Carly Ermer Interviews Dr. Emily Clark

Dr. Emily Clark, an English professor at the University of the Incarnate Word, first read Pride and Prejudice when she was in junior high. There used to be a bookshelf for students to read for fun, and one day, she decided to pick up Austen’s novel.

Upon reading it, Dr. Clark said that she expected all the female characters to fit the “perfect idea of a woman.” Instead, she was surprised by the opposite. Dr. Clark stated that the women in Austen’s novel are unconventional and break societal norms. Each female character has distinct personalities, and they rebel against norms in different ways. Dr. Clark claimed that Austen’s progressive ideas were ahead of her time, which explains why her novels still hold significance two centuries later.

Oftentimes, the genre of Romance is not categorized as academic because it is seen as meaningless and shallow, but Dr. Clark claimed that this is not so. Dr. Clark went into detail about how the language in Pride and Prejudice is very intentional, which is what makes the humorous lines so funny, and the emotional ones hit home. This intentionality is what pushes Romance to become greater than what it is said to be, and why Austen’s novel is the second most sold book of all time.

Elizabeth and Darcy overcoming their pride and prejudices made them better people, and they were able to then understand themselves and their journeys on a deeper level. Dr. Clark stated, “I don’t feel like the end of the book is the end of the journey,” hinting that, although there was a “happy ending” of self-knowledge between the two characters, there was also a continuity that went beyond the characters merely existing—the characters' unconventionality still lives within readers after the last word has finished.