The Heroine's Bookshelf: Life Lessons, from Jane Austen to Laura Ingalls Wilder

heroine of action. Ever on the hunt for self-understanding, she is forced to evaluate her own role in the debacle, and what she sees is not flattering. Given the chance to behave heroically, Lizzy shines: in the face of her own shortcomings, she doesn’t flinch for a second. Instead, she confronts herself with a heroine’s daring. It’s time to change and challenge the beliefs she once held so dear.

With new self-knowledge comes new resolve, and Lizzy softens toward Darcy when they unexpectedly meet in Derbyshire. It isn’t long before she must acknowledge that their relationship goes far beyond cold mutual acquaintance—knowledge that helps her stand up to a bullying aunt and dare to declare her own truth. Tellingly, love doesn’t hit Lizzy until she’s open enough to receive as well as give it. And what she does get will inspire a tiny spark of jealousy in anyone but the most angelic reader.

The heart of Pride and Prejudice is more than a love story—it’s a heroine’s fearless confrontation of herself, complete with family humiliations and fatal flaws. Jane isn’t easy on Lizzy: she draws her literary daughter with just as many shortcomings as strengths. Her worst traits are brought to the fore by her inane parents and absurd sisters, people who encourage her to be petty and dismissive, and to laugh away her troubles. No, Lizzy’s not perfect, and her prejudices are as much a part of herself as the bravado that leads her to walk three miles in the mud to visit her ill sister or contradict pompous Lady Catherine de Bourgh in defense of herself and her love. Lizzy and Darcy must both embrace each other’s entire selves if they are to get their happy ending. First, though, both must look within.

Jane Austen knew all too well that self is elusive and ever-changing. After all, she specialized in sudden realizations and blemished but self-determined heroines. Throughout Pride and Prejudice, she urges us to take an honest look at ourselves and, more importantly, to face what we see with a heroine’s bravado. Does that fearlessness mean we can’t succumb to (or laugh at) our woes? No way: the laughter and the doubts are part of the heroine’s journey toward a more complete self.

Like her most famous heroine, Jane Austen never really came to terms with a society that expected her to repress her true opinions and strengths in favor of frivolous “accomplishments.” Contrary to popular perceptions (and her fans’ desires), she tended toward Darcy-like discontent, spending much of her adult life carving out a unique space for her dissatisfied self. We lucked out when Jane decided to take a pass on a mundane life full of fancy work and frills, daring instead to act on behalf of her real passions. And we’re lucky that she passed some of that fire—and courage—to her literary daughter.

Lizzy, like Jane, knows full well that turning down Darcy and the ridiculous Collins means she may never marry. She does it anyway. Even if Lizzy didn’t get her happy ending, we get the feeling that she would have been happy all the same, content in a position much like the one her creator occupied. “Till I have your disposition, your goodness, I never can have your happiness,” she tells her sister Jane. “No, no, let me shift for myself; and, perhaps, if I have very good luck, I may meet with another Mr. Collins in time.” Though everyone around her is intent on freaking out around love and marriage, Lizzy doesn’t have to play along. Self-assured and self-respecting, she doesn’t need a man to complete her, even if she gets one in the end. And we can’t help but suspect that she’ll find plenty of laughter in life, married or not.

Jane Austen’s decision not to marry meant giving up the possibility of the romantic happy ending she invariably gave her heroines, but it didn’t mean giving up her enjoyment of life. A novelist at a time when true ladies never sought public regard, Jane dared to envision a life defined by professional accomplishments rather than personal connections. As a writer and a woman, she forged a life that reflected the deepest callings of a heroine’s self—laughing at polite society, poking fun, never conforming completely to the model of a mannered woman. It was something that placed her at odds with expectation even as it fed her innermost self. But losing the approbation of others for her own self’s sake was a risk Jane was more than willing to take.

Two hundred years after Jane Austen dared to be herself, a modern heroine’s got to shore up her resources. Circumstance and romance change constantly, but there’s something to be said for leaning into what you know. If “self” isn’t part of that arsenal, what’s the point of the struggle? Self is what we fight for, where we come from. Flawed or not (and what heroine is not flawed?), we’re the only constant in our lives. Often, our selves are the only place we have to come back to. The landscape is weird and ever-changing, but it’s one well worth getting to know.

Luckily, no heroine is called upon to know herself at all times. In fact, Lizzy proves that blind adherence to prejudices and principles is its own kind of folly. Think of the boredom of a Pride and Prejudice in which neither quality was challenged, changed, or overcome. Lizzy’s imperfection is also her appeal, and ours. Thankfully, we’re allowed to get some mud on our petticoats, change our minds, even turn down a Darcy once in a while, as long as we come back to ourselves in the end. Change is inherent in “self,” but one thing should never change: our commitment to whichever self we possess right now. Staking a claim to self may be scary, but it’s always necessary.

It’s easy to dismiss a two-hundred-year-old book as a literary chestnut, a historical oddity that couldn’t possibly apply to modern life. But hemlines shift far more quickly than human nature, and Jane’s story of romantic confusion and changing opinions is just as vital and funny as it must have been for its first readers. Jane Austen’s witty heroines have pervaded every level of culture, from Clueless to chick lit, and her influence isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. There’s certainly no dust on my copy of Pride and Prejudice, for the book remains relevant no matter where I find myself. My life is more concerned with career politics than marital ones, but that doesn’t keep me from finding Lizzy’s spirit wherever authority is flouted, minds changed, and expectations challenged.

Looking for a modern-day Lizzy? Seek out the people with enough perspective to laugh their way through the crappy and the ridiculous. I channel my inner Lizzy whenever I bump up against absurd expectations or laughable characters (surely I have a Lizzy-like disregard of self-important lawyers to thank for getting me through my paralegal years). Like Miss Bennet, I am called upon to examine my own actions, change what I don’t like, and adhere to my gut instincts. Like Miss Austen, I am called upon to create my own place in life, one that is true to the person I am and not the person anyone else expects me to be. It isn’t easy to answer this call, but I know I’m in good company whenever I do. And every time I revisit Pride and Prejudice, I am reminded that when dealt a hand of Collinses and Wickhams, indecision and regret, there really isn’t any acceptable substitute for my own boisterous, uncertain self.

READ THIS BOOK: 

• When your mom complains that you’ll never give her grandchildren

• When your inner people-pleaser threatens to drown out your gut instinct

• As an antidote to deathly seriousness

LIZZY’S LITERARY SISTERS: 

• Emma Woodhouse in Emma, by Jane Austen

• Bridget Jones in Bridget Jones’s Diary, by Helen Fielding

• Hermione Granger in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series

Chapter 2 Faith

Janie Crawford in Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston

Faith hasn’t got no eyes, but she’s long-legged But take de spy-glass of Faith And

look into dat upper room When you are alone to yourself When yo’ heart is burnt with fire, ha!

REVEREND C. C. LOVELACE,

AS TRANSCRIBED BY ZORA NEALE HURSTON

Years later, she’d clock a man with her pocketbook and step over his unconscious body on the way to a rent party. She’d sweat out her bruises and blessings in a mysterious Haitian voodoo ritual. But in 1917, there was no