Lecture 6 of Book Two
Jane Austen,
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen ( 1775-1817)
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lived and worked at the turn of the century.
the daughter of a country clergyman, and passed
all her life in doing small domestic duties in the
countryside.
educated at home and began to write at an early
age.
When a visitor entered, she would throw a sheet
of paper or a piece of sewing over her work, and
she modestly refused to acknowledge that she
was the author of her novels which were
published anonymously owing to the prejudice
prevailing at the time concerning the writing of
novels by a lady.
During her lifetime she never moved in literary
circles, and was never "lionized'.
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Living a quiet life in the countryside, she
kept her eyes steadily upon the people
and incidents about her, and wrote about
the small world she lived in.
She herself compared her work to a
fine engraving made upon a little piece of
ivory only two inches square. The
comparison is true. The ivory surface is
small enough, but the woman who made
drawings of human life on it is a real artist.
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Jane Austen’s 6 novels:
Northanger Abbey
Sense and Sensibility
Pride and Prejudice
Mansfield Park
Emma
Persuasion
Pride and Prejudice" is the most
widely read among them.
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Pride and Prejudice
Chapter I
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IT is a truth universally
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acknowledged, that a single man in
possession of a good fortune must be
in want of a wife.
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However little known the feelings or views
of such a man may be on his first entering
a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed
in the minds of the surrounding families,
that he is considered as the rightful
property of some one or other of their
daughters.
``My dear Mr. Bennet,'' said his lady to
him one day, ``have you heard that
Netherfield Park is let at last?''
Mr. Bennet replied that he had not.
``But it is,'' returned she; ``for Mrs.
Long has just been here, and she told me
all about it.''
Mr. Bennet made no answer.
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``Do not you want to know who has taken
it?'' cried his wife impatiently.
``You want to tell me, and I have no
objection to hearing it.''
This was invitation enough.
``Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs.
Long says that Netherfield is taken by a
young man of large fortune from the north
of England; that he came down on
Monday in a chaise and four to see the
place, and was so much delighted with it
that he agreed with Mr. Morris
immediately; that he is to take possession
before Michaelmas, and some of his
servants are to be in the house by the end
of next week.''
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``What is his name?''
``Bingley.''
``Is he married or single?''
``Oh! single, my dear, to be sure! A single man
of large fortune; four or five thousand a year.
What a fine thing for our girls!''
``How so? how can it affect them?''
``My dear Mr. Bennet,'' replied his wife, ``how
can you be so tiresome! You must know that I am
thinking of his marrying one of them.''
``Is that his design in settling here?''
``Design! nonsense, how can you talk so! But it
is very likely that he may fall in love with one of
them, and therefore you must visit him as soon
as he comes.''
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``I see no occasion for that. You and the girls
may go, or you may send them by themselves,
which perhaps will be still better; for, as you are
as handsome as any of them, Mr. Bingley might
like you the best of the party.''
``My dear, you flatter me. I certainly have had
my share of beauty, but I do not pretend to be
any thing extraordinary now. When a woman has
five grown up daughters, she ought to give over
thinking of her own beauty.''
``In such cases, a woman has not often much
beauty to think of.''
``But, my dear, you must indeed go and see Mr.
Bingley when he comes into the neighbourhood.''
``It is more than I engage for, I assure you.''
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``But consider your daughters. Only think what
an establishment it would be for one of them. Sir
William and Lady Lucas are determined to go,
merely on that account, for in general, you know
they visit no new comers. Indeed you must go,
for it will be impossible for us to visit him, if you
do not.''
``You are over-scrupulous, surely. I dare say Mr.
Bingley will be very glad to see you; and I will
send a few lines by you to assure him of my
hearty consent to his marrying which ever he
chuses of the girls; though I must throw in a
good word for my little Lizzy.''
``I desire you will do no such thing. Lizzy is not
a bit better than the others; and I am sure she is
not half so handsome as Jane, nor half so good
humoured as Lydia. But you are always giving
her the preference.''
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``They have none of them much to recommend them,''
replied he; ``they are all silly and ignorant like other girls;
but Lizzy has something more of quickness than her
sisters.''
``Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in
such way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no
compassion on my poor nerves.''
``You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your
nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention
them with consideration these twenty years at least.''
``Ah! you do not know what I suffer.''
``But I hope you will get over it, and live to see many
young men of four thousand a year come into the
neighbourhood.''
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``It will be no use to us if twenty such should
come, since you will not visit them.''
``Depend upon it, my dear, that when there are
twenty I will visit them all.''
Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts,
sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, that the
experience of three and twenty years had been
insufficient to make his wife understand his
character. Her mind was less difficult to develope.
