Pride and Prejudice

My experience reading/experiencing Pride and Prejudice throughout my life has actually been something of a journey through the forms of media it happens to exist in. This read through was technically my first full read through, as when I tried to read it the first time I couldn’t bring myself to finish it. Instead of leaving the story forever unfinished back in high school, I actually turned to this set of youtube videos, which portray the story of Pride and Prejudice as vlogs. These videos really caught my interest at the time, and led me to really be invested in the story. Coming into the book now, with knowledge of the story and more of an appreciation for it, I did manage to finish it. The reason I bring up the many ways I’ve experienced this story is also the reason why I hadn’t written this response right away, I waited first to go home and watch the rest of the Bollywood interpretation of this story, Bride and Prejudice. This movie quickly caught my eye as one of the fresher twists on the classic story. With the backdrop of a new culture, the meaning was renewed for the modern day in a way that western modern interpretations might have trouble with. The different adaptations throughout multiple cultures really show off just how persistent the idea of romantic love is seen as an ideal not only here and now, but throughout time and all over the world. What really interests me, however, is a topic brought up in class discussion, the constant allure of Darcy, or even Darcy-like characters, throughout time. The idea of a man you initially find to be stuck up and mean would be generally seen as undesirable, but the idea that you could find something deeper, something better than all the other guys buried beneath that layer of dislike makes Darcy irresistible. This idea, a man who is gruff and unlikable on the outside but truly good on the inside, has become something of a trope throughout media. This idea in particular grabs my attention, because though it is shown to be dreamy and wonderful for Elizabeth, in our reality falling for a man initially shown to be unpleasant usually has disastrous consequences. Still, Darcy persists as a dream man, and nothing is inherently wrong with that, as he is still shown at the end of the day to be a truly good man.

Prologue

I was raised on the windy shores of the San Francisco Bay Area. The area in particular that I called home was located across the bay from the titular city itself, and played host to a rainbow of Asian-American families, mine included. This particular brand of diversity made the Bay a unique place to grow up, and with its own sense of mixed heritage I fit right in. Being of an uncommon mix tends to confuse people sometimes, leading to awkward questions at parties or even by strange men in the grocery store. Filipino and Puerto Rican isn’t a mix that people are particularly aware of, as the American narrative of mixed race usually revolves around being half one race and half white, or two very similar races mixed together. Despite the obscurity of my particular heritage (so far only known to be shared by singer Bruno Mars and a strangely prolific drug blogger on the internet) I never faced any real harassment, only confusion and surprise. I was lucky to grow up where I did, where having a blend of cultures a world apart only showed off how similar they really were. Although I consider myself as American as it gets, I still make a point to hold on to these cultures as hard as I can, I’ll never know them the way my parents did, but they have a unique meaning to me.