Pride And Vanity In Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice

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Recommended: Major theme of the novel pride and prejudice by jane austen

Was pride and prejudice part of first impressions of others back in the 17th century and does it still occur today? In Jane Austen’s romantic and satire novel, Pride & Prejudice, she examines the main themes or certain judgements that occur throughout the novel. Austen’s proves that pride and prejudice, deserved to be the title of the novel since it ties in through the characters, society and story. First of all, Austen shows that the characters contained a great deal of pride and prejudice. For example, Mary is one of the first main characters to mention one of the terms and states an excellent definition and opinion: “Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us” (15). 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 ... ... middle of paper ... ...ed her anger towards Liz in the letter since she still thinks she is above her, even though her husband Darcy is of higher status. Obviously her pride got too her and she still has prejudice towards Liz even though she is married to her nephew. At the end of the novel, Darcy and Liz have grown closer, Liz can stand him and they actually love each other. Overall, all the events that happened in the story either did not modify the character’s pride or prejudice or changed it completely. Austen made the story effect and inspire the theme pride and prejudice. Ultimately, Austen proves that pride and prejudice, deserved to be the title of the novel since it ties in through the characters, society and story. Austen certainly realizes that not everyone notices their own pride and prejudice and that it was the problem in her story and her society. Word Count: 1180

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