Pride and Prejudice – Bridget Jones’s Diary
Jane Austen
- many writers and people were critical of her because in her works she did not mention
anything that was important in life such as the French revolution etc.
o I think it was because she needed to escape from the real world: she has many
siblings and they plus her parents died before her and she had many
breakdowns throughout her life.
o people said she had a limited scope stories – her limitations come from the
limitations of her life.
Helen Fielding
- at first she did not have any success in her stories and publishing them
Similarities
- Bridget works at Pemberley Press, a reference to the name of Darcy's estate in
Austen's classic novel
- the people who worked on the Bridget Jones' Diary movie also have connections
to Pride and Prejudice
- BDJ is a modern – day – spin – off with parallel plots and characters
- social interactions with characters of normal lives
- observing the behaviour of the characters (the narrator and other characters do this)
- superiority and wealth is highlighted and is important to show off
- basis of a successful marriage and life are presented like tips
- Darcys at the beginning: rude and arrogant, unlikeable especially by the two women
and the first impression of each other (4 of them) is the same with the two couples
o mums want them to get married because the girls are old enough to do so and
the guys are also rich – constant pressure by them and society
o social expectations and rules and norms of their times
- some things have not changed since the two books: society, pressure to marry and be
wealthy and successful, happiness is associated with these things
- mums: vulgar and loudly talking about their daughters + trying to help
- dads: laziness: none of them are involved deeply in the family life, they are just there
- both stories have a happy ending + a lesson to learn
o to be more humble and more honest about feelings
o in BJD: her new years resolutions give a kind of direction what is right to do
and what is not: smoking, drinking, having many sexual partners etc.- morals
- dynamic characters = capable of development – Elizabeth and Bridget
- flat characters – parents, Mr. Wickham etc – give sth to the story but they do not
change
- characters and their actions are not complex so it is not acted out but they do what we
would wait for them to do
o but the plot has its symmetry starts and ends with the two main chs.
- the “universal truth” – realization at the end
- letters: are in P. and P. but also people could at first read the story in letter type texts
from chapter to chapter and in BDJ Fielding had a fan mail and she wrote “her diary”
out for readers on the internet (and they thought it was a real Bridget and her real life)
- Characters:
o Elizabeth – Bridget – both are independent and start off as that and painfully
single and with an attitude
o Mr. Wickham – Daniel + their lies which made the Darcy’s hated by the girls
o Darcy – Mark
o Wickham – Lydia AND Pam – Julio in both cases Darcy comes for the
rescue (Pam bc Bridget doesn’t have a sister who could get into trouble)
- love triangle
o Mr. Wickam and Daniel – both seem to be a better match for the ladies at first
but they both lied (Daniel tells Bridget that he and Mark were friends from
Cambridge and that Mark had an affair with Daniel's fiancée)
- both girls are able to decide by the right guys when they lose their pride and think
clearly and listen to their hearts
o both girls realized and had to realize that they are not perfect and should
change in some ways too – self realization
- 19th century book and 21st century film – they are both able to make the stories
relevant to heir time periods but still relatable to one another.
- both have a film adaptation – modern times – more younger people will know about
the story and are more open to read the book
- both are romance fiction – heroine centred, full of excitement, no open endings
