, despite the social pressures to make a match entirely for survival. As mentioned before, Elizabeth Bennet is the main character, and is a sensible, smart and beautiful lady of 20. Her only failing is her social class. With four sisters - her elder sister named Jane, and the three younger siblings Mary, Kitty and Lydia - and no brother, Elizabeth has no means of staying off the street other than marrying a man with fortune. Her sister Jane is even more beautiful than Elizabeth, so beautiful that even people who don’t like her mention it. She is also intelligent, and Jane and Elizabeth's funny and thoughtful conversations are a large part of the book. The upper class women who meet Jane mention that ‘it is a pity’ about Jane’s ‘connections’. They believe her good enough to have been a part of their class, but because of social standing are cruel to her behind her back. 
Mr Darcy, mentioned previously, is another major character. He is a ‘fine, tall person,(with) handsome features’, and is exceedingly wealthy as ‘of his having ten thousand a year’. However, by the end of the first meeting of him, all of Hertfordshire, and the reader, are persuaded to dislike him greatly due to his pride and ‘disagreeable countenance’. The readers opinion of Mr Darcy changes considerably throughout the book, generally following the opinions and feelings of Elizabeth Bennet. For the start Mr Darcy is thought of as proud and rude, then viscous and mean on top of that for most of the book. It is only after Mr Darcy explains a great many misunderstandings to Elizabeth that the reader can appreciate that Mr Darcy might not be so bad. After that, both Elizabeth’s and the readers opinion of Mr Darcy continues to improve until the end when Elizabeth and Darcy are married. The text is written in third person, with a 'bystander' narrator. The narrator follows Elizabeth Bennet most often, and so we are drawn into feeling the same emotions as her towards other characters and events. Certain characters would have appeared very differently had the book been written from Mr Darcy’s point of view. The narrator, however, occasionally gives the reader a small piece of information about his thoughts, meaning that they aren’t completely ignorant as to his ideas and perspectives.(Not completed)