– THE BOOK’S PURPOSE
We are all aware of how fast time passes by, one moment you are living the present and one second after you find yourself trying to remember it. This thing has been happening since forever and believe me when I tell you that books are our visiting tickets to the past. Through words and detailed descriptions, authors have the capacity of recreating the entire social and cultural context of that period.
The most relevant example I can think of at the moment is “Pride and prejudice” by Jane Austen, a book that everybody must have heard of.
The novel has been written in 1813 and since then it has been extremely captivating for millions of readers who found themselves behind the masks of the well- known main characters, Elisabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Although many people consider the book a romance novel, it is as well a satirical one and a delineation of the English society in the XIXth century, during the Regency era.
– WHY IS THE BOOK STILL POPULAR?
The popularity of the book remained unchanged because people are obsessed with happy endings and this is exactly the dramatic story of a girl who was capable of fighting with her own destiny to finally live “happily ever after”. To be honest, society’s absurd rules were the ones standing in the way to fulfilling her goals, trying to make her just another part of the crowd by forcing her to marry a wealthy man, only to secure a higher status for the future, even though she didn’t love him.
Many people feel attracted by this book because the feminine character is so powerful that she can still live after her own principles, without making any compromises, while everyone in her life tries to convince her into doing otherwise. This book was an important lesson for many people because it taught them to have hope and patience with their own lives by showing how a dramatic path can be turned into an amazing journey through life.
– “PRIDE” AND “PREJUDICE” NOW AND THEN
Jane Austen’s masterpiece shows how pride andprejudice can drastically change somebody’s life although they are just two relative concepts.
In most of the cases, Mr. Darcy is seen as “pride” and Elizabeth Bennet as “prejudice”, since the action begins when he turns out to be too prideful to ask her to dance with him at a ball. I believe this doesn’t define who they are as human beings, as during the novel they both had moments of pridefulness and times when they had preconceptions, just like it happens to any other person. People’s lives are still influenced by pride and prejudice, a fact that is shown by the toxic and complicated relationships between us.
From my perspective, there are more pride and prejudices nowadays than there were at that time because in this era people are not making as many efforts as the two characters were for keeping in touch with each other since we can communicate much more easily through 
social media. For sure, we still have the tendency of jumping to conclusions before getting to know someone, only because of their clothes, their hair, or their tastes in music.
social media. For sure, we still have the tendency of jumping to conclusions before getting to know someone, only because of their clothes, their hair, or their tastes in music. More than that, in some situations, we find ourselves behaving like Mr. Darcy or Elizabeth, most likely when we have no intention of letting our guard down even though our feelings for somebody are extremely strong. Things are like that since we are all very prideful and always trying hard to be the best versions of ourselves, so when it happens to be wrong there is no chance of accepting it and telling people how sorry we are for being mistaken.
