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Bridget Jones’s Diary

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1996

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Bridget Jones's Diary

Bridget Jones is determined to improve herself while she looks for love in a year in which she keeps a personal diary. Bridget Jones is determined to improve herself while she looks for love in a year in which she keeps a personal diary. Bridget Jones is determined to improve herself while she looks for love in a year in which she keeps a personal diary.

• Sharon Maguire
• Helen Fielding
• Andrew Davies
• Richard Curtis
• Renée Zellweger
• Colin Firth
• 649 User reviews
• 104 Critic reviews
• 66 Metascore
• 8 wins & 32 nominations total

• Bridget Jones

• Daniel Cleaver

• Bridget's Mum

• Una Alconbury

• Uncle Geoffrey

• Bridget's Dad

• Mr. Fitzherbert

• Handsome Stranger
• Simon in Marketing

• Elderly Man

• Salman Rushdie

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia To prepare for the role, Renée Zellweger gained 25 pounds, then worked at a British publishing company for a month. Using an alias and a posh accent, she was apparently not recognized. She also kept a framed picture of her then-boyfriend Jim Carrey on her desk. Her co-workers found the photo odd, but never mentioned it for fear of embarrassing her.
• Goofs (at around 1h 29 mins) Bridget's flat is in Borough, but when Mark leaves it to buy her a new diary, he walks around the corner to the Royal Exchange, which is several miles away on the other side of the Thames.

Bridget : Wait a minute... nice boys don't kiss like that.

Mark Darcy : Oh, yes, they fucking do.

• Crazy credits During the end credits, we see footage of a home movie taken during a birthday party, which also happens to be the birthday party that both Bridget and Mark are at that is referred to several times during the movie.
• Alternate versions The songs that play over the second half of the end credits are different. In the UK the first Robbie Williams song is followed by Dina Carroll singing "Someone Like You", and then Williams again, singing "Not Of This Earth". The US version replaces Carroll with Shelby Lynne singing "Killin' Kind", then concludes with the same Williams track.
• Connections Featured in Siskel & Ebert: Blow/All Access/Just Visiting/Along Came a Spider/Just Melvin: Just Evil (2001)
• Soundtracks Magic Moments Written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David Performed by Perry Como Courtesy of RCA Records/BMG Entertainment

User reviews 649

• Apr 12, 2002
• What do the numbers on Bridget's weight scale mean?
• What are the differences between the BBFC-15 Version and the R-Rated Version?
• April 13, 2001 (United States)
• United Kingdom
• United States
• Official Facebook
• Nhật Ký Tiểu Thư Jones
• Bedale Street, Southwark, London, England, UK (Bridget's home)
• Universal Pictures
• StudioCanal
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $25,000,000 (estimated)
• $71,543,427
• $10,733,933
• Apr 15, 2001
• $334,273,059

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 37 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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Glory be, they didn't muck it up. Bridget Jones 's Diary , a beloved book about a heroine both lovable and human, has been made against all odds into a funny and charming movie that understands the charm of the original, and preserves it. The book, a fictional diary of a plump 30-something London office worker, was about a specific person in a specific place. When the role was cast with Renee Zellweger , who is not plump and is from Texas, there was gnashing and wailing. Obviously the Miramax boys would turn London's pride into a Manhattanite, or worse.

Nothing doing. Zellweger put on 20-some pounds and developed the cutest little would-be double chin, as well as a British accent that sounds reasonable enough to me. (Sight & Sound, the British film magazine, has an ear for nuances and says the accent is "just a little too studiedly posh," which from them is praise.) As in the book, Bridget arrives at her 32nd birthday determined to take control of her life, which until now has consisted of smoking too much, drinking too much, eating too much and not finding the right man, or indeed much of any man. In her nightmares, she dies fat, drunk and lonely and is eaten by Alsatian dogs. She determines to monitor her daily intake of tobacco and alcohol units, and her weight, which she measures in stones. (A stone is 14 pounds; the British not only have pounds along with kilos, but stones on top of pounds, although the other day a London street vendor was arrested for selling bananas by the pound in defiance of the new European marching orders; the next step is obviously for Brussels to impound Bridget's diary.) Bridget's campaign proceeds unhappily when her mother (who "comes from the time when pickles on toothpicks were still the height of sophistication") introduces her to handsome Mark Darcy ( Colin Firth ), who is at a holiday party against his will and in a bad mood and is overheard (by Bridget) describing her as a "verbally incontinent spinster." Things go better at work, where she exchanges saucy e-mails with her boss, Daniel Cleaver ( Hugh Grant ). His opener: "You appear to have forgotten your skirt." They begin an affair, while Darcy circles the outskirts of her consciousness, still looking luscious but acting emotionally constipated.