She was a woman of mean understanding, little
information, and uncertain temper. When she was
discontented, she fancied herself nervous. The
business of her life was to get her daughters
married; its solace was visiting and news.
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Story and theme
Pride and Prejudice，originally drafted
under the title “First Impression” in 1796，
was revised and came out in 1813．The
story centers round the heroine Elizabeth
Bennet and the hero Fitzwilliam Darcy and
a minor couple，her sister Jane and his
friend Charles Bingley. The uneventful
vicissitudes of the lives of these characters，
including teas and visits and walks and
dances and conversations and other
expected or unexpected happenings,
finally lead to the happy unions of the two
couples.
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The title tells of a major concern of the
novel：pride and prejudice. If to form
good relationships is our main task in life，
we must first have good judgment. Our
first impressions, according to Jane Austen,
are usually wrong，as is shown here by
those of Elizabeth． In the process of
judging others，Elizabeth finds out
something about herself: her blindness,
partiality, prejudice and absurdity. In time
she discovers her own shortcomings. On
the other hand, Darcy too 1earns about
other people and himself. In the end false
pride is humbled and prejudice dissolved．
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Another theme is love and marriage．In
the novel，three kinds of attitudes
towards marriage are presented for
manifestation: marriage merely for
material wealth and social position；
marriage just for beauty, attraction and
passion regardless of economic condition
or Darsonal merits; and the ideal marriage
for true love with a consideration of the
partner's personal merit as well as his
economical and social status．What Jane
Austen tries to say is that it is wrong to
marry just for money or for beauty, but it
is also wrong to marry without
consideration of economic conditions.
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Characterization
The novel is noted for its vividly
depicted characters of almost all
kinds of people of the landed gentry
class. The characters reveal
themselves gradually in their
dialogues or conversation; through
their letters-as in the case of Collins
and Lydia; and in their actions-Lydia's flirtatious behavior, Miss
Bingley's neglect and hostility to
Jane in London．
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Characters are revealed by comparison and
contrast with others.
(A) Wickham serves as a contrast to Darcy by
appearing to have all the good qualities, while
Darcy really has them. Wickham is in fact the
opposite of Darcy. Both turn out the opposite to
how they seemed．
(B) Miss Bingley looks like, and seems to have
the manners of, a lady, while Elizabeth often does
"unladylike" things. But her continual criticism of
Elizabeth and her hypocritical behavior toward
Jane show that hers is a false gentility．Elizabeth，
in comparison, proves to be a fitter wife for the
well-bred Darcy.
(C) Mr. Collins's courtship of Elizabeth, and then
Charlotte, adds comedy to the novel.
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But it is needed to compare:
(a) Elizabeth's attitude to marriage and
Charlotte's. Elizabeth's refusal, in comparison
with Charlotte's acceptance, shows us the greater
sense of Elizabeth, as well as her high ideals．
(b) Mr. Collins's pride and Darcy's pride. Although
Collins proposal to Elizabeth is highly ridiculous,
it can be compared to Darcy's first proposal later
on. Both are quite sure they will be accepted, and
both make hardly any appeal to Elizabeth's
feelings.
(D) Lady Catherine and Mrs. Bennet balance each
other in their desire to marry off their daughters
and in their respective vulgarities.
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Comments
Pride and Prejudice is a model work of Jane Austen's
successful employment of irony. Irony plays a decisive part
in characterization as well as in plot development. The
verbal irony in the dialogues and the situational or dramatic
irony here are especially note-worthy. By saying one thing
but meaning another, we see the stupidity of Mrs. Bennet
and Elizabeth's derision of Darcy's pride. And in terms of
plot, the whole story seems to be composed of ironies. With
a negative start on both sides at the beginning of the story,
we watch with anxiety the gradual development of love
between Darcy and Elizabeth. One ironical event leads to
another where mutual repulsion is turned into mutual
attraction, verbal quarrels turned into confessions, intended
riddance turned into unexpected hot nonetheless
welcoming meetings, the proud turned into the humbled
and the prejudiced turned into the repentant.
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With other characters too, irony abounds.
Mr. Collins proposes to one but marries
another; Miss Bingley tries to engage the
heart of her beloved by speaking ill of her
rival but only to arouse his great interest
in the latter; Mr. Bennet's negligence of
his daughters and his particular
impatience with the youngest one brings
justified punishment on himself by Lydia's
elopement; Wickham's lies lead to the
exposure of his true nature and Lady de
Bourgh's intervention between Elizabeth
and Darcy only brings hope and then the
final union of the two, etc. The irony helps
to bring the conscious criticism of the
author to the reader and makes it fun to
read the novel.
