- Pride and Prejudice is an 1813 novel of manners by Jane Austen. The novel follows the character development of Elizabeth Bennet, the dynamic protagonist of the book who learns about the repercussions of hasty judgments and comes to appreciate the difference between superficial goodness and actual goodness.
- Austen began writing the novel after staying at Goodnestone Park in Kent with her brother Edward and his wife in 1796. It was originally titled First Impressions, and was written between October 1796 and August 1797.
- Austen probably took her title from a passage in Fanny Burney’s Cecilia (1782), a popular novel she is known to have admired.
- Pride and Prejudice, like most of Austen’s works, employs the narrative technique of free indirect speech, which has been defined as “the free representation of a character’s speech, by which one means, not words actually spoken by a character, but the words that typify the character’s thoughts, or the way the character would think or speak, if she thought or spoke”.
- The novel was well received, with three favourable reviews in the first months following publication. Anne Isabella Milbanke, later to be the wife of Lord Byron, called it “the fashionable novel”. Noted critic and reviewer George Henry Lewes declared that he “would rather have written Pride and Prejudice, or Tom Jones, than any of the Waverley Novels”.
- Charlotte Brontë, however, in a letter to Lewes, wrote that Pride and Prejudice was a disappointment, “a carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but … no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck”.
- Walter Scott wrote in his journal, “Read again and for the third time at least, Miss Austen’s very finely written novel of Pride and Prejudice.”
- You could not shock her more than she shocks me, Beside her Joyce seems innocent as grass. It makes me most uncomfortable to see An English spinster of the middle class Describe the amorous effects of ‘brass’, Reveal so frankly and with such sobriety The economic basis of society. – W. H. Auden (1937) on Austen
- Characters:
- Elizabeth Bennet – the second-eldest of the Bennet daughters, she is attractive, witty and intelligent – but with a tendency to form tenacious and prejudiced first impressions. As the story progresses, so does her relationship with Mr Darcy. The course of Elizabeth and Darcy’s relationship is ultimately decided when Darcy overcomes his pride, and Elizabeth overcomes her prejudice, leading them both to surrender to their love for each other.
- Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy – Mr Bingley’s friend and the wealthy owner of the family estate of Pemberley in Derbyshire, rumoured to be worth at least £10,000 a year. While he is handsome, tall, and intelligent, Darcy lacks ease and social graces, and so others frequently mistake his initially haughty reserve as proof of excessive pride (which, in part, it is). A new visitor to the village, he is ultimately Elizabeth Bennet’s love interest. Though he appears to be proud and is largely disliked by people for this reason, his servants vouch for his kindness and decency.
- Mr Bennet – A logical and reasonable late-middle-aged landed gentleman of a more modest income of £2000 per annum, and the dryly sarcastic patriarch of the now-dwindling Bennet family (a family of Hertfordshire landed gentry), with five unmarried daughters. His estate, Longbourn, is entailed to the male line. His affection for his wife wore off early in their marriage and is now reduced to mere toleration. He is often described as ‘indolent’ in the novel.
- Mrs Bennet (née Gardiner) – the middle-aged wife of her social superior, Mr Bennet, and the mother of their five daughters (Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Catherine and Lydia). Mrs Bennet is a hypochondriac who imagines herself susceptible to attacks of tremors and palpitations (her “poor nerves”) whenever things are not going her way. Her main ambition in life is to marry her daughters off to wealthy men. Whether or not any such matches will give her daughters happiness is of little concern to her. She was settled a dowry of £4,000 from her father.
- In a letter to Cassandra dated May 1813, Jane Austen describes a picture she saw at a gallery which was a good likeness of “Mrs Bingley” – Jane Bennet. Deirdre Le Faye in The World of Her Novels suggests that “Portrait of Mrs Q” is the picture Austen was referring to. (pp. 201–203)
- Jane Bennet – the eldest Bennet sister. She is considered the most beautiful young lady in the neighbourhood and is inclined to see only the good in others (but can be persuaded otherwise on sufficient evidence). She falls in love with Charles Bingley, a rich young gentleman recently moved to Hertfordshire and a close friend of Mr Darcy.
- Mary Bennet – the middle Bennet sister, and the plainest of her siblings. Mary has a serious disposition and mostly reads and plays music, although she is often impatient to display her accomplishments and is rather vain about them. She frequently moralises to her family. According to James Edward Austen-Leigh’s A Memoir of Jane Austen, Mary ended up marrying one of her Uncle Philips’ law clerks and moving into Meryton with him.
- Catherine “Kitty” Bennet – the fourth Bennet daughter. Though older than Lydia, she is her shadow and follows her in her pursuit of the officers of the militia. She is often portrayed as envious of Lydia and is described as a “silly” young woman. However, it is said that she improved when removed from Lydia’s influence. According to James Edward Austen-Leigh’s A Memoir of Jane Austen, Kitty later married a clergyman who lived near Pemberley.
- Lydia Bennet – the youngest Bennet sister. She is frivolous and headstrong. Her main activity in life is socialising, especially flirting with the officers of the militia. This leads to her running off with George Wickham, although he has no intention of marrying her. Lydia shows no regard for the moral code of her society; as Ashley Tauchert says, she “feels without reasoning”.
