"The Woman" (Of Pride and Prejudice)

Yesterday I saw a movie called The Women. It lasted about two hours and not once did a man appear. The movie tells the story about four friends and the whole point is that they represent the different women that we see today (well most of them). It doesn’t generalize about all women because they are all rich and live in New York. So it’s the typical story of woman that go everyday to Saks fifth avenue to get their nails done and their calendars are full of social events so they feel they actually do something with their lives.

One of the four friends is a successful business woman that practically lives in her office. Another one represents the modern liberal woman, she is a lesbian. The third one would be the “normal” woman, she is a married stay at home mom. And the last one can also be considered normal, with the so called ideal life. Also married with a daughter and a rich husband, the only flaw is that he cheats on her and she is in denial that her marriage is not perfect. There is a fifth woman, one that always exists. She is the mistress also known as the gold digger. As the movie happens the three friends try to discover who that mistress is and the one who is being cheated on discovers her husband is having an affair so she dumps him. While they do this, the viewer gets the idea of how each of these women lives and what her priorities are.

Jane Austen does this in a similar way. Even though this is not the main theme of the novel it is present. Each woman that appears in the novel represents a stereotype of a woman. Elizabeth can be seen as the liberal one. She disagrees with her mother and is a “rational creature speaking the truth from her heart” (83). Jane is the typical one from her time. Beautiful and intends to find a husband that will give her a good life. She does things the way they are supposed to be done. Lydia and Mary are the foolish ones. The ones that today would not care about anything g but the image that they have a perfect marriage.

Without a doubt the woman that we see today are really different from the ones in the book, still one can relate and see that although times have changes, those differences still exist. In every case there is the easy woman. I thought I would not find one the novel because of the time period but I was wrong. Mr. Collins asks Elizabeth to marry her and she says no, that was obviously expected but then we learn he proposes to Charlotte (Elizabeth’s best friend) and she accepts. Having known Mr. Collins for only a few days and accepting his offer only for “the pure and disinterested desire of an establishment” (93) Charlotte may be seem like the easy woman on the novel. Yes, all of the women except Elizabeth marry which ever man that can give them a good life but at least they worry about liking him a little. Just like spending the rich man’s money was the whole point for the gold digger in the movie, “marriage had always been her (Charlottes) object; it was the only honorable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune” (93). She did not care about the man, just about being married so she is easy because then she would marry which ever man that would have proposed the idea to her only because getting married was something that should be done.