Greetings! A very late, but very exciting post. I talked a bit with Dr. Laura Lopez, of our very own English department. We chatted about themes in Pride and Prejudice, class issues, and more. It was very fun to know a little bit more about Dr. Lopez and hear her recounting her experience. [Our conversation was verbal and then transcribed and edited down for clarity.] A is me, LL is Dr. Lopez.
LL: I definitely remember being a teenager when I read it. I was either a junior or senior in high school. And it wasn’t a required reading, I discovered stories about nineteenth century women’s writers and I loved them. [Romantics] wasn’t necessarily my favorite style, but in Jane Eyre for example, these young women, they were kind of feisty and had thinking minds. I really loved that. I’m sure I found my way to Austen through the Brontë’s in some way after that. I read Pride and Prejudice first, and then I made my way through her other works. Emma, for example. Of course, I liked Pride and Prejudice the most. I loved a lot of nineteenth century British women writers, I didn’t read as many American [women authors] until later on, so I read a lot of British works.
A: I was going to ask: how well known were these books at the time you encountered them?
LL: No, it was very niche. I went to school in a very economically disadvantaged area, and that was not a part of our readings. I was the only one within my group to have been reading these things, nobody read them, they weren’t assigned. When I went to college though, here, [in San Antonio] there was a focus on British literature, and I was well read in a lot of it already. I never read anything contemporary in either British or American literature during college.
A: It’s interesting how that shifted. When I took American literature with you last semester, it went all the way through to contemporary works.
LL: Yes, it’s different, it wasn’t until graduate school that we reached the contemporary stuff. It’s interesting though, because I have always been into the British authors. Charles Dickens was one of my favorites, I read all those books. When I discovered an author I really liked, I read all their work. I was definitely going to be a professor from when I was a young kid.
A: Yeah, that’s some true dedication you have!
LL: Yes, I truly just love literature, and there’s something about the late nineteenth century that I love.
Q: How has Austen shaped the way we think about love, manners, and morality?
LL: There’s a thing many like about British mannerisms and their ways of etiquette. It was kind of cool to have that experience since we don’t see that as Americans.
A: It reminds me of when I was young, we had a special class for a couple of weeks called Ettiquete, where we would learn the proper way to sit at a table, that sort of thing. It feels special, in a way. Almost otherworldly.
LL: There is something nice and also safe about having traditions. Too though, I appreciate how Austen and other women writers spoke about how stifling that was. These traditions are nice to have, but then they can be confining. And you see that right away in some of these writings. The pressure from [Mrs. Bennett] to get married, the order of who should go first, those things were interesting to read as well. I just got done seeing Downton Abbey. I loved it. It’s the same sort of deal, same kind of period with those same expectations— it’s interesting to look at and I really admire it. I wouldn’t mind teaching those kinds of classes cause I know it very well. But I did become an Americanist later.
LL: You know, the thing that drew me the most was, well, everybody loves the scene when Darcy reveals his true feelings and she says no which is so hilarious. It’s all really great for the romantics inside of us but I love, which I think is something I think most people don’t talk about. I love the class stuff. How those girls had to get married or else they wouldn’t have money to support themselves. I love that older lady, who’s Darcy’s mean aunt, who wants Darcy to marry [Anne de Bourgh]. The scene where she goes to Elizabeth and tells her “You better not marry Darcy, or you’re gonna get the worst out of me, I’m going to ruin your reputation.” Then Elizabeth talks back to her, and she really sets her in her place. That scene totally shows you the class differences. They’re trying to keep those in place. There is no class mobility. They don’t want Elizabeth to move up in her class. That’s what impresses me equally. I think, when I was growing up, that’s what appealed to me because of how I grew up in a working class home where we struggled with poverty. My mother was a single parent, and I always looked for strong female characters. That really appeals to me. I was raised in a household where my mother was oppressed by my father which led them to divorce. I always like the ones that are going to fight against those structures. And then class mobility is difficult. My mother was not very educated, she had only high school education, so she was stuck in her class. That’s what’s great about Jane Austen and what I really love about the book. We can break out of the social confines of who should marry whom.