- Charles Bingley – a handsome, amiable, wealthy young gentleman (a nouveau riche) from the north of England (possibly Yorkshire, as Scarborough is mentioned, and there is, in fact, a real-life town called Bingley in West Yorkshire), who leases Netherfield Park, an estate three miles from Longbourn, with the hopes of purchasing it. He is contrasted with Mr Darcy for having more generally pleasing manners, although he is reliant on his more experienced friend for advice. An example of this is the prevention of Bingley and Jane’s romance because of Bingley’s undeniable dependence on Darcy’s opinion. He lacks resolve and is easily influenced by others; his two sisters, Miss Caroline Bingley and Mrs Louisa Hurst, both disapprove of Bingley’s growing affection for Miss Jane Bennet. He inherited a fortune of £100,000.
- Caroline Bingley – the vainglorious, snobbish sister of Charles Bingley, with a fortune of £20,000. Miss Bingley harbours designs upon Mr Darcy, and therefore is jealous of his growing attachment to Elizabeth. She attempts to dissuade Mr Darcy from liking Elizabeth by ridiculing the Bennet family and criticising Elizabeth’s comportment. Miss Bingley also disapproves of her brother’s esteem for Jane Bennet, and is disdainful of society in Meryton. Her wealth (which she overspends) and her expensive education seem to be the two greatest sources of Miss Bingley’s vanity and conceit; likewise, she is very insecure about the fact that her and her family’s money all comes from trade, and is eager both for her brother to purchase an estate, elevating the Bingleys to the ranks of the gentry, and for herself to marry a landed gentleman (i.e. Mr Darcy). The dynamic between Miss Bingley and her sister, Louisa Hurst, seems to echo that of Lydia and Kitty Bennet’s, and Mrs Bennet and Mrs Phillips’; that one is no more than a follower of the other, with Caroline in the same position as Lydia and Mrs Bennet, and Louisa in Kitty’s and Mrs Phillips’ (though, in Louisa’s case, as she is already married, she is not under the same pressure as Caroline). Louisa is married to Mr Hurst, who has a house in Grosvenor Square, London.
- George Wickham – Wickham has been acquainted with Mr Darcy since infancy, being the son of Mr Darcy’s father’s steward. An officer in the militia, he is superficially charming and rapidly forms an attachment with Elizabeth Bennet. He later runs off with Lydia with no intention of marriage, which would have resulted in her and her family’s complete disgrace, but for Darcy’s intervention to bribe Wickham to marry her by paying off his immediate debts.
- Mr William Collins – Mr Collins is Mr Bennet’s distant second cousin, a clergyman, and the current heir presumptive to his estate of Longbourn House. He is an obsequious and pompous man, prone to making long and tedious speeches, who is excessively devoted to his patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
- Lady Catherine de Bourgh – the overbearing aunt of Mr Darcy. Lady Catherine is the wealthy owner of Rosings Park, where she resides with her daughter Anne and is fawned upon by her rector, Mr Collins. She is haughty, pompous, domineering, and condescending, and has long planned to marry off her sickly daughter to Darcy, to ‘unite their two great estates’, claiming it to be the dearest wish of both her and her late sister, Lady Anne Darcy (née Fitzwilliam).
- Mr Edward Gardiner and Mrs Gardiner – Edward Gardiner is Mrs Bennet’s brother and a successful tradesman of sensible and gentlemanly character. Aunt Gardiner is genteel and elegant and is close to her nieces Jane and Elizabeth. The Gardiners are instrumental in bringing about the marriage between Darcy and Elizabeth.
- Georgiana Darcy – Georgiana is Mr Darcy’s quiet, amiable and shy younger sister, with a dowry of £30,000, and is aged barely 16 when the story begins. When still 15, Miss Darcy almost eloped with Mr Wickham, but was saved by her brother, whom she idolises. Thanks to years of tutelage under masters, she is accomplished at the piano, singing, playing the harp, and drawing, and modern languages, and is therefore described as Caroline Bingley’s idea of an “accomplished woman.”
- Charlotte Lucas – Charlotte is Elizabeth’s friend who, at 27 years old (and thus beyond what was then considered prime marriageable age), fears becoming a burden to her family and therefore readily agrees to marry Mr Collins to gain financial security, having seized the opportunity to claim his attentions after Elizabeth turns down his proposal. Though the novel stresses the importance of love and understanding in marriage, Austen never seems to condemn Charlotte’s decision to marry for security. She uses Charlotte to convey how women of her time would adhere to society’s expectation for women to marry even if it is not out of love, but convenience. Charlotte is the daughter of Sir William Lucas and Lady Lucas, neighbours of the Bennet family.
- Colonel Fitzwilliam – Colonel Fitzwilliam is the younger son of an earl and the nephew of Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Lady Anne Darcy; this makes him the cousin of Anne de Bourgh and the Darcy siblings, Fitzwilliam and Georgiana. He is about 30 years old at the beginning of the novel. He is the co-guardian of Miss Georgiana Darcy, along with his cousin, Mr Darcy. According to Colonel Fitzwilliam, as a younger son, he cannot marry without thought to his prospective bride’s dowry.
