DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES compared to Pride and Prejudice
The Age finds echoes of Austen in the Sunday night soaper:
As social comedy, Desperate Housewives is in the tradition of Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde, both geniuses at depicting the fineness of class distinction and the fragility of social acceptance. Austen’s heroines exist in a world where making the right choice in marriage is not only a prescription for happiness but also the only way to guarantee security and wellbeing. In Pride and Prejudice, Austen famously has Elizabeth Bennett undergo a shift in her opinion of the character of Mr Darcy from unfavourable to favourable after she has seen the size of his estate. How much of this is calculation, however unconscious on the part of the character, is teasingly left for the reader to decide.
June 20th, 2005 at 12:15 pm
Alas… When are critics going to bother reading the book and learn that Elizabeth does not marry Darcy for his estate?! Her esteem of him begins its fundamental shift when she reads his post-preposal letter; when she learns that his seeming mistreatment of Wickham is in fact defence of his younger sister’s honour, when she learns that he is a strong and affectionate brother.