A minor character in the play, Sir William Lucas, surprisingly provides this essay with some very important points about pride in this novel. Sir William Lucas was once a mere tradesman but his knighthood, ‘had given him a disgust to his business and to his residence in a small market town;’ (Chap5 pg 18) and once he had moved and quit his job he was able to, ‘think with pleasure of his own importance.’ (Chap5 pg18).
Once Lydia Bennet has achieved the married state with Wickham, she is full of the pretension and display which has characterised her previous actions, only now it has given her a status, enabling her to show off her ring with pride, (even though someone has had to pay a substantial amount of money to Wickham to get him to marry her!). In Chapter 47 Lydia’s note to Mrs Forster is a masterpiece of insensitivity, selfishness, superficiality and a certain pride in being what she is, a coquette determined on marriage. And in Chapter 51, she also expresses pride, as she believes that she has done rather better than her sisters in securing Wickham, she says rudely to her eldest sister, ‘Jane, I take your place now, and you must go lower because I am a married woman.’(Chap51, pg255).
Jane Austen’s irony reinforces Elizabeth’s in Chapter 4, for she note’s that the Bingley sisters, ‘were entitled to think well of themselves, and meanly of others.’ (pg 16). The fact that their own fortune had been acquired by trade reinforces their inverted snobbery. Chapter 7 shows the natural selfishness and snobbery of Miss Bingley when she only offers Elizabeth the use of a carriage; she has little real concern for Jane. And in Chapter 8 she does not seem to comprehend that Elizabeth has come to the house to be with Jane when she needs her most and she does not care by which means of transport she travels there, however, Miss Bingley exhibits her snobbery yet again by quoting, ‘Why must she be scampering about the country, because her sister had a cold?’ (pg 32).
Additionally in Chapter 10, Miss Bingley is clearly jealous of the attention received by Elizabeth from Darcy so she tries to undermine her influence on Darcy, using cold snobbery and prejudice by constant reference of the vulgarity of her relations.
The letter sent by Mr Collins in Chap 14, is a master piece of pompous condescension, pedantically worded, complacent, conceited and snobbish: the words are the man, ‘I flatter myself that my present overtures of good-will are highly commendable,’ With the exception of his patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh (who he is obsequiously proud of,) Mr Collins is the outstanding grotesque of Pride and Prejudice and, suitably, he echoes the title of the novel at every turn of speech and behaviour.
Further emphasis on Mr Collins’s conceit and shallowness of nature is proved in Chapter 15, he is expressed as a, ‘mixture of pride and obsequiousness, self-importance and humility.’ And, of course, by Lady Catherine’s wishes one of the main reasons as to the visit to Longbourne was to find himself a wife, ‘Mr Collins had only to change from Jane to Elizabeth and it was soon done- done while Mrs Bennet was stirring the fire.’
Additionally, in Chapter 19, Mr Collins’s proposal to Elizabeth, ‘in form’ is masterly in its pomposity, self-conceit, condescension and crawling subjection to Lady Catherine. Mr Collins blindly attributes Elizabeth’s reaction to the ‘usual practice of elegant females’ His arrogance will not let him allow a refusal. There is no puncturing the caricature of this man; his image of himself is never ruined!
My final criticism of Mr Collins comes in Chapter 48. He writes a letter of ‘sympathy’ about Lydia’s elopement to Mr Bennet. It is a letter written by a Christian clergyman which reflects a totally unchristian attitude, and the quote, ‘the death of your daughter would have been a blessing in comparison to this,’ is the key to Mr Collins’s character, he must only be associated with what is highly respectable.
I find it now appropriate, after discussion of Mr Collins to examine the character of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who under inspection, unbelievably, owns all of Mr Collins’s characteristics except they are exaggerated in her.
In Chapter 29, Elizabeth finds Wickhams account of Lady Catherine to be true; she is an authoritative, self-important and ill-bred woman, ‘whatever she said, was spoken in so authoritative a tone, as marked her self-importance.’ She effortlessly exposes the snobbery of rank.
