JOURNAL OF THE THIRD MEETING - PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

The third meeting was great. We had so much fun thanks to Jane Austen's  PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, its beautiful adaptations over the years and ... new acquisitions to our group: Antonella, Cristina, Simona and Valentina . They came from Rome to join us in the discussion of one of their favourite literary works  ever and the meeting was cheerful and amusing. We' just started discussing, actually! There is so much to be said yet ,  two hours are not enough for such an amazing novel.
Anyhow, something strange is haunting our meetings: each time the technological equipment of the library, which usually works, starts giving problems. Once is the TV and we have to use the computer, another time the DVD player and we have to use the computer... Today even the computer started giving problems... but we've made it as well. Only, I wonder, is it a message from Jane Austen herself? An invitation to read her books more than to watch the beautiful adaptations based on them? Maybe , who knows. But we are good girls: all of us  read or re-read Pride and Prejudice for our meeting today!

To open the discussion, after a very short introduction about the writing and the publication of the novel, we saw a clip (from Pride and Prejudice 2005 DVD, one of the extras in it). It was about dating in the 18th century and how different it was from nowadays for boys and girls to meet and have a date, the central role of balls, the absence of physical contacts.

Then we discussed

• the use of letters
• the role of first impressions
• Elizabeth's and Darcy's pride and prejudice
• Mr & Mrs Bennet as parents
• the laws regulating inheritance in Sense and Sensibility (primogeniture) and Pride and Prejudice (Longbourn entailed to a male heir)
• marriages
• Darcy's reasons for his unfortunate first proposals
• Elizabeth's reasons for her rejecting Darcy at first

Before and after discussing the key moment of the first proposal, we also saw and compared the different performances in the 1940, 1980, 1995 and 2005 adaptations of P&P. This is a collage I made of the 4 different versions.




Then we went on comparing

• Wickham and Willoughby
• Mr Collins and Mr Tilney (as clergy men)
• The rushed endings in Sense and Sensibility and Northanger Abbey with the end of Pride and Prejudice

At the end of the meeting everybody filled in a feedback survey and these are the results

Favourite character

Elizabeth Bennet   13

Mr Bennet  1

Mr Darcy 1

Unforgettable moments

First proposal  8

The arrival of the Bingleys and Mr Darcy at the first Ball   1

The conversation between Lady Catherine and Elizabeth    1

The Ball at Netherfield   1

Darcy's final proposal    2

Darcy and Elizabeth at Rosings  1

Elizabeth unexpectedly  meeting   Darcy at Pemberley   1

Darcy's letter to Elizabeth    1

Mr Collins's proposal to Elizabeth (so funny)     1

Darcy, Elizabeth and Col. Fitzwilliam in the sitting room at Rosings   1

The first ball    1

You think that

Darcy embodies prejudice and Elizabeth pride

Darcy embodies pride and Elizabeth prejudice   1

There's pride and prejudice in both   14

The funniest character in P& P is/are

Mr Bennet  2

Mrs Bennet   3

Mr Collins  10

Elizabeth's younger sisters

Lady Catherine De Bourgh

My favorite novel so far

Sense and Sensibility

Northanger Abbey

Pride and Prejudice  15

Favourite hero

Colonel Brandon 1

Edward Ferrars

John Willoughby

Henry Tilney    1

Mr Darcy   13

Wickham

Bingley

Favourite heroine

Elinor

Marianne

Elizabeth Bennet   15

Catherine Morland

Best P&P first proposal

1940     1

1980

1995    14

2005

Thanks to Pina, Valentina L., Valentina M., Maria Francesca, Martina, Serena, Cecilia, Marika, Costanza, Simona, Elisabetta, Mara, Ludovica, Antonella and Cristina for the lovely afternoon. I'll wait for all of you again on April 10th to discuss our reading of  Mansfield Park.