Feminism In Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen is a love story set in the nineteenth-century with multiple different adaptations, but none like the latest adaptation that added something Pride and Prejudice has never seen before. Burr Steers putting a new twenty-first-century, action-packed and zombie thriller spin on Pride and Prejudice called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. The film grabs the most important aspects of Austen’s version and adapts them to a twenty-first-century style. Feminism is incredibly evident with the addition of Zombies into Pride and Prejudice, Burr Steers’ demonstrates feminism by giving empowerment to women in making their own decisions, bettering their social rank and having to look out for themselves, while Austen demonstrates …show more content…
While Jane Austen created a nineteenth-century feminist in Elizabeth that had never been seen before in Pride and Prejudice, this adaptation demonstrates a “Jane Austen on steroids”(Sourakov) feminism that we see today in the twenty-first century. In Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, we see Elizabeth reject the marriage proposal of Mr. Collins. Mr. Bennet tells Elizabeth “An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do.”(Austen). Elizabeth being able to make her own decision on whether to marry a wealthy man within a high social class comes rather shocking in the era this novel takes place. This major scene carries over to Steers adaptation to Pride and Prejudice. Steers bringing this scene to his adaptation is extremely important as it allows the viewers to still feel Austen’s feminist impact on this new adaptation. Contradicting, Elizabeth is one of the only feminist characters in the Pride and Prejudice novel. Burr Steers takes Austen's feminist characteristics and makes them more extreme. While in Austen’s novel we see Elizabeth having to give up her sword in order to marry Darcy. Steers, however, takes a different approach to this. “Elizabeth: ‘I shall never relinquish my sword for a ring.’ Charlotte: ‘For the …show more content…
They are able to have a voice, choose who they want to be married to and not be forced on someone just because of wealth or social rank. Although Pride and Prejudice and Zombies demonstrates the power of women and how they can protect their peers, it also shows they are no longer your stereotypical women of the nineteenth-century. Our first sign of this in the film is when the Bennet sisters and Mr. Collins run into a zombie trap,”Parson Collins: Oh, is there some sort of trouble? [the sisters draw their swords] Parson Collins: Oh, it appears there is”(Steers). Mr. Collins immediately hides behind the sisters as a source of protection, this shows how their position has changed due to the skill they hold to fight. Where usually the women would hide behind the men, we are shown the opposite. Jane Austen shows us a quite different side to women's roles in society, they are all expected act and be a certain way, this is the stereotypical role of women. "Miss Bennet I am shocked and astonished. I expected to find a more reasonable young woman"(Austen). Elizabeth is one of the only women that breaks this stereotype in Pride and Prejudice, she is not the typical role everyone wants her to be which once again shows Austen’s hints of feminism within the novel. It is important to understand the position of women in both novels, in Pride and Prejudice, women are