Through reading this story, many readers’ eyes are caught by Darcy’s pride and arrogance, as the title indicates. Gradually, they may be also impressed by Darcy’s change and finally happy life with Elizabeth. However, we cannot say that Darcy’s pride just falls on him for no reason.
3.1. Proud and Arrogant
As “a single man in possession of a good fortune”, Darcy has a cool face, and proud manners. On the ball in Meryton, Darcy, unlike the sociable Bingley, showed a disagreeable man all along this party. He danced little. “He danced only once with Mrs. Hurst and once with Miss Bingley.” (Pride and Prejudice, 2014: P12) At the rest of time, he just walked around the room and sometimes spoke to one of his own party. Although he dances very well,
Therefore, he decides to break the concept of unmatched social status and tries to confess his love. But for his pride, and misunderstood by Elizabeth, he fails for the first time. At last, however, the misunderstanding melts away. Just as Shakespeare’s sentence, All’s well that ends well.
3.2. Reasons of Darcy’s Pride
First of all, it is his noble family background. It can be easily seen that Darcy was born in an extraordinary noble family, owning the renowned family estate of Pemberley in Derbyshire. Being in the early 19th century in England, aristocracy stands in the upper class, enjoying rather high social status. It is impossible for him to allow anybody of anything to ruin his family’s reputation. Meanwhile, he has unconsciously been used to thinking and acting with pride and dignity.
Next, Darcy has been a spoiled child. Although his mother passed away when he was a child, the love from his father and his aunt Lady Catherine did not reduce. In his life, he also received the respect from his sister Georgianna, and the trust from his friend Bingley. All these have provided Darcy a comfortable environment for improvement. His braveness and independence are influenced by his
Darcy’s nobility and rich are mentioned time and again, but he only chooses a pretty common girl to be his life partner.
Nevertheless to say, Darcy’s fame, status and wealth are envied. He is dull when talking about emotion and feeling. At the ball in Nevetherfield, when Elizabeth mentioned his “rare character”, instead of explaining his feelings, “he made no answer, and they were again silent till they had gone down the dance…” (Pride and Prejudice, 2014: P118) When the topic turns to Wickham, “Darcy made no answer, and seem desirous of changing the subject”, (Pride and Prejudice, 2014: P119) rather than confess the whole story and expose Wickham’s immorality. Being silent is all he can do to not raise more misunderstandings.
Opposite to Darcy, Elizabeth was born in an ordinary family. She has four sisters, just as many poor people do. Her father, Mr. Bennet, is a bookish man, and Elizabeth shares the man’s keen wit and occasionally sarcastic outlook. It is said that Elizabeth is intelligent, playful, lively, and attractive, although she is not rich enough. Besides, she tends to judge man on first impression. That’s the source of the novel’s
Darcy is portrayed as a selfish, vain man at first and he is the second to propose to Elizabeth and swiftly denied. Mr. Darcy’s overbearing phrase “You must allow me to tell you,” has a dominant tone, implied by the demand: “you must” (Austen 185). Mr. Darcy’s superiority, even in confessing his love, cuts off the possibility of personal attachment by placing him and Elizabeth on two different levels and repels love for him by condescending her with dominance. Elizabeth being a character of independence and strong will, his superiority over her is an insult. Mr. Darcy’s high status gives him credibility as well as his brutal honesty: “In vain have I struggled” (Austen 185). He tells her outright that he has tried to resist his feelings for her, but he cannot, which tells one that he is not lying. Especially with his reputation of not associating outside his social group, the reader understands this must be outside his comfort zone to be “tempted” by one inferior to him. However, his credibility is trodden underfoot by his insulting language and lack of
type of attitude and pride that possesses Mr. Darcy for the remainder of the time that he
“In Regency Britain a man gained a sense of his place in society through his birth, property, occupation and social rank. He knew precisely on which step of the social ladder he stood, and everybody judged his status at a glance by evaluating his clothing and manner of speaking.”(Morris). Darcy did not work for a living - most respectful gentlemen did not. Most gentlemen, as well as people in a higher class, in the eighteen hundreds (and even before that) inherited their money. Throughout the book, his superiority is evident with instances such as him dissuading Bingley, his close friend, to not have relations with Jane Bennet, Elizabeth’s sister, as well as Darcy making very clear to Elizabeth that she is in a much lower social stance during his first marriage proposal: “Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections? To congratulate myself on the hope of relations whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own?” (Austen, 165). Daisy, just as Darcy, had an inheritance of money, which makes her high up on the social ladder. In the early twenties, the people with old money wanted to establish themselves as the new nobility in America. Even though Gatsby had money, he earned it himself, which was a disgrace to people like Daisy, who had inherited their money. They didn’t believe in the American Dream and believed it to be
Thinking that he truly has lost Elizabeth brings out a more sensitive and sympathetic side of Darcy, and he proposes a second time. This proposal however, marks the real release of his prideful ways, and as Austin put it “was as sensibly and as warmly as a man violently in love can be supposed to do"(Austin 157). This proposal marks Darcy giving up his pride about social class, and Elizabeth being hurt by him and his judgments. She accepts, and they finally allow themselves to be happy.
Elizabeth's lively, straightforward, daring character and her disregard for considerations of rank show through clearly in her reaction to Darcy's proposal. Her pride is also evident, for the lack of civility in her refusal is due primarily to injured pride resulting from Darcy's frank explanation of his reservations about proposing to her because of her inferior connections.
