Pride and Prejudice versus 'Bridget Joness Diary'

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,5, Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald (Institut fr Anglistik/Amerikanistik), course: The gentleman and the angel in the house, language: English, abstract: Bridget Jones is a chain-smoker and a hard-drinker. She is messy, slightly overweight and, even worse, she is still single. Clumsy Bridget spends her time downing drinks with her crazy single friends and strolling around the office with her little skirt. Helen Fieldings modern novel opens the diary of a British single woman who is desperately looking for "Mr. Right" in a world of "emotional fuckwittages". Quite the contrary is Elizabeth Bennet, the young heroine in Jane Austens most famous novel Pride and Prejudice. She is one of 5 daughters, polite, sophisticated, selfless and, due to her education, she would never compromise herself in public like Bridget always does.
One can hardly believe that there can be found any parallels between Bridget Joness Diary and the probably most romantic British novel, Pride and Prejudice. In fact, there are about 200 years between both works but they are indeed comparable...