Although Pride and Prejudice and Romeo and Juliet are written completely differently, Pride and Prejudice as a novel and Romeo and Juliet as a play, they both use a variety of techniques to present the theme of love. Austen uses different couples to present contrasting views; each couple represents a different circumstance and journey into marriage. Shakespeare uses the same technique using different situations and couples to represent different forms of love.
From the beginning of Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare uses the idea of fate to present the idea of strong, meant-to-be love. The phrase “star crossed lovers” tells the audience that is meant to happen and is almost planned out. This shows that Shakespeare’s view on true love is that it is decided by fate. In contrast to this Austen uses wit and humour to show the theme of her story, which is marriage. Austen speaks of how any man with a good fortune would want a wife, but nobody considers that mans feeling or views as he is considered “the rightful property of one or other of their daughters.” Seemingly mocking the attitudes towards marriage in the 18th and 19th century. This immediately shows Austen’s opinion that her society is so obsessed with getting their daughters into a well-matched marriage they do not care about feelings of love.
Both heroines in the stories live in a patriarchal society where decisions are usually made for them. Both characters are determined to make their own decisions, Juliet making the decision to marry her families enemy and Elizabeth refusing to marry until she fell in love. Making these decisions they go against society, against the wishes of their parents. In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet refuses to marry the character Paris against her parents wishes similar to Pride and Prejudice when Elizabeth refuses to marry Mr. Collins against the wishes of her mother. Both authors express the opinion that a person