A: Class is such an important part of the book. It’s very interesting how everyone gravitates to a different aspect of it.
LL: Elizabeth is such a strong character. The pride is in there and it is hitting at class. It’s about class pride and that’s why darcy does not give Elizabeth any time at the beginning.
LL: That’s what I feel like contributes to Austen’s novels enduring for 250 years. Number one, she has really great dialogue in there. She’s got great writing capabilities, which will make a book endure. Very witty dialogue, really great character development. But I also think it’s those themes, because we have that still, those class problematics. As well as women who have certain roles they need to break out of. As well as love, how we define it, and do we follow what our family wants us to do or do we just love independently. She hits at all these great themes and so it’s a very enduring book.
Q: What’s a scene that always makes you laugh or cry?
LL: None make me cry. To me it’s not that kind of a book.
A: Yeah romance, for me, it’s hard to just take it at a surface level. There is just so much behind it. I can’t just enjoy it straightforwardly. I have to come around to it and spend some time with the development. A lot of the times when I’m reading a romance novel, there’s something about it that I’m picky about.
LL: I never read romance novels. My sister does though, my sisters have different reading tastes. I was rarely the one that chose the romcoms, I always liked suspense and mystery. But yeah, there is definitely more laughing in it for me. The mother, she is so funny, the father and the mother, they are interchanging, their dialogue is very funny. The father totally blows off the mother every time. He doesn’t take her seriously, it’s funny how he ignores her, but it’s sad when you’re in that kind of marriage. It’s also funny when Darcy at the dance in the beginning, when he puts her down right in front of her, like within earshot, saying how inefficient she is, unsuitable as a partner and it’s just so funny how he looks down on her.
A: The way they insult eachother so properly has such a charm to it, the way it’s obviously meant to be derogatory. It’s so classy but not at the same time.
LL: Yep. But yeah, The most emotion i get out of it though, is of course the big reveal scene. When I first read the book and you get into it right, the story and the plot. Everybody’s heart swells when the truth comes out. Like you know you’re observing that all along they both liked eachother, cause they’re so negative against eachother, and then finally, when he reveals himself, it’s like great, but he does it in such a way that is also condescending. It takes that away, the sense you have that’s hopeful, that true love does endure, but he against his senses as he says it., against good sense he’s choosing her. If she will marry him. I’m so glad she doesn’t accept that, That’s what’s cool is how she stands up for herself.
A: Yes, it wouldn’t have been the same if she had.
LL: It’s not even her character to do that. That’s what’s so great about Elizabeth, she’s a character that draws. Any rebel character that’s outside of our norm. And I like that, that’s really good.
Q: What character deserves their own spinoff story?
LL: Charlotte, I feel so sorry for Charlotte. Charlotte Lucas is a sad case, I feel depressed when I read about her because she settles for the minister. She deserves a spinoff. She is so capable. She’s so smart, equally as smart as Elizabeth, just maybe not as witty. She definitely deserves her own story.
A: When we watched the movie, I recall the scene so vividly where she was talking about how she wanted protection and safety more than anything.
LL: Yeah, safety. Unfortunately with such a boring man.
LL: About two years ago, I taught literary theory and I used this book. Because there’s another book called [Pride: A Pride and Prejudice Remix], a YA novel by Ibi Zoboi. Ibi Zoboi is a Haitian writer who grew up around Brooklyn. She does her own take on it, but with YA characters. It follows similarly with one being prideful, and one is very prejudicial and biased. I put [the novels] together because in literary theory you’re trying to figure out which you would use in order to interpret a story. You know, a class or Marxist analysis, maybe psychology, or feminism. She applies race [to the story]. You can do different lenses and readings when you’re doing literary theory. That’s why [Pride and Prejudice] is fresh on my mind since I reread them about two years ago.
.jpg)