In Chapter 56 Lady Catherine calls at Longbourne, and wishes to speak to Elizabeth in the Garden. Luckily, Elizabeth’s spirit and courage counteracts Lady Catherine at every turn of her pride and prejudice, ‘a young woman (Elizabeth) of inferior birth, of no importance in the world.’ Lady Catherine, except when she is talking about Anne, has little answer except haughtiness and pride, ‘Miss Bennet do you know who I am? I have not been accustomed to such language as this.’ In effect she is defeated by what she is an inflexible, insensitive, overbearing woman who is incapable of reason and she emerges as a complete snob.
Undoubtedly, the two characters of which the title ‘Pride and Prejudice’ has the most relevance to are Elizabeth and Darcy. And I shall now investigate both of these characters consecutively.
Chapter 3 is where Darcy first enters the novel. The description of Darcy by Mrs Bennet as a, ‘most disagreeable, horrid man, not at all worth pleasing,’ is the overall perception of his manners exhibited at the ball. In the following chapter Darcy again proves to be proud and contemptuous of what he had seen at the ball as he, ‘had seen a collection of people in whom there was little beauty and little fashion.’
In Chapter 11, Darcy and Elizabeth display both their pride and prejudice, during their playful dispute. Darcy makes his feelings on pride clear when he says, ‘pride-where there is a real superiority of mind, pride will always be under good regulation.’
In further balls during ‘Pride and Prejudice’ Darcy parades his pride in his tolerating, and that is all, the attentions of Sir William Lucas and the obsequiousness of Mr Collins.
The proposal of Darcy to Elizabeth puts Darcy’s pride on full display. Elizabeth feeling his condescension and pride, ‘his sense of her inferiority,’ knows he expects an affirmative reply. His pride did not allow him to think that Elizabeth could turn him down, ‘she could easily see that he had no doubt of a favourable answer.’ He is proud, well aware of his status in relation to Elizabeth, prejudiced against the inferiority of her family’s situation and, unwisely, letting her know it in his proposal.
In the subsequent chapter Darcy’s letter is one in which he sinks his pride in order to convince Elizabeth of her prejudice, yet he is gracious enough to admit his own errors. Ironically, the original title of ‘Pride and Prejudice’, ‘First Impressions’ is reinvoked here, Darcy’s first impressions of Jane’s feelings were wrong. Elizabeth’s first impressions of Wickham, likewise.
One of the most moving chapters of the entire book is 58. Darcy is stripped of his initial pride and prejudices and he freely admits them, talking of his childhood, ‘I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit.’
Elizabeth is one of the outstanding heroines of the novel, however, she is guilty both of pride and of prejudice. She first exhibits these traits in Chapter 6 when she refuses to dance with Darcy, as by now she has already set a prejudice of him being conceited, and, her pride is also involved in this rejection because she will not allow herself to dance with a such a proud man who has recently ‘mortified’ her pride.
Chapter 16 exhibits Elizabeth’s willing prejudice against Darcy, as she instantly presupposes that Wickham is telling the truth about his victimization at the hands of Darcy.
Additionally, Chapter 33 ironically, shows Elizabeth, after Fitzwilliam’s account of Darcy’s influence on Bingley, even more injured and set against Darcy than ever because of his prejudice. She puts down Darcy’s ‘rescue of Bingley’ to his snobbery. She is now convinced of Darcy’s obdurate pride and at the same time shows her own on Jane’s account.
Elizabeth’s pride and prejudice control the way she handles Darcy’s marriage proposal. Her pride forbids her to accept after he has displayed how he thinks she is beneath him, her prejudice playing an important role due to the Wickham affair.
In the following chapter Elizabeth receives Darcy’s letter. Although she disbelieves Darcy on the subject of Jane, she is forced to consider carefully the statement which relates to Wickham. Her second reading, Wickham’s own indiscretion in talking so much to her, the knowledge that Darcy’s criticism of her family are justified, force her to see how clearly prejudiced she has been. She also appreciates that her own family has brought about Jane’s unhappiness.
By far the most moving part of Chapter 50 is Elizabeth’s awakening recognition of her family’s lack of merit and of Darcy’s particular marks of worth. It leads her to be humbled and grieved.
And as Darcy was stripped of his pride and prejudice in Chapter 58, Elizabeth is likewise, ‘all her former prejudices had been removed.’
In conclusion, I note that Jane Austen has used the two main characters to explain the relevance of the title. Jane Austen, by the end of the novel, has achieved the perfect marriage state, Elizabeth and Darcy complement each other entirely now that each has overcome the strength of first impressions and their own pride and prejudice.
