Pride and Prejudice and Proof: Quotidian Factfinding and Rules of Evidence

Abstract:     
Jane Austen's 1813 novel, Pride and Prejudice, allows the reader an extraordinary opportunity to make connections between literary and adjudicatory factfinding by presenting the correspondence at multiple levels. Like many works of fiction, Pride and Prejudice presents narrative "proofs" for the reader's evaluation, but in addition to this, the novel takes as its central theme the evaluative process itself. This paper contends that, at its heart, Pride and Prejudice is about the difficulty of determining truth, and invites the reader to reflect upon how we find facts in our ordinary lives. In so doing, the novel resonates in a number of useful ways with the legal fact-finding process.

Keywords: Evidence, literature, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Accepted Paper Series