Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and George Eliot’s Adam Bede seem different on the surface. While Austen’s novel provides a voyeuristic view into the trivial concerns of the idle upper class in Regency England, Eliot’s novel delves in to the dark consequences of Murphy’s Law for the working class of rural Regency England. However, both novels explore the universal fundamentals of what it means to be a man or a woman in the pre-Victorian time period. Though these two novels differ in the level of autonomy granted to the female characters, the consequences of failing to marry and their depiction of strongly defined gender roles, they similarly show female characters that choose their own spouses, maintain a similar societal view of spinsters and work with the same social constructs of gender. The differences shown between the women of different realms of society belonging to the same time period, along with the similarities between the conventions governing the interactions between men and women in both Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Eliot’s Adam Bede result in two novels that conform to the standard drama of the sexes. Neither of the two novels substantially deviates from the constant that requires a plot involving a relationship between two or more members of the opposite gender to explore gender roles, cast a critical glance at the society the characters exist in and address the repercussions that result from a character deviating from the rules of society. This paper will primarily compare and contrast the characters of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy in Pride and Prejudice with the characters of Adam Bede and Dinah Morris in Adam Bede. Continue reading →