Here’s what Bridget Jones’ Diary and Pride and Prejudice really did have in common: Both Bridget Jones and Elizabeth Bennet matured significantly by their respective stories’ ends.
Elizabeth, as many modern women (and a few exceptional men) are familiar with, learned to see beyond her initial impressions, to reject the false promise of joy the charming Wickham tried to entice her by, and to ultimately find her happiness by agreeing to marry Mr. Darcy – a match that promised to not only make her happy, but also to result in both Darcy and Elizabeth growing in virtue together
In Bridget Jones’ Diary, which was explicitly modeled after Pride and Prejudice, the protagonist Bridget initially is drawn to Daniel Cleaver (the Wickham character), but after a disastrous relationship with him (he cheats, among other charming traits), she eventually comes to the realization that she can find happiness with Mark Darcy – even if he did wear an appallingly ugly sweater the first time she notices him as an adult.
But unlike Jane Austen, who was content to let Elizabeth and Darcy’s story end when Pride and Prejudice did, Diary novelist Helen Fielding has kept returning to Bridget’s life. And in her newest book, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, set to be released October 15, Fielding introduces a horrifying twist: Bridget’s Darcy is dead, leaving her a fifty-something widow – and she’s still into Daniel Cleaver. In other words, it’s as if middle-aged Elizabeth Bennet Darcy reacted to her husband’s death by saying, ‘hmm, maybe I should give that Wickham chap another chance.’
In excerpts of Mad About the Boy, obtained by NBC’s Today show (which has picked the novel as its newest book club pick, guaranteeing it will get wide readership in the United States), it’s clear that Daniel is no reformed character. We don’t have here a story about forgiveness, recognizing people can change, or even one about a genuine effort to help someone change. Instead, we find Bridget, who now is a mother of two, struggling with Daniel much as she did twenty years ago.
Inexplicably, she chose Daniel to be her children’s godfather. Daniel who “the last time he had [his godchildren] to stay, it turned out he just wanted to impress some girl by boasting that he had godchildren and” had tried to brush his goddaughter’s hair with a syrup-encrusted fork. When she asks Daniel to babysit her children one evening, he accepts – and first makes a pass at Bridget (after commenting on how she’s less fat than before), and then responds to a call during the babysitting this way: “Talitha! My dear girl! The very thought of you finds me suddenly, unaccountably, over-aroused. What are you up to at this moment and what colour are your panties?” When Bridget returns home, Daniel is waiting for her in her bed – only half-dressed. These are the actions of a frat boy, not a man.
Bridget Jones’ Diary has resonated with many of readers over the years (including myself!) because, in addition to the Pride and Prejudice angle, it is a frank consideration of how very difficult self-improvement is. In its breezy writing style, with Bridget chronicling the ups and downs of her weight and her number of cigarettes smoked and her struggles with men, there is a genuine echo of that universal struggle: “For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want,” as St. Paul wrote in Romans 7:19.
But it appears that Bridget remains stuck in close to the same place she was in twenty years ago as a thirty-something single. (To her credit, she doesn’t sleep with Daniel when she finds him in her bed, despite her interest.) Age and marriage haven’t helped her significantly increase in virtue; instead, she’s moored in immaturity, a character seemingly incapable of genuine, enduring growth no matter how many sequels get written about her. If this sterile, motionless saga is indeed our generation’s Pride and Prejudice, it says something tragic about our own inability to grow and change.
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