Zellweger's Bridget is a reminder of the first time we became really aware of her in a movie, in " Jerry Maguire ," where she was so cute and vulnerable we wanted to tickle and console her at the same time. Her work in " Nurse Betty " (2000) was widely but not sufficiently praised, and now here she is, fully herself and fully Bridget Jones, both at once. A story like this can't work unless we feel unconditional affection for the heroine, and casting Zellweger achieves that; the only alternate I can think of is Kate Winslet , who comes close but lacks the self-destructive puppy aspects.

The movie has otherwise been cast with dependable (perhaps infallible) British comic actors. The first time Hugh Grant appeared on screen, I chuckled for no good reason at all, just as I always do when I see Christopher Walken , Steve Buscemi , Tim Roth or Jack Nicholson--because I know that whatever the role, they will infuse it with more than the doctor ordered. Grant can play a male Bridget Jones (as he did in " Notting Hill "), but he's better as a cad, and here he surpasses himself by lying to Bridget about Darcy and then cheating on her with a girl from the New York office. (An "American stick insect," is what Bridget tells her diary.) It is a universal rule of romantic fiction that all great love stories must be mirrored by their low-comedy counterpoints. Just as Hal woos Katharine, Falstaff trifles with Doll Tearsheet. If Bridget must choose between Mark and Daniel, then her mother ( Gemma Jones ) must choose between her kindly but easy-chair-loving husband ( Jim Broadbent ) and a dashing huckster for a TV shopping channel.

The movie strings together one funny set-piece after another, as when Bridget goes in costume to a party where she thought the theme was "Tarts & Vicars." Or when she stumbles into a job on a TV news show and makes her famous premature entrance down the fire pole. Or when she has to decide at the beginning of an evening whether sexy underwear or tummy-crunching underwear will do her more good in the long run. Bridget charts her own progress along the way, from "tragic spinster" to "wanton sex goddess," and the movie gives almost unreasonable pleasure as it celebrates her bumpy transition.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Bridget Jones's Diary (2001)

Rated R For Language and Some Strong Sexuality

115 minutes

Renée Zellweger as Bridget Jones

Hugh Grant as Daniel Cleaver

Gemma Jones as Bridget's Mum

Jim Broadbent as Bridget's Dad

Colin Firth as Mark Darcy

Directed by

• Sharon Maguire
• Richard Curtis
• Andrew Davies
• Helen Fielding

Based On The Novel by

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Bridget Jones #1

Bridget jones’s diary, helen fielding.

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

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"After all, there is nothing so unattractive to a man as strident feminism." (I don't know if this is possible but I felt my uterus litearally shrivel up) "Think will cross last bit out as contains mild accusation of sexual harassment whereas v. much enjoying being sexually harassed by Daniel Cleaver." "That didn't give him license to sexually harass me, but the complication was quite enjoyable, really." (The oxymoron in these last two is what my nightmares are made of)

7pm. Opened bottle of wine feeling desperate and lonely and miserable. 7.30pm. Oh unassailable joy! Daniel called and declared his undying love for me. 8pm. Daniel called back and said he’d called the wrong number by mistake. He thought I was Ryan Giggs. (Who?) Opened second bottle of wine. Binged on marshmallow and lard and put on 3 stone in 20 minutes. 9pm. Oh insurmountable ecstasy! Mark Darcy called and declared his undying love for me. He’s coming over. Performed quick gastric bypass procedure on self and washed hair. Down to 9 stone but still look podgy. 10.30pm. Mark Darcy stood me up. Why am I so lonely? Why? Why? Why?

Hmm. Think will cross last bit out as contains mild accusation of sexual harassment whereas v. much enjoying being sexually harassed by Daniel Cleaver.

