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Jane Austen's novels are both a mirror and a map for Gen Z and millennials
Growing up as the youngest of four girls, writer Anuja Chauhan always found the fictional world of Jane Austen relatable. But you'd be mistaken to assume that Pride and Prejudice is her favourite among Austen's novels.
'I love her humour, her honest, pragmatic, realistic take on romance. There is nothing breathless about it," Chauhan says. 'But I find the sister dynamics in Pride and Prejudice problematic."
It's a sentiment Chauhan has aired before, when her novel Those Pricey Thakur Girls came out in 2013. Perhaps the most autobiographical among her books, it tells the story of four sisters growing up in a bustling Delhi family. Understandably, readers drew parallels with Pride and Prejudice, which revolves around the lives of the five Bennet sisters. But Chauhan was quick to correct them.
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'Even if I am an Austen fan, I'm not such a Pride and Prejudice fan because frankly, I think Lydia (the youngest Bennet sister) got such a raw deal. Everyone was so mean about her. I really think of Elizabeth and Jane as self-righteous, goody two shoes who think, 'Arrey, we are so classy, and our sisters are like...'," she said in an interview. 'They don't like their own mother, they don't like their own sister, they are just sitting around thinking, 'We are so cool and rich people want to marry us'."
Chauhan's may be the unpopular opinion, considering the massive fandom that TV, movie and book adaptations Pride and Prejudice has spawned over the years, but it captures a fundamental truth about Austen's reputation 250 years after she was born. It's impossible to pigeonhole Jane Austen as one kind of writer, namely of romances. Rather, as Katherine Joy Fowler wrote in her best-selling novel The Jane Austen Book Club (2004), 'Each of us has a private Austen."
A WRITER FOR THE TIMES
For a writer born in 1775, who wrote only six full-length novels (two of which were published posthumously) before she died at the age of 41, Austen left behind an outsized legacy. In India, her novels are widely loved, taught as part of higher education curricula, and have inspired multiple films. Austen is still admired for the universal truths her novels offer, transcending social, cultural and geographical barriers.
Sowmya Guntooru, 40, who started the Jane Austen Society of India (JASI) in 2017, a Facebook community with over 2,500 followers, says Austen's novels are examples of 'practical feminism". 'She always gives the woman the right to choose. All her stories are told from a woman's perspective, not from a male gaze." The purpose of JASI, which maintains close links with similar groups from across the world, is to not only read Austen's novels, but also highlight the values she lived by.
During the covid-19 pandemic, Guntooru hosted a talk show called Happy Hour on JASI's channel, where she engaged with a range of writers, who have created heroines with strong personalities, or look at Austen's books from a fresh angle. Her guests included Nancy Springer, author of the Enola Holmes books (which present a counterpoint to Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes) and Damianne Scott, the mind behind 'Black Girl Loves Jane", a Facebook page that tracks Austen's influence on BIPOC (Black, indigenous and people of colour) readers. The latter theme has gained currency in the popular imagination as more adaptations choose blind casting, be it the 2022 Netflix version of Persuasion or the 2020 Regency-era drama series, Bridgerton.
Although Guntooru points out that JASI's members are a mix of men and women, the gender ratio is heavily skewed towards women . The trend checks out, anecdotally, from the responses I received on social media when I put out a call out for fans of Austen to share their views with me: 100% of the respondents were women. Does that mean Austen's novels don't have much to offer to men? On the contrary, as Chauhan says, 'Women aspire to have a teachable guy like Darcy in their lives, a man who is receptive to feedback."
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Searching for such qualities in men, adds Soumanetra Basu, 39, an Austen fan living in Hong Kong, 'may seem misplaced in the present times of rushed Tinder romances and situationships." But the ideals never really disappeared. 'Even today, the desire to search for a perfect mate—a Mr Darcy or a Mr Knightley—is all too familiar," she adds. Men in 2025 have much to learn from Austen, in terms of etiquette of dating and marriage. It's one of the reasons why social media is teeming with varieties of Austen content 250 years after her time.
Ananya Mahnot, who, at 18, is poised to enter Ashoka University with the aim to major in English, gives credence to Basu's view. 'Austen's presence in pop culture feels surprisingly strong for an author writing in the early 19th century," she says. 'Whether through modern film adaptations, social media trends, or viral memes comparing Mr Darcy to today's emotionally unavailable love interests, her legacy is very much alive among my peers."
