قصة الكتاب :
Pride and Prejudice is a novel published by Jane Austen in 1813. The story revolves around the lives of the five daughters of Mr. Bennet. It is set in the Regency Era in Great Britain and has Elizabeth Bennet, the strong-willed and opinionated daughter among the five, as the protagonist. The story reveals the mistakes one makes in hasty judgements of people and situations. Primarily remembered as a love story, Pride and Prejudice, as the name suggests, looks deeply at how these two titular emotions play alongside love and create havoc. The characters sketched by Austen and the witful plot have remained etched in the imagination of readers. \r\n
\r\nAusten was a gentle satirist and although the themes of love and marriage are what the book primarily appears to be about, it is much more than that. Austen elaborates in great detail the personal angst experienced at the time in choosing a life partner and how each person treats it differently. The ideas expressed in the novel are a reflection of the rise of modernity, the disintegration of the existing norms and class structures and the upward social mobility that characterized societal change in Austen’s time, especially for women. In the story Mr. Bennet is the owner of Longbourn estate that is entailed and can only be passed on to a male heir. In order to secure the family’s financial future, it is important that at least one of the daughters marries well in order to be able to support the others. This is the driving motivation of the plot, that proceeds to examine how the Bennet daughters and their contemporaries make these choices. The male characters in the story are also portrayed in fine detail be it the wealthy and reticent Mr. Bingley who almost loses the Bennet girl he loves because of his nature; or the opportunistic Mr. Collins who ends up inheriting the family estate and uses it as a lure to bag a decent wife; or the sly Mr. Wickham whose easy charm fails to reveal his less noble intentions; or the iconic Mr. Darcy whose haughty nature and crude comments hide the goodness in his soul and causes him distress as he attempts to convince the equally proud Elizabeth of his sincerity. The stories however fall in place in the end and leave the reader content imagining the happily-ever-after that it suggests. \r\n
\r\nPride and Prejudice has consistently appeared in the lists of most-loved books ever since its publication. It has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide and has inspired several other productions. The story has been depicted in various other forms like plays, TV series and movies. \r\n