Pride and Prejudice ...

Ok, so at the recommendation of many, many people who share my taste in movies and books, I finally watched the BBC version of pride and prejudice (yes, some recommended the book, some the new movie, and some the BBC series, but I tend to like BBC adaptations, so I went with that). 

Firstly, it is clear that Pride and Prejudice had an immense influence on virtually every love story that came after it.     
Secondly, I didn't realize how old it was, written in 1813, and the class structure thing is fascinating.     
Thirdly, reflections. 

Pride and Prejudice was not meant to be a realistic love story, I don't think;  it was meant to be a fantasy.  Maybe that is stating the obvious, because a lot of movies and books are rather escapist in nature, but it's important to make that clear before proceeding.  The thing about it, though, is that it is a much more accurate representation of that fantasy than probably any other.  I don't know if this fantasy originated with Jane Austin, or if, more likely, she was simply more talented at writing a story about it, but the novel manages to create the absolute perfect representation while avoiding the problems of so many other works with the same general idea.                                                   
I will be more specific.  Reading Pride and Prejudice, the single most appealing thing is Mr. Darcy.  The plot in the book is minimal (and that's not actually a criticism, by the way), but what there is of it is essentially there to reveal his character.  At first, he seems cold and distant, aloof, disliked, but it is ultimately revealed that he is essentially the best person in the novel, almost flawless (but not quite!).  He is in many ways the ideal person, and she is the only one good enough for him.  She is the person people want to be, smart, sophisticated, clever, intelligent, pretty, strong.  She is superior to all of the other women in the book.  She has a chance to prove this to everyone, and to him, because at first they are on adversarial terms, and she shows that she is, at the very least, his equal, and he falls deeply in love with her first.  Eventually, she comes to be the only person who truly understands him, and falls in love with him, too.  This is the essence of it, and my synopsis is not as well written as I'd like it to be, but it's actually a fairly broad thing.  Maybe I'll come back later to clarify.  It is not just Pride and Prejudice, it is a fantasy which is so popular that it has made its way into tons of other entertainment in one way or another, I mean just look at Twilight, or virtually any other love story, and you can find at least reflections of it in there.  You can also see its impact in the way people act, going for the bad boy, claiming that they are the only person who truly understands someone.  I mean, this is a very generalized principle, here.  I'd argue that it is to the love story what the Count of Monte Cristo is to the revenge story.                                                                                                                                             

I mean, it really is the core.  The thing about Pride and Prejudice, itself, is that it manages, as I said, to represent this accurately, and without falling into pitfalls that many other works and people have run into.  The first one of these which is common is that Mr. Darcy actually is a very good person, whereas in many such stories, the "Mr. Darcy" character is only misunderstood by the person who "loves" him, eager to justify anything he does and claim that she is the only one who really "understands" him.  Another is in trying to be like Elizabeth.  Elizabeth had a quick wit, but she also had the manners, care for other people, and intelligence to know that she wanted to be saying what she was saying when she said it.  She was strong and had conviction, but she was not obnoxious.  These are only a couple of the ways the stories can go wrong, though they're probably the most common.                                   

I guess what it really boils down to is that ego plays a huge role in "love" stories and "love" fantasies.  People don't only want to fall in love for the sake of love, they partially want to prove their worth, even their superiority, using their partner.  It sounds so cynical, but it is so true for so many people.                                       

I once heard the phrase "People often get pride and love confused." or something like that, and I was perplexed by it, but the more I see and hear, the more I think it's true.