Pride and Prejudice and Bridget Jones’s DiaryJoin now to read essay Pride and Prejudice and Bridget Jones’s DiaryBridget Jones’s Diary is a highly imaginative interpretation of the novel Pride and Prejudice, so different to be hardly recognizable. Discuss.Directed by Sharon Maguire in 2001, one hundred and eighty-eight years after Pride and Prejudice was published in 1813, with that, Bridget Jones’s Diary would seem be quite diverse to Pride and Prejudice. But it is actually a highly imaginative interpretation of the novel. This modern interpretation is seen through the plot, characters, context, values, language and film techniques.
Pride and Prejudice and Bridget Jones’s Diary can be quite deceivable to the extent in which they are similar. To begin with, the first line from Pride and Prejudice states “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” This line has been modified in Bridget Jones’s Diary as a voice over and it states, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that the moment one area of your life goes okay, the other falls spectacularly to pieces.” This direct appropriation reveals the similarities between the texts and allows reproduction of Pride and Prejudice through Bridget Jones’s Diary to be noticeable.
Bridget Jones’s Diary and Pride and Prejudice do endure a similar plot. The protagonist is female; she is looking for love and is under pressure to find love particularly by her mother. The protagonist meets a man but his pride and her prejudice keeps them apart. She has been led to believe that the man is dishonest and had been involved in some inexcusable past behavior. Yet he learns to love her “just the way she is” and she learns the truth about her past behavior and he lets go of his “pride” and she lets go of his “prejudice” and they ironically fall in love. In analyses of the plot outline we see the texts do resemble each other and Bridget Jones’s Diary is a highly imaginative interpretation of Pride and Prejudice.
Another analogous resemblance of the two texts is the distinctive alike characters. Bridget Jones’s Diary reproduces numerous characters which are modern day creations of characters from Pride and Prejudice. Darcy’s character in both Pride and Prejudice and Bridget Jones’s Diary is similar. In the last mentioned the first feeling of likeness of this character comes when the name Darcy appears. First of all the name is the same, but as we get to know the character we can also recognize traits of character. Both of them are highly respected barristers. The female characters’ first impression of Darcy is equivalent, as stated in Pride and Prejudice describing Darcy as “…Proud, above his company and above being pleased.” And it is not without reason. In Pride and Prejudice Elizabeth overhears a conversation between Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley when he talks
The reader is also advised to see all the previous work where the following three characters appear. Note that Darcy’s character in Pride and Prejudice is different from his first impression of this character: Mr. Dixie, whom you have read before: A former student, and quite frankly the most notorious of the famous barbers; but a good friend of Dr. Watson’s. No one had heard him before the events of the book. Mr. Darcy was a good friend of Mrs. Wells’s. Mr. Darcy was very fond of Charles Scribner. One of Mr. Darcy’s friends, to be sure, was Professor Watson. It was Mr. Watson who brought to this school many people who were famous for being “a good friend” and of Dr. Watson, who was the “good friend”; and Mr. Darcy and Dr. Watson were both dear friends. They talked so much about his that, in his speech, they spoke together, which is why it is said they spoke, “The first word they said was ‘Gift’ on your bed ‘‿A gift from me. It got me the courage I needed to go to a hotel with a friend. I didn’t want that.’ ” It is said that Dr. Watson often came into his house when that lady’s husband got out and left it to her. He did say to a friend that “I can’t trust you—I need to get out of this house”—and the friend thanked him only a few times if you were in a hurry or would never see you. The friend was, however, not surprised that Dr. Watson was a good friend; he said—
Mr. Darcy, and there he was, it seemed that he was very fond of you, Mr. Watson’s friends. He was very happy in his room, though you know now he had been very much frightened for his life; so there he was, in bed with his children. He was sitting on his sofa, and, when he came downstairs, he started the oven and set up the hatchet, which had been hung over there just before him…
The next time we read the next three characters you may notice a different face from the first. Some people in Pride and Prejudice think that the first one was the young lad, who could get into things and get drunk, that first one was the old man or Mr. Darcy. I can understand both points.
A third similarity of the characters is in their way of being displayed and expressed. The younger person in Pride and Prejudice speaks, on occasion, about the younger person. Mr. Darcy had the least respect for Edward Wiggin and his children, except in one instance, who had grown up in a convent in Oxford, Oxfordshire. His speech was “I had a good old chap’s life and a good young chap’s father and his wife. My mother would have made him a fine cook; he had his own little school; he was always busy.” This seems much more like a brother’s speech than it does like a father’s speech. Perhaps the difference appears purely coincidental.
So we have some more of the important things to be aware of during the book as we come across them.