Every pride and prejudice adaptation that i have seen or heard of, western or otherwise, ends Lydia's story by fixing her problem. The the video is taken down, the marriage is averted, she is intercepted and rescued at the airport. And then there is a family reconciliation, where Lydia and Elizabeth come to a better understanding and respect for each other. But that is not what happens to Lydia Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. Lydia's rescue in Pride and Prejudice is also a punishment, one that will last her for the rest of her life. Elizabeth will judge and resent her for it for the rest of her life, and Lydia will never be economically independent of either her husband or Elizabeth, neither of whom will ever respect her. The text permits little ambiguity on its intention to construct Lydia as a cautionary tale:
But how little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue, she could easily conjecture.
And yet, in all of this, Lydia never apologizes. Lydia sins and is punished but she does not repent. Even in the moment after her "rescue," when the narrative seems to demand she have an epiphany, a lightning strike of remorse and gratitude to catalyze a shift in character, Lydia simply declines:
Elizabeth was disgusted, and even Miss Bennet was shocked. Lydia was Lydia still; untamed, unabashed, wild, noisy, and fearless.
Most of this is rehashing points I've made before. But I am simply gonna be weird about it forever. I think it's so weird and fascinating that contemporary storytellers seem so committed to solving the problem of Lydia by solving the problem of Lydia: by rescuing her from her catastrophe before it's too late, rather than a few days after, and by rewriting her character into someone who is interested in having a self-discovery arc about responsible behavior as a thank-you for that rescue, which Jane Austen's Lydia Bennet is absolutely not interested in doing. Lydia as Austen wrote her both is a cautionary tale and resists absorbing cautionary tales. She refuses to learn her lesson and, paradoxically, by doing so and by surviving that refusal fairly intact, she illustrates that the vicious moralizing of her cultural surroundings is more optional than it appears.
Neither is Austen's Elizabeth remotely interested in learning to shift her own moral framework to accommodate Lydia, a fact also usually changed in modern adaptations, but I shall try to avoid getting to into that one because then I'll really be just repeating stuff I've said a bunch of times before.
The problem with solving the problem of Lydia is that it sucks out the most interesting thing going on in the entire book. What happens when a woman refuses to be fixed? People are so eager to throw that question away. No one wants to let Lydia be "Lydia still; untamed, unabashed, wild noisy, and fearless." Why? Is it because Lydia as written intrinisically makes readers and writers uncomfortable? Or is it a need for a morally unimpeachable romantic lead; a need to absolve Elizabeth of her role in their society's abandonment of Lydia? Either way, what a waste. What is the point.
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