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Jane Austen: Inventor of Chick Lit, a la Shmoop.

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Speaker 1: Ooh, Pride and Prejudice. I love that book. So steamy.

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What’s hotter than two people realizing that their hate for each other was really…

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love?

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Better than any chick lit nowadays.

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Speaker 2: Hey… you think Jane Austen invented chick lit?

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Speaker 1: Uh… yeah. She was like the Danielle Steel of her time. But… good.

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Ok, I know, for most of the book, Lizzy and Darcy are passive-aggressively insulting each

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other.

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But in the end, a poor girl marries a man rich enough to be a prince – not for money,

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but because they both secretly really, really like each other!

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Love conquers all.

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<<Over-the-top romantic sigh>>

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Speaker 2: Um, are we reading the same book?

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Lizzy and Darcy marry because they rationally decide that they’re suited to be companions

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for one another.

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Plus, they aren’t from different classes – he’s a gentleman and she’s a gentleman’s

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daughter.

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Love didn’t “conquer” anything. Lizzy and Darcy hated each other until they realized

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that they were so similar that they should love each other.

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It’s not chick lit at all. Chick lit is about irrational desires, uncontrollable passion…

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and poorly-developed characters. Speaker 1: Pride and Prejudice not chick lit?

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How can you take all the emotion out of it like that, you robot?

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Speaker 2: How can you be such a deluded, hopeless romantic?

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<<Third, narrator voice>> Well, it seems there’s a difference of opinion

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when it comes to the works of Ms. Austen.

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What do you think?

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Does all her characters’… lovey-doviness make Austen the first chick lit author?

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Or do the serious undertones make her novels… something more than that?

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Shmoop amongst yourselves.

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