Antithetical Love in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice

This article analyzes the way Austen portrays women in her novels. Kruger mentions that Jane Austen’s work is often deprived by the

Darcy as a proud, arrogant man based upon his actions at the assembly where she first sees him. Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy first meet at a ball where she instantly believes him to be a rude individual as she watches him only dance with women he knows and hears him call her tolerable. Elizabeth is offended by Mr. Darcy’s actions at the ball, and uses this knowledge to instantly form a negative opinion of his character. Mr. Darcy’s good nature and kind heart is therefore overlooked by Elizabeth as they continue to see each other, and she does not let go of her original prejudice of him until the end of the novel when she eventually realizes her love for him and marries him. Elizabeth’s poor and unchanging opinion of Darcy led to her initially saying no to Darcy’s first marriage proposal. Had Elizabeth not held a grudge on Mr. Darcy for his original actions at the ball, she could have realized her love for him sooner. Her mistrust of Darcy also led to repercussions that negatively affected her and her family’s lives. She would not have been deceived by Mr. Wickham and she would have saved her family from shame and embarrassment if she would have waited longer to form an opinion of Mr.

As the book progresses, both characters manage to overcome these character flaws and various other obstacles and eventually realise their love for one another as their compatibility and understanding is increasingly revealed to the reader, ‘It was a union that must have been to the advantage of both.’ Darcy and Elizabeth’s similarities lie in their levels of intelligence, dedication to friends and their stance on expressing their opinions openly. Regardless of what anybody said about their relationship, including Mrs. Bennet and the superior Lady Catherine, they ignored these various warnings. Lady Catherine mainly commented on Elizabeth’s social inferiority to hers and her nephews.

In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen creates a unique environment which allows her characters to evolve and to transform. One of the characters, Elizabeth Bennet, the second daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, faces challenges that impact her decisive demeanor. Likewise, Fitzwilliam Darcy, Elizabeth’s love interest, confronts many obstacles which come against his character as well. Through several key experiences, both Elizabeth and Darcy undergo internal transformations – Elizabeth’s quick judgments become humbleness while Darcy’s arrogance is replaced with humility.

      Elizabeth Bennet, the other main character of the novel, is just as guilty of being proud as any of the other characters in the novel. She prides herself on being unprejudiced and rational in the judgement of others. Yet, this is an imaginary quality as she learns that her preconceived notions of both Mr.

In Jane Austen's book, Pride and Prejudice, Mrs. Bennet is frantic, single minded, and she inconsistently believes what she hears. Elizabeth is prejudiced, reserved, and has a firm belief in her “abilities” of “discernment.” The opposition of Mrs. Bennet and Elizabeth’s personalities brings out Elizabeth's prejudice. The illumination of the motif, Prejudice, is central to the book so that it can contrast with the motif, Pride, through out the book. Mrs. Bennet is a foil character to Elizabeth. Whenever Elizabeth and her mother are together it becomes blatantly obvious how different they are from each other. Simply at the dinner table, Elizabeth is quiet and her mother is usually talking non-stop about marriage. Throughout the book, Mrs. Bennet's

The progress between Elizabeth’s and Darcy’s relationship, in Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice (1813) illustrates and explores several the key themes in the novel. Their relationship highlights class expectations, pride and prejudice, and marriage, and how they play a major role in determining the course of their association. These are outlined through their first prejudiced dislike of each other when they first meet, the stronger feelings for Elizabeth that develop on Darcy’s side, her rejection in Darcy’s first proposal, then her change of opinion and lastly the mutual love they form for one another. Pride and Prejudice is set up as a satire, commenting on human idiocy, and Jane Austen

Fitzwilliam Darcy -A wealthy, proud man with a cold demeanor. Frustrates the Bennet family, and is attracted to Elizabeth.

In the novel, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen writes a story that depicts a society during the Regency Period. The Regency Period is the time when people started to expand the colonial system through the use of their profits from the Industrial Revolution. The Regency Period is displayed through Austen’s use of a middle class family, the Bennet family. In the book, the author writes about various characters with contrasting personalities. No one character can resemble another since they are all different in their own ways.

Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, is a remarkable story showing the complications between men and women before and during their time of falling in love. The plot is based on how the main characters, Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy, escape their pride, prejudice and vanity to find each other; however, both must recognize their faults and change them. Jane Austen follows the development of Elizabeth’s and Darcy’s relationship in how they both change in order to overcome their own vanities and be able to love each other.

Elizabeth Bennet is a very good example of both pride and prejudice. She is her father’s favourite as she is the cleverest of his children, in his words she “has something more of quickness than her sisters”. The first time she meets Mr Darcy, at an assembly (ball) she overhears Mr Bingley attempting to convince him to dance. He refuses. When Bingley suggests he dance with Elizabeth, describing her as very pretty (though not as beautiful as Jane) Darcy is not convinced, replying that “she is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me”. To Elizabeth’s credit she tries to laugh it off, relaying the story to her friends but the reader can see she is more affected by the comment than she lets on during her conversation with Charlotte Lucas after the ball. Charlotte says his pride “does not

Elizabeth and Darcy's relationship is contrasted with the other couples in the novel. It can especially be seen between the relationship Mr. and Mrs. Bennet have. The sensible characters in the novel accept the standard of intelligence and sensitivity and their relationships are determined by it. Mr. Bennet cannot be happy with his wife because he does not respect her. He retreats

Pride and Prejudice is a humorous novel about the trials of marrying well in the early eighteenth century. It focuses mainly on the actions of two couples – Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy and Jane Bennet and Mr. Bingley. Elizabeth Bennet is a vibrant, headstrong young woman who is not too keen on the idea of marriage ,

However, Mrs Bennet's insensitivity and pride in her daughters and towards her neighbours is seen as embarrassing, which creates problems in the lives of her daughters, especially the eldest, Jane, who is deceived by Mr Bingley's two haughty sisters. They see her as much beneath their brother and unsuitable for him, and later on in the novel try to separate them by drawing Mr Bingley away from Netherfield to London for the winter, and uniting efforts to increase the friendship between Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy's sister, Georgiana, who has inherited a fortune. And so we are lead, by the authoress, to believe that the possession of wealth by both gentlemen and women in these times was important especially for marriage, yet there are many setbacks. Towards the middle of the novel, we become aware of the fact that wealth also sets barriers on marriage.

Darcy’s conception of Elizabeth was established on the fact that her family is embarrassing and discourteous, making her promptly inferior to him. However, Elizabeth’s strong-willed and independent character attracted Darcy’s difficult attention, proving to him her true and unique reeling personality. Particular plot twists throughout the novel have occurred that helped Darcy and Elizabeth reveal their true identities. Darcy’s boastful attitude backfires when he first proposed to Elizabeth, who immediately refuses his offer due to his unintentional insults concerning her class and familial relations. However, Elizabeth’s reason for rejecting Darcy was not only for his abusive remarks, but also because of his interference with Jane’s happiness owing to the fact of his belief that her social class and emotional status were not good enough for his dear companion. After the incident, Darcy and Elizabeth did coincidentally meet when Elizabeth and the Gardiners were visiting Darcy’s estate thinking he would be out of town. Darcy got to see the other half of Elizabeth’s family, who were well mannered and delightful. While Darcy and Elizabeth explored other sides of each other, Wickham was taking advantage of Lydia’s ignorance and ran away with her. When Darcy receives the news about what Lydia and Wickham have done, instead of just mocking how reckless the Bennet’s are he decides to help them. Having a