Even after he fell in love with her and proposed to Elizabeth, he completely debased her family. Darcy realized eventually that he was going to have to change. He tried to look at his behavior. and analyze why he acted as he did. In the end, he fought his intense pride so that he and Elizabeth could be happy together.
Darcy, the illusion that Mr. Wickham had built surrounding himself was now shattered: “How different did everything appear in which he was concerned.” Elizabeth now realizes her mistakes, which her prejudice was built and hopefully will never fall for such deceit again. Mr. Darcy is not the only one who is haughty, Elizabeth’s pride takes a massive blow after reading the letter, “she grew absolutely ashamed.” Realizing her mistakes will make Elizabeth grow as a person as she realizes how despicable she was, and has learned from her mistakes. Elizabeth had always thought she had the perfect judgement, but in fact she was horribly blind: “Till this moment I never knew myself.” Elizabeth now sees that she has flaws and it got in the way of her judgement rendering it blind. It is in maturity that people see their flaws; now Elizabeth has to make sure the same mistakes does not happen again. It was only after her prejudice of Mr. Darcy was finally gone that Elizabeth realized her true feelings towards him: “She explained what it’s [the letter] effect on her had been, and how gradually all her former prejudice has been removed.” After reading the letter, Elizabeth was able to realize her flaws as a character and grow into maturity and because of that she was able to see her true feelings about Mr.
The reader is first acquainted with Mr. Darcy's arrogance at the Meryton Ball. Speaking of Elizabeth Bennet, he so snobbishly says that she was, " tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me" (Austen 9). His feelings of superiority to the people of the town lend Mr. Darcy to be judged as a man with a repulsive and cruel personality. The women, who had found him dashingly attractive at first glance, deemed him a man unworthy of marriage because he offered no positive qualities other than wealth. Not only did Darcy refuse to dance with Elizabeth, but he makes it clear that no woman in the room was worthy or met his standards of a suitable partner stating that, " there is not another woman in this room, whom it would not be a punishment to me to stand up with" (Austen 8). In the beginning of the novel, Mr. Darcy is only concerned with the wealth and social standing of the people in the town. Because of their lesser social rank, he feels they are un-deserving of his presence and refuses to communicate with them. As the novel progressed, however, Darcy became more and more accepting of the Bennet family. Growing most fond of Elizabeth Bennet, the straightforward, clever daughter, he finally breaks and confesses his true feelings of love for her. "In vain...
Throughout Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Darcy is a grave symbol of pride. He notes on how his societal ranking is too high above Elizabeth’s for it to be rational to marry her, while proposing to her for the first time. In a letter to Elizabeth, Darcy also notes how the Bennet family’s improper manners and actions negatively influence the perception of their family and undermine the acceptable traits and actions of Elizabeth and Jane. He is easily looked down upon, most pertinently by Elizabeth until his past is revealed in a
Darcy’s feelings towards Lizzie begin to change at the second ball, and again when she visits Jane at Netherfield. It is almost as if the hatred has sparked an interest, one that turns to love. Due to social norms, Darcy believes he cannot be with Elizabeth. He refers to it as a “handicap,” she does not belong to the aristocratic class of society and wealth as to which Darcy belongs. This social pressure puts a strain on the possible relationship. Despite this obstacle, the two continue to get to know one another. Darcy admits to avoiding weakness, which includes vanity but no pride. This is another problem in the relationship, Darcy is a prideful man and sees nothing wrong with it. They continue to feel drawn to each other, no matter the differences in
‘Mr Darcy danced only once with Mrs Hurst and once with Miss Bingley, declined being introduced to any other lady and spent the rest of the evening walking about the room speaking occasionally to one of his own party. He was the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world, and everybody hoped that he would never come there again. Amongst the most violent against him was Mrs Bennett, whose dislike of his general behaviour, was sharpened into particular resentment, by his having slighted one of her daughters.’ (Page 12)
Darcy has pride in his character and morals and has a prejudice for the Bennet’s and their money. Now people do the same things for money, rather than choosing to live happy and stable lifestyles. Another comparison is having the ability to tell the truth or being deceitful. Darcy is telling Elizabeth many lies to make him look more appealing to her.
Mary provides the readers her opinion and definition of pride in an excellent manner. It did not help that she is trying hard to interact with her sister Liz and Ms.Lucas, but her interpretation of pride and vanity is correct. In addition her quote includes a clue for the readers, specifically on how it affects Elizabeth and Darcy. Pride usually always found itself in Darcy’s character and along the book affected his reputation. When attending his first ball with Liz’s presence, he comments to Bingley: "She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me; and I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men” (8). At the beginning of the book, Darcy’s pride became his enemy that everyone in society catches. Even though pride attached itself to Darcy, other characters contained this quality. Lady Catherine de Bourgh mentioned further on who ...
Darcy carries the persona of a snobbish, arrogant, and self-assured man who assumes that he can get everything he wants. He explains his attitude by stating, "I was spoiled by my parents, who thought good themselves – allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing." However, his arrogance is challenged when he is faced to deal with the fact that his wealth and class cannot catch Elizabeth's eye.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Her pride is hurt when she hears Darcy commenting about her. Believing Mr. Wickham's lies, they lead her to think that Mr. Darcy is very proud.... ... middle of paper ... ... Pride and Prejudice emphasizes pride, prejudice and love.