ELIZABETH BENNET

In Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1813), the hero is not a magician, archer, fierce fighter, or spy. Elizabeth Bennet is a confident woman looking for love within the absurd society around her, a mortal woman rising above social ranking through sheer force of her personality. Social irony was one of author Austen's perspectives. The book's observations on inheritance law, which favored male heirs, focus on a social dilemma: unmarried women. Indentured slavery, institutionalization, and a life on the streets are a few of the choices faced by unmarried English women of the time. Our hero here stands firmly in reality---no tilting windmills that turn into giants, as with our fantasy-obsessed friend Don Quixote. The mainstream hero is now Everyone.

Illustration by C. E. Brock from a 1907 edition. See Molland's Circulatory Library for a detailed resource site on Jane Austen.