Pride and Pastiche: Humor and Intertextual Parody in Bridget Jones’s Diary

Criticism of Helen Fielding`s Bridget Jones`s Diary (1996) has generally been limited to interrogating its literary value as `Chick Lit,` feminist analysis, and noting its complex intertextual mesh of allusions to Austen`s Pride and Prejudice and movie/TV versions of both novels. Less attention has been paid to why or how P&P functions as a parodic text informing BJD. This paper argues through a close reading that Fielding uses the language registers, behavioral codes, and wider romance tropes and canonical scenes of P&P to serve as a humorous contrast against Bridget. Bridget is funny because she aspires to this fantasy romantic ideal of poise, control, and prestige which is comically denied to her or deflated. Fielding`s parodic technique is neither critical to P&P nor to Bridget but is rather sympathetically playful, so that Bridget earns the reader`s sympathy and identification.