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Lady Catherine In Pride And Prejudice

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Lady Catherine In Pride And Prejudice
In Jane Austen’s novel, Pride and Prejudice, Lady Catherine’s dialogue, appearance, and actions portray her as a supercilious and domineering person. Lady Catherine is described to be a “tall, large woman, with strongly features.” Her “strongly marked features” symbolize her high and superior social status in society. Her “tall” figure is representative of her high position in the hierarchy of social class as compared to other women in society. Furthermore, Lady Catherine’s supercilious personality is shown through her manners with others. It is said that Lady Catherine’s “air was not conciliating…whatever she said was spoken in so authoritative a tone as marked her self-importance.” “Self-importance” means to have pride. This shows how Lady …show more content…
It is said that Lady Catherine “was not used to have her judgment controverted.” The word “judgement” means opinion and the word “controverted” means contradicted. This shows that Lady Catherine is not used to having her opinion challenged. This shows her dominating nature as she likes to be in control, thus having her opinion challenged makes her lose that control. In addition, she “enquired into Charlotte’s domestic concerns …minutely” and instructed her how to care for her cows and poultry. Lady Catherine is shown to be controlling as she “instructed” Charlotte on how take care of her cows. Many people will give advice, but Lady Catherine ordered Charlotte to obey her instructions. Furthermore Lady Catherine repetitively asked Elizabeth the question “who taught you”, in different ways, after finding out that Elizabeth did not have a governess.This repetition shows how controlling she is, as she is demanding an answer from Elizabeth by eagerly asking her the same question over and over again. Through this repetition, it is clear that Lady Catherine wants to know the answer as soon as possible, revealing her demanding and domineering nature. In addition, when Elizabeth gives an indirect answer about her age, Lady Catherine replies by saying, “you cannot be more than twenty…therefore you need not to conceal your age.” This shows how pushy Lady Catherine is as she is trying to force Elizabeth into revealing
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