Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen
Mr. & