Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen - Look closely at the proposals of marriage received by Elizabeth Bennet from Mr Collins and Mr Darcy

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Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

Look closely at the proposals of marriage received by Elizabeth Bennet from Mr Collins and Mr Darcy, consider the following:

  • The character of each man
  • His social and cultural background and how this influences the way in which he proposes
  • The proposal itself
  • The reaction to rejection and subsequent behaviour of each man

Pride and Prejudice is an enduringly popular 19th century novel written by the English author Jane Austen. The general theme through this book is marriage as it focuses mainly upon different types of marriage and the proposals leading up to them.

In Pride and prejudice there are at least eight different marriages. The main marriage is Mr and Mrs Bennet’s. Their marriage was based upon youthful infatuations. Mr Bennet chose to marry Mrs Bennet because she was good looking. This isn’t why you should choose to marry someone. You should marry someone because you have similar interests or you have things in common, you should love them for who they are and you should love their personality. As Mr Bennet soon found out that there was more to Mrs Bennet than her looks, what lies beneath Mrs Bennet’s looks is a personality held together with opinionated expressions and stubbornness. This is an example of marriage, which Mr Bennet wants his daughters to learn from.

         The Bennet family consist of Mr and Mrs Bennet and their five girls, Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Lydia and Kitty. Jane is the beautiful girl while her father favours Elizabeth as she has the brains. Mary is musical and Lydia and Kitty are the youngest of them.

It is Elizabeth’s parents’ marriage, which is a prime example to what she does not want in life. Elizabeth wants a man who will love and respect her. She does not want simply to marry a man with good fortune or wealth but a man that she can talk to and who will respect her intelligence. This is why Elizabeth turns down both proposals given by Mr Collins and Mr Darcy.

Mr Collins is the man who is next inline to inherit the Bennet estate since the Bennets have had no male children. Mr Collins sends a letter to Longburn (Bennet’s family estate) announcing his visit, where and when it will be. It is on this visit that he meets the daughters of Mr and Mrs Bennet.

Mr Collins is a conceited bore. He is a pompous man only concerned with wealth and Lady Catherine (his patroness). He is not wealthy himself but has lots of self-confidence, he is an arrogant snob. His motives for proposing to Elizabeth are appalling as the only reasons for him to do this is because if he married a Bennet daughter then when it came to inheriting the Bennet estate it would make amend to one daughter for dispossessing her of her home. Also his patroness Lady Catherine De Bourg wanted him to have a wife that she could meet and could go and visit her. She would like him to have a wife that is active, useful, not brought up too high, but able to make a small income go a good way. She means that she doesn’t want him to have a wife that will just marry him for his wealth and status but a wife that when given a small amount of money will make it go a long way by using and spending it wisely.

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When Mr Collins turns up at the Bennet household he is there to propose, not to Elizabeth, but to Jane. Elizabeth is his second choice and so when he finds out that Jane does not like him he decides to ask for Elizabeth’s hand in marriage instead.

He starts his proposal with “Almost as soon as I entered the house I singled you out as the companion of my future life.” Here he is obviously lying, as Elizabeth knows she was not his first choice, her sister Jane was. He carries his speech out as a sermon and constantly tells ...

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