Pride and Prejudice: An Analysis

By: Dena
Grade 9
27/08/08
Pride And Prejudice
Why is Elizabeth so anxious to distrust Mr. Darcy at the start of the novel, and instead trust Mr. Wickham?

First impressions are not always important; even though a lot of people base their whole opinion on a person through their first impression. Most times the first impression of someone is not the way they truly are. You may think, at first, that a person is, for example, mean. But as you get to know them better, you see their real intentions and who they truly are.

Even though Elizabeth is described as an intelligent young woman, she is very opinionated when it comes to people. She always judge people based on her first impression of them. But her first impression of both Mr. Darcy and Mr. Wickham was wrong. She has made up her mind on both of them but when she spent time with them she realizes that everything she thought about them was not true.

When she met Mr. Darcy for the first time she had thought that he was the most obnoxious, rude and conceited man. She thought Mr. Darcy looked down on other people because he had a high social status. “She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me” [pg.9 paragraph 4] Said Mr. Darcy to Mr. Bingley. Even though he never expected Elizabeth to hear what he had said, she already had a first impression of Mr. Darcy. Also she thought Mr. Darcy looked down on other people because he had a high social status

Elizabeth’s first impression of Mr. Wickham was the opposite of Mr. Darcy’s. Because she had thought of him as a good looking, polite, nice and a gentlemen-like man. Even though Mr. Wickham had tricked Elizabeth into making her believe Mr. Darcy was a bad man. She believed in him because she liked him based only on her first impression of him, and she was too blinded to see the truth. And she believed every word that Mr. Wickham had to say about Mr. Darcy but she did not give Mr. Darcy a chance to explain.

As a con artist, Mr. Wickham lies to get what he wants. He claims to Elizabeth that Darcy denied him a permanent church position that was promised by Darcy’s father to him. This lie was believable to Elizabeth so she then dislikes Mr. Darcy even more. This was because Mr. Wickham’s intentions were always to destroy Mr. Darcy’s reputation and surely Elizabeth is unaware of that.

When Elizabeth got to know Mr. Darcy better, she finds out that he is very polite and a well behaved gentleman. When she found out everything from Mr. Darcy about Mr. Wickham and how he truly was, she recognized her own prejudice and realized that she was wrong on her judgment to both Mr. Darcy and Mr. Wickham.

In conclusion judging by first impressions will often create a misunderstanding of someone’s true personality. The fact that people have misunderstandings is because a first impression does not tell us what other people’s intentions are or how they really think. Because people may deliberately give you a fake first impression. And it will take awhile until you truly get to know someone.