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Zellweger's Bridget Jones is a sympathetic, likable, funny character, giving this romantic comedy a lot of charm.

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Bridget Jones's Diary Summary & Study Guide

Bridget Jones's Diary Summary & Study Guide Description

Bridget Jones's Diary portrays a year in the life of 30-something, career-minded Bridget Jones. Bridget is a self-involved woman concerned with her weight, appearance and securing a boyfriend. The book is written as a diary and tracks Bridget's life during a twelve-month span, beginning with her New Year's Resolutions. Her resolutions include quitting smoking, drinking less, losing weight, finding a boyfriend, getting a better career, and not dating emotionally unavailable men.

The chapters of the book represent the twelve months of the year. Each chapter is broken up into daily entries. Most of the daily entries begin with a tally of Bridget's weight, alcohol consumption, cigarettes smoked and parenthetical comments on her progress. Because the book is written like a diary the language is very frank and honest. The author has even come up with a set of abbreviations, which the reader easily catches on to such as "v." for "very" or "v.g." for "very good."

Bridget's year begins with her having a crush on her boss, while her parents try to fix her up with Mark Darcy, who is recently divorced and back from America. Bridget has no luck with or attraction to Mark Darcy. Her flirtations with her boss, Daniel Cleaver, result in his asking her out for a date. Meanwhile, her parents are going through marital troubles of their own.

As the story continues, Bridget and Daniel date sporadically. He is unpredictable and hard for Bridget to understand. She frequently is frustrated with him and swears never to sleep with him again. Inevitably, he does something endearing, and she ends up seeing him again. Bridget also has chance encounters with Mark Darcy, in which she ends up saying or doing something she deems foolish and unattractive.

Bridget's mother leaves her father and runs off with a Portuguese man named Julio, who's younger, wilder and more handsome than Bridget's father. After a few other trysts, Bridget's mother decides that men are not what she's after. She wants the career she never had, so she gets a job in television.

Bridget and Daniel settle into a relationship and spend almost every weekend together. They even plan a weekend away in the country together. Bridget is happy to have a boyfriend, even if they do spend each summer Sunday watching cricket with the blinds closed and the room dark. One day, Bridget pops by Daniel's place unexpectedly and finds a naked, beautiful American sunning herself on his terrace. Bridget is devastated.

Now that Daniel is out of her life, Bridget focuses on her career. Her mother gets her an interview with a television station. Bridget begins working in television and finds much success. Her shining moment is a coveted exclusive interview, awarded by her friend Mark Darcy, with his star client.

After a party at his house, Mark Darcy asks Bridget out for a date. They set plans for dinner, but Bridget does not hear the doorbell ring when he comes, and they stand each other up for their first date. Bridget invites him to a dinner party at her flat, which turns out to be a culinary disaster. The same night, she finds out that her mother is a fugitive, along with her boyfriend. Julio has stolen a lot of money from family friends, including Mark Darcy's parents, in a time-share scam. After that night, Bridget waits for Mark to call her, but he doesn't.

A few days later, she hears from Mark. He's in Portugal trying to get her mother and the money back. Her mother returns to London and some of the money is recovered, although Julio is still missing. December begins, as does the Christmas season, and Bridget is in full party mode. She attends numerous parties, lunches and gatherings with her friends. Through it all she hears nothing from Mark and figures her horrible cooking and criminal family have scared him off.

On Christmas Day, Julio appears at Bridget's family's home with Mark Darcy in hot pursuit. The police are called, and Julio is arrested. Mark Darcy sweeps Bridget away and declares his love to her. The book ends with a summary of Bridget's progress on her New Year's Resolutions, only one of which she kept. She found a wonderful boyfriend.

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Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding (Book Analysis)

Bridget jones’s diary by helen fielding (book analysis), detailed summary, analysis and reading guide.

This practical and insightful  reading guide  offers a  complete summary  and  analysis  of Bridget Jones’s Diary  by  Helen Fielding . It provides a thorough exploration of the novel’s plot, characters and main themes, including social conventions, relationships and addiction. The clear and concise style makes for easy understanding, providing the perfect opportunity to improve your literary knowledge in no time.