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special features
(1) Jane Austen's main concern is about human
beings in their personal relations, human beings
with their families and neighbors. She is
particularly preoccupied with the relationship
between men and women in love.
(2) She writes within a narrow sphere. The
subject matter, the character range, the moral
setting, physical setting and social setting, and
plots are all restricted to the provincial or village
life of the 19th-century England, all concerning
three or four landed gentry families with the
trivial incidents of their everyday life.
(3) Her novels are surprisingly realistic, with keen
observation and penetrating analysis. She keeps
the balance between fact and form as no other
English novelist has ever done.
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(4) Austen uses dialogues to reveal
the personalities of her
characters．The plots of her novels
appear natural and unforced．Her
characters are vividly portrayed and
everyone comes alive.
(5) Her language, which is of typical
neoclassicism, is simple, easy,
naturally lucid and very economical.
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Main idea of Chapter 1
The selection is the first chapter of the novel, in
which the parents of the Bennet girls are busy
considering the prospects of their daughters'
marriages shortly after hearing of the arrival of a
rich unmarried young man, Mr. Bingley, as their
neighbor.
In this selection, we can find mild satire in the
author's seemingly matter-of-fact description of
the conversation between Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, in
the vivid portrait of the husband and the wife and,
specifically, in the opening sentence. The
relationship of the husband and wife and their
attitude towards each other are also subtly
presented. Mrs. Bennet, an empty-headed
woman, is simple and naive, eager to talk with
any slight encouragement. Mr. Bennet is a man of
intricate character and quick wit. His teasing tone
and sarcastic humor are just beyond his wife's
understanding.
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Key Facts
type of work · Novel
genre · Comedy of manners
narrator · Third-person omniscient
climax · Mr. Darcy’s proposal to Elizabeth
(Volume III, Chapter XVI)
protagonist · Elizabeth Bennet
antagonist · Snobbish classconsciousness (epitomized by Lady
Catherine de Bourgh and Miss Bingley)
setting (time) · Some point during the
Napoleonic Wars (1797–1815)
setting (place) · Longbourn, in rural
England
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point of view · The novel is primarily told from Elizabeth
Bennet’s point of view.
falling action · The two chapters of the novel after
Darcy’s proposal
tense · Past tense
foreshadowing · The only notable example of
foreshadowing occurs when Elizabeth visits Pemberley,
Darcy’s estate, in Volume III, Chapter 1. Her appreciation
of the estate foreshadows her eventual realization of her
love for its owner.
tone · Comic—or, in Jane Austen’s own words, “light and
bright, and sparkling”
themes · Love; Reputation; Class
motifs · Courtship; Journeys
symbols · The novel is light on symbolism, except on the
visit to Pemberley, which is described as being “neither
formal, nor falsely adorned,” and is clearly meant to
symbolize the character of Mr. Darcy.
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“It is a truth universally acknowledged,
that a single man in possession of a good
fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
This is the first sentence of Pride and Prejudice
and stands as one of the most famous first lines
in literature. Even as it briskly introduces the
arrival of Mr. Bingley at Netherfield—the event
that sets the novel in motion—this sentence also
offers a miniature sketch of the entire plot, which
concerns itself with the pursuit of “single men in
possession of a good fortune” by various female
characters. The preoccupation with socially
advantageous marriage in nineteenth-century
English society manifests itself here, for in
claiming that a single man “must be in want of a
wife,” the narrator reveals that the reverse is also
true: a single woman, whose socially prescribed
options are quite limited, is in (perhaps desperate)
want of a husband.
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Analysis of Major Characters
Elizabeth Bennet
The second daughter in the Bennet family, and the most
intelligent and quick-witted, Elizabeth is the protagonist of
Pride and Prejudice and one of the most well-known female
characters in English literature. Her admirable qualities are
numerous—she is lovely, clever, and, in a novel defined by
dialogue, she converses as brilliantly as anyone. Her
honesty, virtue, and lively wit enable her to rise above the
nonsense and bad behavior that pervade her class-bound
and often spiteful society. Nevertheless, her sharp tongue
and tendency to make hasty judgments often lead her
astray; Pride and Prejudice is essentially the story of how
she (and her true love, Darcy) overcome all obstacles—
including their own personal failings—to find romantic
happiness. Elizabeth must not only cope with a hopeless
mother, a distant father, two badly behaved younger
siblings, and several snobbish, antagonizing females, she
must also overcome her own mistaken impressions of Darcy,
which initially lead her to reject his proposals of marriage.
Her charms are sufficient to keep him interested,
fortunately, while she navigates familial and social turmoil.