- Plot:
- In the early 19th century, the Bennet family live at their Longbourn estate, situated near the village of Meryton in Hertfordshire, England. Mrs. Bennet’s greatest desire is to marry off her five daughters in order to secure their futures. The arrival of Mr. Bingley, a rich bachelor who rents the neighbouring Netherfield estate, gives her hope that one of her daughters might contract an advantageous marriage, because “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”.
- At a ball, the family is introduced to the Netherfield party, including Mr. Bingley, his two sisters and Mr. Darcy, his dearest friend. Mr. Bingley’s friendly and cheerful manner earns him popularity among the guests. He appears interested in Jane, the eldest Bennet daughter. Mr. Darcy, reputed to be twice as wealthy as Mr Bingley, is haughty and aloof, causing a decided dislike of him. He declines to dance with Elizabeth, the second-eldest Bennet daughter, as she is “not handsome enough”. Although she jokes about it with her friend, Elizabeth is deeply offended. Despite this first impression, Mr. Darcy secretly begins to find himself drawn to Elizabeth as they continue to encounter each other at social events, appreciating her wit and frankness.
- Mr. Collins, the heir to the Longbourn estate, visits the Bennet family with the intention of finding a wife among the five girls under the advice of his patroness Lady Catherine de Bourgh, also revealed to be Mr. Darcy’s aunt. He decides to pursue Elizabeth. The Bennet family meet the charming army officer George Wickham, who tells Elizabeth in confidence Mr. Darcy’s horrible past actions in his regards. Elizabeth, blinded by her prejudice toward Mr. Darcy, believes him.
- Elizabeth dances with Mr. Darcy at a ball, where Mrs. Bennet hints loudly that she expects Jane and Bingley to become engaged. Elizabeth rejects Mr. Collins’ marriage proposal, to her mother’s fury and her father’s relief. Mr. Collins instead proposes to Charlotte Lucas, a friend of Elizabeth. Having heard Mrs. Bennet’s words at the ball and disapproving of the marriage, Mr. Darcy joins Mr. Bingley in a trip to London and, with the help of his sisters, convinces him not to return to Netherfield. A heartbroken Jane visits her Aunt and Uncle Gardiner in London to raise her spirits, while Elizabeth’s hatred for Mr. Darcy grows as she suspects he was responsible for Mr Bingley’s departure.
- In the spring, Elizabeth visits Charlotte and Mr. Collins in Kent. Elizabeth and her hosts are invited to Rosings Park, Lady Catherine’s home. Mr. Darcy and his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, are also visiting Rosings Park. Fitzwilliam tells Elizabeth how Mr. Darcy recently saved a friend, presumably Bingley, from an undesirable match. Elizabeth realises that the prevented engagement was to Jane. Mr. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth, declaring his love for her despite her low social connections. She is shocked, as she was unaware of Mr. Darcy’s interest, and rejects him angrily, saying that he is the last person she would ever marry and that she could never love a man who caused her sister such unhappiness; she further accuses him of treating Wickham unjustly. Mr. Darcy brags about his success in separating Bingley and Jane and sarcastically dismisses the accusation regarding Wickham without addressing it.
- Mr. Darcy gives Elizabeth a letter, explaining that Wickham, the son of his late father’s steward, had refused the “living” his father had arranged for him and was instead given money for it. Wickham quickly squandered the money and tried to elope with Darcy’s 15-year-old sister, Georgiana, for her considerable dowry. Mr. Darcy also writes that he separated Jane and Bingley because he believed her indifferent to Bingley and because of the lack of propriety displayed by her family. Elizabeth is ashamed by her family’s behaviour and her own prejudice against Mr. Darcy.
- Months later, Elizabeth accompanies the Gardiners on a tour of Derbyshire. They visit Pemberley, Darcy’s estate. When Mr. Darcy returns unexpectedly, he is exceedingly gracious with Elizabeth and the Gardiners. Elizabeth is surprised by Darcy’s behaviour and grows fond of him, even coming to regret rejecting his proposal. She receives news that her sister Lydia has run off with Wickham. She tells Mr. Darcy, then departs in haste. After an agonising interim, Wickham agrees to marry Lydia. She visits the family and tells Elizabeth that Mr. Darcy was at her wedding. Though Mr. Darcy had sworn everyone involved to secrecy, Mrs. Gardiner now feels obliged to inform Elizabeth that he secured the match, at great expense and trouble to himself.
- Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy return to Netherfield. Jane accepts Mr. Bingley’s proposal. Lady Catherine, having heard rumours that Elizabeth intends to marry Mr. Darcy, visits her and demands she promise never to accept Mr. Darcy’s proposal, as she and Darcy’s late mother had already planned his marriage to her daughter Anne. Elizabeth refuses and asks the outraged Lady Catherine to leave. Darcy, heartened by his aunt’s indignant relaying of Elizabeth’s response, again proposes to her and is accepted.
Pride and Prejudice (1813) – Jane Austen
About the Author: Abirlal Mukherjee
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