This clear and detailed 31-page reading guide is structured as follows:

• Biography of Helen Fielding
• Presentation of Bridget Jones’s Diary
• Summary of Bridget Jones’s Diary
• Bridget Jones
• Mrs Pamela Jones
• Mr Colin Jones
• Daniel Cleaver
• The “Urban Singleton Family” ( The Edge of Reason )
• Women’s writing
• The private diary form
• A critical reflection on society
• A series in the vein of the works of Jane Austen

About Bridget Jones’s Diary

The first instalment of Bridget Jones’s Diary  was published in 1996. It tells the story of Bridget Jones, an awkward, thirtysomething singleton living in London who craves love. With a generous sprinkling of humor, Fielding describes Bridget’s problems with her weight, career, love life and over-indulgence in alcohol and cigarettes.

Bridget Jones’s Diary  was a phenomenal success when it was first published, particularly the first two installments, which were adapted for cinema in the beginning of the 21 st  century.  A third film called Bridget Jones’ Baby was released in 2016. Bridget Jones’s Diary won the 1998 British Book of the Year and was judged one of the ten novels which best defined the 20 th  century by The Guardian .

About Helen Fielding

Helen Fielding is an English writer who was born in Morley in 1958. Before she released her first book, Cause Celeb , she worked as a journalist for several major British newspapers, including  The Independent, The Sunday Times  and The Telegraph . She became internationally famous when she released Bridget Jones’s Diary .

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The Complicated Legacy of Bridget Jones

It’s been 25 years since the character first appeared, but what impact did she have on the portrayal of single women in popular culture, and how much has changed since then?

Every item on this page was chosen by a Shondaland editor. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy.

Twenty-five years ago, a new woman came into our lives. A chain-smoking, Chardonnay-slurping, calorie-counting, self-help-loving, slightly clumsy 30-something from London who was muddling her way through life and chronicling every detail of it in her diary. There was nothing particularly remarkable about Bridget Jones and yet, despite that — or perhaps because of it — she became a cultural fixture.

Bridget Jones's Diary

Starting life as a fictional creation for a British newspaper column written by Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones ’ Diary became a best-selling book in 1996. It went on to be published in 40 countries, sell 15 million copies, and spawn three more novels. In 2001, Renee Zellweger brought Bridget to life on the big screen in a hugely successful movie that earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Two sequels followed — including Bridget Jones ’ Baby , released five years ago.

Bridget Jones brought many things into our lives — enormous underwear, blue soup, Hugh Grant saying, “Hello, mummy” — but, of course, the thing she was, and is still, most famous for is being single. When it comes to cultural depictions of unmarried women in their 30s, few have had quite so much impact — or been quite so divisive — as Bridget (sorry, Carrie).

A quarter of a century on, Bridget Jones’ legacy is a complicated one. When she appeared in the mid-90s her character brought the lives and experiences of single women center stage in a way that felt new and quietly groundbreaking — and didn’t involve boiling your married lover’s pet rabbit, Fatal Attraction style. “The fictional representation of a single girl in her 30s was way outdated,” explained Helen Fielding in a recent BBC documentary to mark the character’s 25th anniversary.

Critics of Bridget Jones thought she was far too fixated on her weight and finding a man, that the character played into stereotypes about single women waiting around for Mr. Right (or Mr. Darcy) to solve all their problems. She wasn’t strong enough, independent enough, feminist enough (in one entry, Bridget famously writes: “There is nothing so unattractive to a man as a strident feminist”).

But Bridget Jones was never meant to be aspirational. This wasn’t about life as it should be, but life as it so often was. Fielding was a social observer and through her fictional creation she used humor to explore — and poke fun at — the issues that she and her 30-something friends were dealing with: the pressure to have the perfect job, body and relationship; all the bad boyfriends, creepy bosses, and failed diets; messing up at work, falling for unsuitable men, worrying about how you look — then feeling guilty for worrying about how you look; living in a world full of choices, but having no idea which ones to take; being grilled about your love-life by “smug-marrieds” (and your own mother); worrying that your life isn’t meaningful enough, or that you’re getting left behind; feeling like an “irresistible sex goddess” one minute then wondering “why am I so unattractive?” the next; trying your best and not always getting it right — then meeting your friends to dissect it all over a bottle of wine or three.

