'Pride and Prejudice' by Jane Austen as my pre-1914 novel and 'Bridget Jones's Diary' by Helen Fielding as my post-1914 novel. The main focus of my comparison, will be 'Women's social depiction' .

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Wider Reading GCSE Assignment

For my wider reading assignment for GCSE, I have chosen the novel ‘Pride and Prejudice’ by Jane Austen as my pre-1914 novel and ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ by Helen Fielding as my post-1914 novel.  The main focus of my comparison, will be ‘Women’s social depiction’ .

  The reason for my choice of novels, relating to my topic, is fairly simple.  Both novels have a heroine as the main subject, both are centred very much around this one heroine, and both go into great detail about the heroine and her state of mind in various points throughout each novel.  This, of course, is necessary, as the subject of my comparisons will be the heroines, and how they are represented.

  The novel ‘Pride and Prejudice’ is very well known, and is considered one of Jane Austen’s finest pieces of writing, a classic in every way.  So when I chose this book, I had a fair idea of what to expect.  Before hand, all I knew of this novel, was that it was a love story, with an unexpected twist.  So going into the book, I had some fairly prejudiced notions, knowing that it was a romance story, I was expecting a drawn-out tale of ‘young love’ with plenty of angst and picturesque scenes.

  Similarly, I also knew that ‘Bridget Jones’s diary’ was a romantic and humorous novel that also contained feminist themes.  Judging from the genre, I thought that this book would contain lots of ‘lovey-dovey’ scenes, and plenty of cracks at men.

 I knew that the main genre for both novels was romance, so I was expecting both to contain more or less the same plot with only minor adaptations to the story so that they could be called ‘original’.  The whole ‘romantic’ genre is generally considered to be one aimed at women, and this opinion may be held partly responsible for the stereotyping of all women as being ‘hopelessly romantic’.  This affected me greatly when I chose my topic and books, because I wanted to choose a topic that would introduce me to a relatively new genre (for me).  When a reader picks up a book that is considered part of the ‘romantic’ genre, you develop certain expectations of the genre as a whole.  The reader expects a ‘sappy’ plot line, a female lead character, and a happy ending.  So when you come across a book that ‘breaks the mould’ so to speak, it is regarded as something special.  This is why I chose ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’, as I knew that both are highly regarded.

  Although both books are similar, the authors themselves are very different.  Jane Austen was born on the 16th of December 1775 in a small village called Steventon near Basingstoke.  She was the seventh child of the rector of the parish, and lived with her family in Steventon until they moved to Bath.  Her father retired in 1801 and died soon after in 1805.  Jane Austen died on the 18th of July 1817.

  Knowing these basic facts it is already easy to see where Austen may have drawn inspiration from for her novel, ‘Pride and Prejudice’.  In her novel ‘Pride and Prejudice’, she is writing about a large family very similar to hers.  The heroine of her book is the fifth daughter of a family with very similar social standing to her own.  Knowing of the circumstances and settings Jane Austen was in when she wrote the book makes it much easier to observe what may have influenced her in its writing.  In all of her books, she is well known for giving her characters happy marriages, so it is already well established that she prefers to write of blissful romance and contented marriage.  She is also said to have written ‘burlesques of popular romances’ as a child, which shows that romantic notions were heavily involved in her younger life, and this is probably why she writes so many romance novels.  

  If you look even closer at the sort of settings Jane Austen grew up in, it is very clear to see how she might have been such a fan of the romantic genre.  At the time, women were only considered good for bearing children, and when a daughter is born to a family, their first concerns must concern her wedding off to an eligible bachelor.  So with all the pressure on a girl to get married from her parents and family, it is only normal for her to think more and more of romance.  Also, if you consider Jane Austen’s social standing, it would not have been thought that she could have married a man of ‘high standing’, so she may have read popular romance as a means of ‘escapism’ for her.  This becomes quite clear, when she creates perfect marriages in every book, but especially in ‘Pride and Prejudice’, where she creates the perfect marriage that every girl dreamed of.

  Helen Fielding however, grew up in much different circumstances.  She was born in Yorkshire and later moved to London before going back and forth between London and Los Angeles.  Obviously, living in such hectic surroundings has manifested in her writing, and it shines through especially in ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’.  In ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’, her heroine is a ‘thirty-something’ woman who goes by the name of Bridget Jones (obviously).  Living in a time when feminism is rife, I would have expected her book to be just about male-bashing, pointing out the ‘superiority’ of women etc, and basically aimed at telling men just what is wrong with them. So, although the book does contain some feminist themes, it also deals with the more ‘classical’ romantic themes.  It is clear that she was heavily influenced by the work of Jane Austen, particularly ‘Pride and Prejudice’ she even goes so far as to make several references to the book, and the plot is very similar, with only a few ‘twentieth century amendments’.  The plot, in fact, is remarkably similar, so much so that it reads as a sort of ‘modern Pride and Prejudice’.  Also, taking into consideration the time in which Helen Fielding has grown up, it is easy to see where she draws inspiration from for her novels.  Many of the themes she has in her book are quite adult, and with the recent ‘lowering’ or morals that has come about in the late twentieth century, these themes are becoming more commonplace, just as Jane Austen was influenced by her surroundings, so was Helen Fielding.

  ‘Pride and Prejudice’ is set in rural England, in a similar time period to Jane Austen’s, with the same sorts of social rules and expectations.  As such, it can seem like a very alien and austere world to many present day readers.  There is a very strict formality placed on all but the most informal of meetings, and even then there are still procedures to be followed.  However, there is much natural beauty in this world, and the occupants are far more determined to enjoy it than many people in the present.  Leisurely tours around the country, simply to admire the scenery are far more commonplace, and people would go for early morning walks ‘amongst the lush and verdant greenery’ almost daily.  Indoors and at social gatherings however, it is a very different story.  There are formalities for everything, and if these formalities are not observed, then the person who disobeys them is ridiculed.  It is a world that places much on social rank, and family connection.  The people in this world are far more prejudiced, preferring only to mingle with those on similar standing to themselves, a very ‘imperialistic’ way of doing things.  The attitudes are very similar to those of early Victorian times, when the rich spent most of their time in the countryside, preferring to enjoy nature rather than live in the polluted and over-populated cities.  Conduct and etiquette also have great importance placed on them, there are many rules laid down for conduct, especially that concerning love.  If a man was interested in a woman, he would declare his ‘honourable intentions’ first to her family, then her, before courting her for a set period of time.  Sometimes the woman had no choice in matters of marriage, if her family deemed her marriage to be beneficial, then they could apply great pressure on her to force her to marry.  In the world of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ freedom to a set extent is frowned upon, and daughter are expected to be completely obedient to their parents.

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  Compared to this, the world of ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ is almost like anarchy.  Set in the modern world, all ‘rules of courtship’ are gone.  Instead, romance between two people comes about through a lot of second guessing and subtle dropping of hints, as is displayed in ‘Bridget’s’ attempts to ‘court’ her boss.  Gone are all the formal rules, and social guidelines.  In this new setting, women have a much greater degree of freedom, yet they still act like they are being oppressed, and it has given rise to the whole ‘feminist’ movement.  Attitudes are very different, people are much ...

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