As she gradually comes to recognize the nobility of Darcy’s
character, she realizes the error of her initial prejudice
against him.
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Fitzwilliam Darcy
The son of a wealthy, well-established family and the
master of the great estate of Pemberley, Darcy is
Elizabeth’s male counterpart. The narrator relates
Elizabeth’s point of view of events more often than Darcy’s,
so Elizabeth often seems a more sympathetic figure. The
reader eventually realizes, however, that Darcy is her ideal
match. Intelligent and forthright, he too has a tendency to
judge too hastily and harshly, and his high birth and wealth
make him overly proud and overly conscious of his social
status. Indeed, his haughtiness makes him initially bungle
his courtship. When he proposes to her, for instance, he
dwells more on how unsuitable a match she is than on her
charms, beauty, or anything else complimentary. Her
rejection of his advances builds a kind of humility in him.
Darcy demonstrates his continued devotion to Elizabeth, in
spite of his distaste for her low connections, when he
rescues Lydia and the entire Bennet family from disgrace,
and when he goes against the wishes of his haughty aunt,
Lady Catherine de Bourgh, by continuing to pursue
Elizabeth. Darcy proves himself worthy of Elizabeth, and
she ends up repenting her earlier, overly harsh judgment of
him.
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Jane Bennet and Charles Bingley
Elizabeth’s beautiful elder sister and Darcy’s wealthy best
friend, Jane and Bingley engage in a courtship that
occupies a central place in the novel. They first meet at the
ball in Meryton and enjoy an immediate mutual attraction.
They are spoken of as a potential couple throughout the
book, long before anyone imagines that Darcy and
Elizabeth might marry. Despite their centrality to the
narrative, they are vague characters, sketched by Austen
rather than carefully drawn. Indeed, they are so similar in
nature and behavior that they can be described together:
both are cheerful, friendly, and good-natured, always ready
to think the best of others; they lack entirely the prickly
egotism of Elizabeth and Darcy. Jane’s gentle spirit serves
as a foil for her sister’s fiery, contentious nature, while
Bingley’s eager friendliness contrasts with Darcy’s stiff pride.
Their principal characteristics are goodwill and compatibility,
and the contrast of their romance with that of Darcy and
Elizabeth is remarkable. Jane and Bingley exhibit to the
reader true love unhampered by either pride or prejudice,
though in their simple goodness, they also demonstrate
that such a love is mildly dull.
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Mr. Bennet
Mr. Bennet is the patriarch of the Bennet household—the
husband of Mrs. Bennet and the father of Jane, Elizabeth,
Lydia, Kitty, and Mary. He is a man driven to exasperation
by his ridiculous wife and difficult daughters. He reacts by
withdrawing from his family and assuming a detached
attitude punctuated by bursts of sarcastic humor. He is
closest to Elizabeth because they are the two most
intelligent Bennets. Initially, his dry wit and self-possession
in the face of his wife’s hysteria make him a sympathetic
figure, but, though he remains likable throughout, the
reader gradually loses respect for him as it becomes clear
that the price of his detachment is considerable. Detached
from his family, he is a weak father and, at critical
moments, fails his family. In particular, his foolish
indulgence of Lydia’s immature behavior nearly leads to
general disgrace when she elopes with Wickham. Further,
upon her disappearance, he proves largely ineffective. It is
left to Mr. Gardiner and Darcy to track Lydia down and
rectify the situation. Ultimately, Mr. Bennet would rather
withdraw from the world than cope with it.
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Mrs. Bennet
Mrs. Bennet is a miraculously tiresome character. Noisy and
foolish, she is a woman consumed by the desire to see her
daughters married and seems to care for nothing else in
the world. Ironically, her single-minded pursuit of this goal
tends to backfire, as her lack of social graces alienates the
very people (Darcy and Bingley) whom she tries
desperately to attract. Austen uses her continually to
highlight the necessity of marriage for young women. Mrs.
Bennet also serves as a middle-class counterpoint to such
upper-class snobs as Lady Catherine and Miss Bingley,
demonstrating that foolishness can be found at every level
of society. In the end, however, Mrs. Bennet proves such an
unattractive figure, lacking redeeming characteristics of any
kind, that some readers have accused Austen of unfairness
in portraying her—as if Austen, like Mr. Bennet, took
perverse pleasure in poking fun at a woman already
scorned as a result of her ill breeding.
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Questions
1. Jane Austen’s original title for the novel
was First Impressions. What role do first
impressions play in Pride and Prejudice?