Beyond this quest for a romantic idyll, Austen's novels also teach us how to forge bonds of friendship. 'She shows us how easy it is to misjudge people," says Mumbai-based writer Anjalli Kripalani, 38. 'So many of her characters get together, or become friends, after an initial misunderstanding."
A WORLD WITHOUT JUDGEMENT
A couple of months ago, Rakhi Chakraborty, 34, a former communications professional, and her friend Rupanjali Samaddar, 26, a psychotherapist, started a Jane Austen Book Club in Kolkata, inspired by the movie, The Jane Austen Book Club. 'As of now, seven people have signed up, all women, and we want to cap the membership at eight," Chakraborty says. 'The ages range from 26-41."
To join the book club, people have to fill out a form explaining the reason behind their interest. As Chakraborty began screening the responses, she was deeply moved to discover how Austen's novels have influenced the lives of women living in another time and part of the world.
'I've inherited as much Austen as I have my great-grandmother's cheekbones! As a young adult, her stories helped me figure out who I wanted to be—or more importantly, the kind of woman I refused to become," wrote a 41-year-old learning designer. 'I filled up too many slam books dreaming of Darcy. But I also learned to question why we romanticise him. That's the thing about Austen—you can love her and still push back. Austen has always been both a mirror and a map."
The mirror and map analogy rings true for favourite writers who have given us a way to be in the world. Either their vision of life resonates with our core values, or maybe the plights of their characters make us feel 'seen". As a late-bloomer in the world of real-life romance, I looked up to Anne Elliot in Persuasion (1817)—single, stoic and dignified at 27—when I read the novel for the first time as part of my MA syllabus.
In contrast, for Chennai-based writer Nirica Srinivasan, 27, who is one of the curators of Bengaluru- and Goa-based Champaca Bookstore, it was Emma that made her fall in love with Austen. Like many of her Gen Z peers, she got to Austen via the retellings, through movies and other contemporary novels. What Srinivasan liked most about Austen is that there is no judgement in her portrayal of a young woman who gets into a pickle every so often. 'I always find it hard to define myself in any one way and all of her characters—so real, vivid and flawed— remind me that I don't need to," she adds. 'I can see something of myself in her heroines."
It wouldn't be wrong to surmise that Austen put a bit of herself in all the heroines she created—from the emotionally volatile Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility (1811) to the impressionable Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey (1818). If her one major theme is the portrayal of a steady and dependable love that stands the test of time, she was no less keen to grapple with ways of being a self-respecting woman in the world—especially in her time, when she, like many other women, lived in the shadow of their male relations, brothers in her case. Sadly, this is still far too commonly the case in India and many parts of the world.
So, it is hardly surprising that generations of women are still finding solace in her books. While the millennials, based on my interviews, seem to be drawn towards the Austenian ideal of love, cautiously cultivated by overcoming multiple disappointments, the Gen Zs are more inclined to discover through Austen ways of being outspoken, opinionated, and not always likeable young women in the world they live in.
'When I first read Northanger Abbey, I was about 12 years old, and I read the novel again two years ago (when I was 22). As a 12-year-old, it was Austen's flamboyant freedom that stood out to me," says poet and writer Alolika Dutta, 24. 'Austen wrote, it seemed to me at 12, so much where so much less would do," she adds. 'But why must one make do with only as much as is called for? How much is 'called for'? What makes a thing more socially acceptable than another?"
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For Gen Zs and Alphas reading Austen, or getting acquainted with her legacy through pop-culture adaptations, the author's opinionated style itself can be a pull, a permission to say what's on their mind.
'Personally, Lady Susan stands out to me as a sharp, underrated gem in Austen's body of work. It is tonally distinct from her more well-known novels—darker, more biting, and driven by a central character who is unapologetically manipulative and self-serving," Mahnot says. 'There's something thrilling about watching a female character operate so boldly within and against the social conventions of her time."
One can only imagine what a sensation Jane Austen would have been on social media had she lived in our compulsively online times.
With inputs from Shrabonti Bagchi.
