The novel "Pride and Prejudice," one of the most significant texts of English literature, is multi-layered and, as such, open to multiple interpretations. It could be characterized as a "comedy of manners" of the middle landowning class of late 18th - early 19th century England, as a realistic "family novel," or as a testimony of the transition of Regency society to the modern world. Above all, however, it is a study of the fate of women in a society that was incapable of treating them as individuals with judgment, opinions, choices, with characteristics considered masculine for the time. From this perspective, the present novel is profoundly feminist, and its central heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, who rebels against this situation and ultimately triumphs, is a precursor of today's emancipated woman.