Pride and Prejudice is, first and foremost, a novel
about surmounting obstacles and achieving
romantic happiness. For Elizabeth, the heroine,
and Darcy, her eventual husband, the chief
obstacle resides in the book’s original title: First
Impressions. Darcy, the proud, prickly
noblewoman’s nephew, must break free from his
original dismissal of Elizabeth as “not handsome
enough to tempt me,” and from his class-based
prejudice against her lack of wealth and family
connections. Elizabeth’s first impressions,
meanwhile, catalogue Darcy as arrogant and selfsatisfied; as a result, she later accepts
slanderous accusations against him as true.
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Both Elizabeth and Darcy are forced to come to
grips with their own initial mistakes. Structurally,
the first half of the novel traces Darcy’s
progression to the point at which he is able to
admit his love in spite of his prejudice. In the
second half, Elizabeth’s mistaken impressions are
supplanted by informed realizations about Darcy’s
true character. Darcy’s two proposals to Elizabeth
chart the mature development of their
relationship. He delivers the first at the mid-point
of the novel, when he has realized his love for
Elizabeth but has not yet escaped his prejudices
against her family, and when she is still in the
grip of her first, negative impression of him. The
second proposal—in which Darcy humbly restates
his love for her and Elizabeth, now with full
knowledge of Mr. Darcy’s good character, happily
accepts—marks the arrival of the two characters,
each finally achieving the ability to view the other
through unprejudiced eyes.
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2. Analyze how Austen depicts Mr. Bennet. Is he a
positive or negative figure?
Mr. Bennet’s chief characteristics are an ironic detachment
and a sharp, cutting wit. The distance that he creates
between himself and the absurdity around him often
endears him to the reader and parallels the amused
detachment with which Austen treats ridiculous characters
such as Mr. Collins and Lady Catherine. To associate the
author’s point of view with that of Mr. Bennet, however, is
to ignore his ultimate failure as a father and husband. He is
endlessly witty, but his distance from the events around
him makes him an ineffective parent. Detached humor may
prove useful for handling the Mr. Collinses of the world, but
it is helpless against the depredations of the villainous (but
likable) Wickham. When the crisis of Lydia’s elopement
strikes, Mr. Bennet proves unable to handle the situation.
Darcy, decent and energetic, and the Gardiners, whose
intelligence, perceptiveness, and resourcefulness make
them the strongest adult force in the novel, must step in.
He is a likable, entertaining character, but he never
manages to earn the respect of the reader.
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Discuss the importance of dialogue to character
development in the novel.
All of Austen’s many characters come alive through dialogue, as
the narrative voice in Austen’s work is secondary to the voices
of the characters. Long, unwieldy speeches are rare, as are
detailed physical descriptions. In their place, the reader hears
the crackle of quick, witty conversation. True nature reveals
itself in the way the characters speak: Mr. Bennet’s emotional
detachment comes across in his dry wit, while Mrs. Bennet’s
hysterical excess drips from every sentence she utters.
Austen’s dialogue often serves to reveal the worst aspects of
her characters—Miss Bingley’s spiteful, snobbish attitudes are
readily apparent in her words, and Mr. Collins’s long-winded
speeches (and occasional letters, which are a kind of secondary
dialogue) carry with them a tone-deaf pomposity that defines
his character perfectly. Dialogue can also conceal bad character
traits: Wickham, for instance, hides his rogue’s heart beneath
the patter of pleasant, witty banter, and he manages to take
Elizabeth in with his smooth tongue (although his good looks
help as well). Ultimately, though, good conversational ability
and general goodness of personality seem to go hand in hand.
It is no accident that Darcy and Elizabeth are the best
conversationalists in the book: Pride and Prejudice is the story
of their love, and for the reader, that love unfolds through the
words they share.
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Essay Topics
1. Discuss the importance of social class in the novel,
especially as it impacts the relationship between Elizabeth
and Darcy.
2. Though Jane Austen satirizes snobs in her novels, some
critics have accused her of being a snob herself. Giving
special consideration to Mrs. Bennet and Mr. Collins, argue
and defend one side of this issue.
3. Pride and Prejudice is a novel about women who feel
they have to marry to be happy. Taking Charlotte Lucas as
an example, do you think the author is making a social
criticism of her era’s view of marriage?
4. Giving special attention to Wickham, Charlotte Lucas,
and Elizabeth, compare and contrast male and female
attitudes toward marriage in the novel.
5. Discuss the relationship between Mrs. Bennet and her
children, especially Elizabeth and Lydia.
6. Compare and contrast the Bingley-Darcy relationship
with the Jane-Elizabeth relationship.
7. Compare and contrast the roles of Lady Catherine de
Bourgh and Mrs. Bennet.