Bridget was not perfect, but that was the point. Fielding has said her character reflects “this gap between how you feel you’re supposed to be and how you really are.”

And if Bridget was obsessed with coupling up, could anyone blame her, when nearly every film, TV show and book at the time still promoted finding your soulmate as the source of all happiness? The same year Bridget Jones ’ Diary came out, the woman who would later play her was standing opposite Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire and being told: “You complete me” only to then happily fall into his arms. Subtext: no-one is a full human being on their own.

There was also the very real pressure women in their 30s felt that, if they did want children, there was only so many years left to make it happen. By the 90s, women were supposed to be able to have it all, but the logistics of that were and still are a challenge. Even if you didn’t care about marriage or children, Bridget Jones also tapped into something wider: a fear of loneliness.

Carty-Williams turned to Bridget Jones in the absence of stories about young Black women — something she’s now trying to remedy with her own books. “‘Where do you find yourself?’ I never found myself,” Carty-Williams continued, “so I kept going back to Bridget as this person who could also mess up.”

Part of the reason Bridget Jones made such an impact was that there were so few mainstream cultural representations of single women in popular culture at the time. That was starting to change, however. The year after Bridget Jones ’ Diary was published, another successful newspaper column about single life was turned into a book — Candace Bushnell’s Sex and the City . In 1998 we met Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha, who gave us a glossier, more defiant version of single life. It showed women having a lot of fun, and a lot of sex, and, mostly, not losing too-much sleep over settling down. If Bridget was largely lovable, Carrie wasn’t always likable — but, again, seeing women allowed to be imperfect felt like progress.

But in the quarter of a century since Bridget Jones first appeared — especially over the last few years — we have slowly started to see a wider selection of stories about single life, reflecting the reality that a record number of Americans are now unmarried.

In Insecure , the dating escapades of Issa and Molly are secondary to the show’s most important relationship — the friendship between the two women. In Fleabag , Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s heroine didn’t end up with her Hot Priest — but she learned she was worthy of love and, as she walked off into the distance alone, we knew she’d be absolutely fine. Better Things explores life as a single parent. Candice Carty-Williams, who named one of her characters Darcy as a nod to her love of Bridget Jones , is writing a screenplay of Queenie , bringing her story of a young Black woman navigating dating, friendships and a career to TV.

These stories and others show there is more to being a single woman than hiding under the duvet with a tub of Ben & Jerry’s (though, no shame – especially in these times) and waiting for your Mr. Darcy to call, but in nearly all of them is a thread reminiscent of Bridget — the right to mess up. And, more importantly, to laugh about it.

In many ways Bridget Jones ’ Diary is a product of its time, the 1990s, when body positivity and the Me Too movement were still a long way off. Lines like: “V.much enjoying being sexually harassed by Daniel Cleaver” might not make the cut today. Bridget herself might not even write a diary now but instead chronicle her feelings on Twitter (we’re pretty sure she’d accidentally like her ex’s posts on Instagram, too).

But for all that now feels dated about Bridget Jones ’ Diary , its championing of flaws, celebration of failures, and acknowledgement that we’re all just doing our best, and maybe that’s enough, still feels refreshing. Like Bridget herself, it’s imperfect — and that’s totally fine.

Clare Thorp is a writer and editor based in the United Kingdom. She covers lifestyle trends, careers and culture and her work is published in BBC Culture, The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, Grazia, Refinery29 and more. Her twitter handle is @thorpers .

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Bridget Jones's Diary

By helen fielding, bridget jones's diary summary and analysis of new year’s resolutions, january, february.

Narrated in the first person and written as a diary by the novel’s protagonist, Bridget Jones, Bridget Jones’s Diary opens with Bridget declaring her intentions for the new year. She will drink less, stop smoking, stop wasting money on useless things, stop spending more than she earns, stop falling in love with alcoholics, workaholics, misogynists, and perverts, stop being unkind to people behind their backs, and stop obsessing over Daniel Cleaver , her boss at her publishing-company job. She vows to develop the inner poise necessary to get a boyfriend and form a “functional relationship,” reduce her thigh fat with an anti-cellulite diet, get rid of junk and clothes around her flat, find a better job, save money, be more confident and assertive, exercise, and learn to program her video recorder.

