Austen's P&P vs. Bronte's JE

I remember the first time I attempted reading a novel by Jane Austen. I was ten years old, determined to read the classics, and plowed my way through Pride and Prejudice. I was disappointed. Most of the sophisticated wit mostly went over my head, and I really didn't like the end. I kept thinking that Lizzie was a wuss for forgiving Darcy's verbal slurs against her and her family. Who cares that he was worth 10,000 pounds a year? He behaved like a jerk and deserved to be blackballed forever.

Around that same time (age 10), I also attempted to read Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, of which again I was less enamored of the ending. Jane Eyre actually chose to return and marry a blind, crippled, old, duplicitous, already-married-when-he-tried-to-marry-Jane-the-first-time Mr. Rochester? After she inherited her fortune and didn't need his fortune anymore? After he constantly teased, tested, and tricked her? Was plain Jane as insane as Mr. Rochester's first wife? He also was a jerk and also deserved to be blackballed forever.

This was my black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking back when I was ten, before I understood that behavior and motivations did not always neatly align, before I realized the fact that real people and the most interesting fictional characters were a confusing mixture of good and bad and that romance stories often have heroes and heroines in direct conflict with each other.

When I was in college, I took a literature class focused entirely on the works of Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte. I rediscovered and adored Pride and Prejudice. With my more sophisticated 20 year-old mentality (more sophisticated than a 10 year-old me, at least), I delighted in Lizzie's battle of wits with Mr. Darcy, who clearly was the only young man worthy of Lizzie's intellect. Like many, many women readers, I saw what Elizabeth discovered in Mr. Darcy, his goodness of character beneath his socially awkward (okay, absolutely horrible) behavior.

I studied Jane Eyre in two different college classes, and a total of twenty years of maturity gave me an appreciation of her independent spirit, especially her agency demonstrated by insisting on her independence by advertising for governess jobs, which in Victorian times was indeed quite progressive. I also gained a sympathy for Mr. Rochester suffering the mistakes of his wild youth. Even though Mr. Rochester betrayed her and Jane becomes a financially independent woman after inheriting her uncle's money, Jane still chooses her imperfect (but wildly passionate) true love.

New film versions of these famous books were released within the past couple years, and I have recently watched both in their entirety. While I still believe the 1995 Pride and Prejudice miniseries starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth is the still the best film version of the novel, I think the 2006 Jane Eyre miniseries starring Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens has trumped the previous film versions for me, even with its changes from the text. Of course, now I'm completely a fan of Mr. Darcy in the book and the movies (especially as played by Colin Firth in 1995, though Matthew McFadyen's more recent interpretation was still pretty good), and I'm an okay fan of Mr. Rochester in the book and the movies (though I must admit Toby Stephens' passionately humorous depiction is compelling, if not exactly faithful to the Rochester weirdness in the novel).

I had already started this blog entry when I stumbled upon Libby of the Blue Rose Girls asking why are Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre found in the children's section? So my thoughts are that perhaps these novels aren't appropriate for 10 year olds in general. However children's literature today is getting broader and broader in age market appeal, as the audience for YA grows edgier, sexier, older (college age), and books originally written for kids, like Harry Potter series, are devoured by kids and adults alike. When they make their critical decisions, the female protagonists of Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice are 18-19 and 20. Thus by modern standards, they are within the YA age range. But in the context of the times during which they were published, YA did not really exist, and those girls would have been married and born children to secure their husbands' lineage as well as deal with more sophisticated issues like a rigid class system that does not directly translate to the modern American experience. Still, the characters of Lizzie Bennett, Mr. Darcy, Jane Eyre, and Mr. Rochester are at their core so real and continue to endure after over 150 years since the books' original publications.

Libby also asked who would you rather be and who would you rather create, Lizzie Bennett or Jane Eyre?

I will start with the answer to a question of my own, which is with whom I think I share the most similarities (including reversed initials): Jane Eyre. Though I was never an orphan, I often felt isolated, introverted and invisible during my childhood. That's why I turned to reading books, which became my passion. As an adult, I've had many day jobs to support my writing, which I am now pursuing more seriously. But I knew I always had to keep writing.

Even though I feel more like Jane Eyre, Dear Reader, I honestly would much rather have the sparkling wit and rapid-fire words of Lizzie Bennett. I would much rather laugh than cry. I also prefer her loving, if slightly crazy, large family. Oh, to have had the talent required to create characters as brilliant as Miss Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy!