Jane Austen’s Gaze: A Prioritization Of The Female Gaze In Filmic Adaptations Of Pride And Prejudice

How does one create an adaptation that strikes the right line between fidelity and creativity? What aspects of a source text must be preserved? Using the works of Linda Hutcheon, Laura Mulvey, and Hélène Cixous, an analysis of the adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice into the Youtube series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries acts as a vehicle to answer these questions. Ultimately, it is concluded that the necessary factor for an adaptation of a text is the preservation of the essential experience at the heart of the text. In the case of Pride and Prejudice, that is the female experience which can be translated into the visual element of the female gaze.