Pride and Prejudice, the novel by Jane Austen, and Sense and Sensibility, the movie based on the novel by Austen, share many striking similarities. These similarities lie in the characters, plots and subplots between these characters, the settings, and the overall style and themes used in creating the two works. Jane Austen uses extremely similar characters in almost the exact same situation in Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. The clearest examples of this are the parallels between Jane and Bingley in Pride and Prejudice and Elinor and Ferris in Sense and Sensibility.
Each of the ladies is in love with men who are in love with men far wealthier than they are. In a similar manner, both Ferris and Bingley, despite the fact that their lovers can offer them very little or nothing monetarily, have a true love for Elinor and Jane, respectively. The characters are also similar in that for a while they believe their chance at love is destroyed, when Bingley in the novel and Elinor in the movie are forced by outside circumstances to depart for a new residence.
Both Bingley and Ferris are rumored to be engaged or interested in other, more wealthy, women, but both eventually return to their true lovers and propose to them. Jane Austen clearly uses these similar characters and plotlines to draw on the same main ideas about love, and the unimportance of wealth despite the customs of the times. Austen uses another set of parallel characters between the novel and the movie in Elizabeth and Darcy, and Maryanne and Brandon. In each case, the man either falls in love or is extremely attracted to his female counterpart immediately.
Elizabeth and Maryanne, however, at first have their love lives centered elsewhere. Elizabeth’s “first love” was Wickham, and Maryanne’s was Willowby, but each man deserted and left the women feeling robbed. After being apart from their male admirers for some time and seeing the good each one really possesses, Elizabeth eventually falls in love with Darcy, and Maryanne with Colonel Brandon. This set of similar characters brings to light another of Austen’s ideas, that sometimes what one believes is true love can completely unravel, but love always works out in the end.
Along with the similarities in the main characters and the plots and subplots which occur relating to these characters in Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, the two works are also share many more basic similarities. One of the most obvious is the setting. Each takes place in the early 1800’s in the English countryside, in nice luxurious homes. Each is a comedy of manners, which means that satire is used to criticize the formality and mannerisms of the time, especially among the wealthy class.
Jane Austen constantly uses examples of their excessive “proper” customs, which usually cause nothing but confusion and a lack of progress. Austen often contrasts the uptight and self-absorbed attitude of the wealthy with the characters who display honesty and search for true love rather than money. The movie, Sense and Sensibility, and the novel, Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, reflect very similar themes and contain almost exact replica characters as well as storylines that these characters undergo.
Each contains one set of lovers whose immediate true love is able to override all obstacles, as well as another couple who are not immediately mutually attracted to each other, but eventually realize they are right for each other and fall in love. Also, each work criticizes the customs relating to love and courting of the time, especially pertaining to the upper class. Jane Austen uses each work in an excellent manner to display similar ideas and themes which were very important to the people of the early 1800’s and still relate well to people today.
