Pride & Prejudice
Jane Austen is often regarded as the greatest of English women novelists on the strength of her six completed novels. Noted particularly for their sparkling social comedy & accurate vision of human relationships, they are still as widely read today all over the world as they have ever been. It goes without saying that “Pride & Prejudice” is the most famous & ever-popular one.
To begin with, I’d like to stress the point, that this particular novel is mainly about people’s relationships & feelings to each other; so there comes an idea that the characters of this story are feelings, though they may be described in a metaphorical way. Each of them has its own name in Jane Austen’s book, for example, Prejudice is called Elizabeth, Pride is Mr. Darcy, Haughtiness is Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Naïvety – Jane, Coquetry – little silly Lydia, Mother’s Anxiety – Mrs. Bennet. As it follows from the name of the novel, the two main characters are Pride & Prejudice, i.e. Mr. Darcy & Elizabeth.
But then there suddenly comes out a question: do all these feelings & relationships exist separately or do they somehow mix with each other? Can there be a close connection between Pride & Prejudice or can they even be inseparable from each other?
Let’s have a look at Mr. Darcy. “…[he] drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien, & the report… of his having ten thousand a-year”. But soon the impression of him was spoilt & people saw the only feature of Mr. Darcy & thought of him as a personification of Pride. But what was his pride about? The reason was that he thought all the people around him unworthy of his attention & friendship as they were on lower position in the society, especially the Bennet’s family. I dare say this feeling can be called a kind of prejudice as well. It’s pure prejudice to think that people poorer than you are not allowed to talk to you or deal with you. All in all, in the
To begin with, I’d like to stress the point, that this particular novel is mainly about people’s relationships & feelings to each other; so there comes an idea that the characters of this story are feelings, though they may be described in a metaphorical way. Each of them has its own name in Jane Austen’s book, for example, Prejudice is called Elizabeth, Pride is Mr. Darcy, Haughtiness is Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Naïvety – Jane, Coquetry – little silly Lydia, Mother’s Anxiety – Mrs. Bennet. As it follows from the name of the novel, the two main characters are Pride & Prejudice, i.e. Mr. Darcy & Elizabeth.
But then there suddenly comes out a question: do all these feelings & relationships exist separately or do they somehow mix with each other? Can there be a close connection between Pride & Prejudice or can they even be inseparable from each other?
Let’s have a look at Mr. Darcy. “…[he] drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien, & the report… of his having ten thousand a-year”. But soon the impression of him was spoilt & people saw the only feature of Mr. Darcy & thought of him as a personification of Pride. But what was his pride about? The reason was that he thought all the people around him unworthy of his attention & friendship as they were on lower position in the society, especially the Bennet’s family. I dare say this feeling can be called a kind of prejudice as well. It’s pure prejudice to think that people poorer than you are not allowed to talk to you or deal with you. All in all, in the