1. An unreasonable or unfair dislike or preference 2. Intolerance of a dislike for people because they belong to a specific race, religion, or group: class prejudice 3. The act or condition of holding such opinions...
(Collins English dictionary)
When an individual would think of these words the first thoughts one would get are:
That the person is arrogant, strong minded, boastful, dominant, selfish, self- confident, self- important and thinks superior of themselves.
That the person treats individuals differently, is ignorant, maybe racist and is inconsiderate.
Elizabeth Bennet lives in Loungboure with her family who are looking for her to get married, as well as her older sister Jane. Not too far away some new neighbours have rented a hall in Netherfield. A rich young man by the name of Bingley has rented this place and is living there with his sisters. A ball is arranged at Netherfield where we are first introduced to Darcy, a rich and wealthy young man.
At the ball we get the first insight into Darcy’s Prejudice and pride as he refuses to dance with Elizabeth as he believes she isn’t good enough for him:
‘She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to temp me’
(Darcy referring about Elizabeth- Chapter three)
This sentence indicates Darcy has much pride in himself and is very picky, and is prejudice as he does not think Elizabeth is handsome enough for him.
Elizabeth expresses the first sign of prejudice as she tells Jane that she doesn’t like the Bingley sisters as they don’t have the same manners as Bingley:
‘Their manners are not equal to his’
(Chapter four)
As the manners were of a high standard in the Bennet family, she disliked them due to this reason, which illustrates her prejudice attitude and pride towards the Bingley sisters.
Charlotte feels that Darcy has a right to be proud as he has a high social rank, but Elizabeth disagrees as she tells everyone that her pride has been hurt by him. This implies everyone agrees that Darcy is very proud of himself.
Elizabeth’s pride is clearly shown when she refuses the offer of a dance by Darcy as she still hadn’t got over how Darcy refused her a dance at Netherfield ball. Elizabeth travels to see Jane as she fell ill at Netherfield on her visit, where she meets the Bingley sisters who act prejudice towards her looks, and Darcy who feels even more attraction towards her and vice versa.
Elizabeth and Darcy later on begin to like each other but each other think that they don’t. This causes more afflictions to occur between them both, as they carry on refusing each others dances as they have too much pride within themselves and too much prejudice to see what’s going on.
In chapter 15 Wickham for the first time meets Elizabeth and Jane. He takes this as an ideal opportunity to repel Elizabeth to Darcy and for himself to marry Elizabeth, as Elizabeth tells him that she dislikes Darcy, Wickham takes the opportunity and agrees:
‘I have no right to give my opinion, as to his being agreeable or otherwise. I am not qualified to form one. I have known him too long and too well to be a fair judge. It is impossible for me to be impartial. But I would believe your opinion of him would in general astonish.’
(Chapter fifteen)
As Elizabeth has is so prejudice towards at this point she takes this into account and believes Wickham. He told her of what sort of a person he was in a downside view.
Jane Austin is saying that people shouldn’t judge a person by what they are from the outside and that they should take a deeper look into what they are actually are like. -