Declaring January a very bad start to her New Year’s resolutions, Bridget lists her current weight at 9st 4 (130 pounds), and the excessive alcohol, cigarettes, and food she has consumed in the last day. She wakes at noon on the first and laments that she has to drive to her parents’ best friends the Alconburys’ Turkey Curry Buffet. Her mother manipulated her into promising to attend as far back as August, hinting that she could be set up with a family friend from childhood named Mark Darcy, who is a rich, divorced barrister (lawyer).

Later that night, Bridget writes about how she cannot believe she is starting the year again in a single bed in her parents’ house. She recounts how she arrives at the buffet in Northamptonshire late, and still hungover. Una and Geoffrey Alconbury comment on how she drove the wrong route and immediately ask whether she has found a man to date, which they don’t understand is an impolite question. Soon she is whisked toward Mark, who she notes is tall but wears white socks with a bumblebee pattern.

They make awkward conversation about books, as Bridget works in publishing but doesn’t read much outside her job. When Una suggests Mark take her phone number to get in touch while in London, Mark says Bridget’s life is probably quite full already. That night, Bridget laments his obvious lack of interest in her, although she didn’t necessarily want his number anyway. On Jan 3, Bridget returns to work with reluctance and concerns about having gained a pound, and then another, both of which she loses by the 5th. She goes out one night with friends to discuss the “emotional fuckwittage” of a man her friend has been seeing but who won’t commit to her.

Bridget’s boss, Daniel, starts messaging flirtatiously over the work computer system about her skirt being too short. Bridget self-doubtingly but excitedly plays along until he asks for her phone number. He puts off making a date, however, making Bridget feel self-pity. He cancels on her once, and Bridget vows to stop being interested, but on the following Friday, at the end of the month, they finally go out. Daniel kisses her at the end of the date and brings her to his flat, where they tear at each other’s clothes.

As he undoes the zip on Bridget’s skirt, Daniel says, “This is just a bit of fun, OK? I don't think we should start getting involved.” Bridget stops him undressing her and says, “How dare you be so fraudulently flirtatious, cowardly and dysfunctional? I am not interested in emotional fuckwittage. Goodbye.” Her glee at telling him off is soon replaced by worry as she imagines she will end up dying alone and be found having been half-eaten by an Alsatian (German shepherd).

In February, Bridget visits her parents for Sunday lunch. Her mother snaps at her father during the meal, which she normally never does. She is also tan from a vacation and seems more confident than usual. Bridget goes to a dinner party with several couples who interrogate her about still being single, irritating Bridget very much. She calls her father, who says without elaborating that he and her mother are having “problems” and that he can’t talk right now. Daniel and Bridget flirt again over office-system messages, but Bridget insists, in her diary, that she won’t sleep with him. She calls her parents several times over the first week and a half of February but they won’t answer.

Eventually her father leaves a message saying he’s coming to London to meet her for lunch. Her mother leaves practically the same message. Bridget frets over having them both independently coming to see her at the same time. Her mother then calls to say Bridget’s father can go see her, having his “bloody way” as usual and that she is going out to “get laid.” Bridget is unused to her mother swearing. Her dad turns up sobbing, saying she has been this way since she went to Albufeira with two female friends. He says she has been complaining about having to do unpaid housework and that she wants him to move out for a while. He says Bridget’s mother told him he thinks the clitoris is a variety of butterfly or moth.

On Valentine’s Day, Bridget is displeased to receive no cards, flowers, or chocolates. The day after, she notices a card addressed to The Dusky Beauty in the entrance hall of her building. She checks obsessively for days and the dark-haired woman in the flat downstairs, Vanessa, doesn’t take it. Eventually they open it together. Bridget lets out a high-pitched noise when she reads: “A piece of ridiculous and meaningless commercial exploitation—for my darling little frigid cow.” Bridget’s friends suggest she have nothing to do with Daniel; Bridget decides to remain aloof.

After meeting for lunch, Bridget spots her mother shopping with a man named Julian, who Bridget’s mother claims she isn’t having an affair with. Bridget doesn’t believe her. Bridget’s father moves into the Alconburys’ granny flat in their backyard and keeps Bridget up with phone calls “just to talk.” Toward the end of the month Bridget and Daniel kiss in the elevator and make a weekend date. Bridget is in a bliss-like state of “shag-drunkenness” afterward, but soon worries over the uncertainty of not knowing if they are now going out. She resents her mother for the ease with which she can move from one relationship to another, torturing herself with the thought of her mother having sex without anxiety.

