Elizabeth Bennet: the Anti Bella

After reading Twilight, I should have delved into something more manly to compensate, but that was not to be.  I had already decided on Pride and Prejudice as the second book for my novels class, my plan being to read it over the summer.  That didn't happen, so with all the false confidence I could muster, I announced to my students that I would be reading this book for the first time with them.  It's lame, it's embarrassing, it's probably terrible teaching.  We are now halfway through the book, and today we were discussing comparisons between Elizabeth Bennet and other fictional characters.  The class agreed that she was pretty much the opposite of Bella from Twilight, which was nice to hear.  In fact, compared to any other character, Elizabeth was smarter, more confident, and more outspoken.  I think that, as far as female characters I've read, only Shakespeare's Rosalind rivals her in those qualities.  One girl in my class compared her to Annabeth from the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series for the same reasons.  Another contemporary character who comes to my mind is Sam from The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

I am not an expert in feminist issues, and anything I try to say on the topic will only embarrass me, I'm sure.  I have been intrigued, however, by the responses I've heard to both Twilight and Pride and Prejudice.  Some women say that Twilight is bad because Bella is a terrible role model for girls, and some say that the series honestly captures the essence and emotional intensity of teenage romance.  Most women I know who have read Pride and Prejudice love it.  The girls in my novels class are expressing desires to go back in time and live the life of an 18th century, upper-class English girl, mostly for the balls and the gowns, but also for the simplicity of the lifestyle.  They do not, however, wish for the pressure of finding a well-to-do husband or for the social limitations.  I can't help but remember that one of the things that attracted Bella to Edward was his old world charm.  He spoke eloquently, danced gracefully, played piano, and was exceedingly polite.

I also can't help thinking of Chaucer's The Wife of Bath's Tale, in which a knight convicted of rape was given one year to answer the question, "What do women most desire?"  The answer was mastery over their husbands, but for my purposes in this post I'm not so much interested in Chaucer's answer as in the question itself.  The question is, itself, an oversimplification of the greatest degree, but it is, nonetheless, a question for which the books I'm involved in right now are positing some possible answers.  Bella wants romance, Charlotte Lucas wants security, Elizabeth will know it when she sees it, I think.  Of course, I know that she ends up with Mr. Darcy, but I don't know how yet.  So, don't ruin it for me because I'm actually enjoying this one.