Jane Austen
Thursday December 16 2004 09:01 IST
By Karmayogi
At the age of 19, Jane
Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice, a novel where the Pride of a wealthy
aristocrat clashes with the Prejudice of young Elizabeth, whose fine eyes he
was unable to resist. The original was written before the dawn of the 19th
century, though it was published in the early years of that century.
Some ten years ago, BBC presented that story as a TV serial and the public
still received it very well. The producer of that film said that she had read
the book several times, but each time the turn of events held her attention
with eager suspense. It is the stamp of a writing that arises out of true
inspiration. Her story is true to life at all times, especially at the time of
writing.
Those were days when women were not supposed to be authors. Women writing under
disguise was a known phenomenon then. It is a simple story of five sisters
without dowry longing for marital status, ardently supported by a mother whose
one ambition was that.
Jane Austen was born on December 16th in a pastor's family. The heroine
of that story, Elizabeth, was cast in the very mould of the
author in every human detail. She remained unmarried. She had an elder sister
just like Miss Jane Bennet of the story to whom she was devoted. Elizabeth's courage in
facing the formidable Lady Catherine has been an inspiration to many timid
girls of the present day.
Timidity cannot conceive of bold, courageous, ready answers to the irrational
tirade of a powerful titled lady. Mr. Collins' proposal to Elizabeth has stayed in the
annals of literary criticism as a model of exuberant stupidity in its
enthusiastic outpourings. There is none to equal its genius of construction.
Austen's other novels do not carry the power of atmosphere. Pride and
Prejudice itself was conceived and written in the wake of the French Revolution.
As England had undergone her
Revolution in 1688, the nation had no impulse to follow the 1789 upheaval on
the continent.
Darcy's falling in love with Elizabeth was the
aristocracy's compromise to condescend, perhaps to mitigate the
revolutionary urge that was below the surface. The Prince Regent could read the
book sixteen times because the fervour of the revolutionary impulse was just
below the surface. Even Disraeli read it as many times.
Jane Austen reconciled the Pride of Darcy and the Prejudice of Elizabeth at the
altar of true unselfish love and thus sublimated the bloodthirsty French serfs
who guillotined the members of the noble families. Life becomes literature in
the genius whose perception of the world is wider than humanity.
Such a universal perception of a writer becomes an immortal work of Art.
Pride and Prejudice is one such eminently.