Pride and Prejudice Response

I have read the original Pride and Prejudice before so I decided to read Pride and Popularity. The first thing I noticed about the characters was the change in the Darcy character’s personality. He is still caring and stubborn, but unlike the original, he is a player. The original Darcy was seen as a really cold and arrogant man. The Elizabeth’s character was not impressed by his popularity, devilish good looks, and charm. They made Wickham’s character a lot more dangerous than the original for effect. Other than that, the story followed the original quite well. I think the changes in the character personalities were done to shape the classic into a stereotypical teenage romance story. This is not the first time this has been done. The book Beastly by Alex Finn is a story that did a similar adaptation of the classic fairytale Beauty and the Beast. The popular boy denies the unpopular girl – it is repeated in a lot of teen fiction.

Why? I think it is because popularity is such a big deal for teenagers. When you go to high school, you sometimes have this notion that your status in the big pond matters. They scare freshmen with the idea of “freshman Friday” and cliques form all too quickly. It is usually either the main girl wants to be popular or rejects anyone in the popular crowd because they think they are superficial, but they have a change of heart in the end or someone proves her wrong. This idea of romanticizing high school is very popular because it gives teenagers (usually the females) the idea that romance can happen at a very young age but it also causes them to have a lot of high expectations for their high school years.

I think the reason that the story line for romance has continued to be so popular because it shows that love can happen to anyone – rich or poor. In this case, it can happen whether you are popular or not. The need to be loved is very evident in today’s society. Hollywood makes a lot of money from young girls' desires to be loved by the guy everyone wants.