The opening pages of Bridget Jones’s Diary see Helen Fielding establishing the humorous, self-deprecating voice of the novel’s narrator and protagonist, Bridget Jones. At an undisclosed point in her thirties, Bridget is a young professional who works in publishing in mid-1990s London. The New Year’s resolutions she sets out symbolize the dissatisfaction she feels with her life as it is; she seeks to correct her vices, attitude, appearance, and disastrous dating record. The novel will depict Bridget struggling between these self-improvement goals and her natural tendency to veer toward things that are bad for her.

The opening pages are also significant because they establish the novel’s premise: written as Bridget’s supposed private diary, the format of the novel invites a voyeuristic intimacy between the reader and the narrator. Believing she is having a conversation only with herself, Bridget is her truest, most-unvarnished self, which encourages trust and sympathy as the reader sees, perhaps better than Bridget can, the patterns that govern her life.

Bridget’s year begins with a satirical scene that takes shots both at the pressures of being single and at middle-class social conventions—two of the book’s major themes. With great reluctance, Bridget drives out of the city to attend her parents’ friends’ “Turkey Curry Buffet,” an annual event in which middle-aged, middle-class people a generation older than Bridget gather to get tipsy and ask inappropriate, probing questions of single people like Bridget. Una Alconbury uses the event as an opportunity to try to marry Bridget off to Mark, a divorced lawyer Bridget used to play with when they were kids. In this stilted environment, Bridget dismisses Mark Darcy as a bore—a Geoffrey Alconbury in the making. Little does she know how significantly her opinion of Mark will change before the end of the year.

Fielding introduces the theme of male immaturity with Bridget’s first outing in the new year with her other single friends. Together, they get drunk and denounce the men they have to date. Sharon posits that the power balance of the sexes has shifted now that they’re in their thirties: As women face pressure to settle down and have a child before their biological clock runs out, men become increasingly irresponsible, knowing they can jump from relationship to relationship, able to waste women’s time now that they, as men, consider themselves the more-desirable commodity. Bridget hopes Daniel, her boss, will be different, but he proves himself just as emotionally immature when he leads Bridget on and only mentions his desire not to “get involved” as he is undressing her.

Marital strife, another of the book’s major themes, also arises in the opening chapters. Breaking with decades of predictable behavior, Bridget’s mother decides she has had enough of being a dutiful housewife and begins an affair with a Portuguese man she met while on holiday. The month of February ends with Bridget reflecting on the irony that her mother, who is in her sixties, has the emotional armor to jump from one relationship to another and have sex without getting her hopes and fantasies of love wrapped up in it. In Bridget’s case, she is sick of being single and wants a level of commitment Daniel isn’t capable of offering.

Bridget Jones’s Diary Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Bridget Jones’s Diary is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

How does the film adaptation compare to the novel?

I'm sorry, this is a short-answer "literature" forum designed for text specific questions. We are unable to assist students with questions about film unless otherwise noted in the category.

Is the movie however centered around toxic relationship?

I think the idea of love often includes toxic relationships. The theme of love is a major element of this narrative. All characters of this female novel are searching for this magic feeling, trying to keep it in spite of different kinds of...

What are the differences and similarities of the character Darcy in Bridget Jones's Diary and Pride and Prejudice

Check this out, especially paragraph 3.

https://literatureessaysamples.com/the-comparison-of-pride-and-prejudice-with-bridget/

Study Guide for Bridget Jones’s Diary

Bridget Jones's Diary study guide contains a biography of Helen Fielding, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Bridget Jones's Diary
• Bridget Jones's Diary Summary
• Character List

Essays for Bridget Jones’s Diary

Bridget Jones's Diary essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding.

• The Comparison of Pride and Prejudice with Bridget Jones’s Diary
• Bridget Jones’ Diary: Is it a feminist novel?

Lesson Plan for Bridget Jones’s Diary

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Bridget Jones's Diary
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Bridget Jones's Diary Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for Bridget Jones’s Diary

• Introduction