Three Stages of Aging with Pride and Prejudice
Growing old with Jane Austen means new perspectives on characters we once loved to hate
On a first read of Pride and Prejudice at perhaps age 12, girls like me probably find themselves relating profoundly to Elizabeth “Lizzy” Bennet. She’s a reader, she loves her sister (well, at least one of them), she’s a daddy’s girl, she likes to run around outside and isn’t afraid of mud, and she stands up to the rich proud man who sees fit to insult her and her entire family for no other reason than he’s rich and in his eyes, they are ill-behaved.
Relatable! Lizzy’s also just turned 20, which helps and perhaps felt at the time like a glimpse into glowing, romantic future in which you, Reader Lizzy, would live in a house with your own fishing ponds and pin money, whatever that was, with a man who liked you enough to take criticism to heart and be better. Also, you’d get to live away from your “rather silly” sisters and that mother of yours, with her flutters and wailings and her pains in her side. And after all, your sardonic father, who openly favors you above the other four of his children and his wife, can always come visit.
The character in Pride and Prejudice that we, at a young and tender age, probably find most mystifying is Charlotte Lucas, in her late twenties and Lizzy’s best friend. Charlotte commits the double…
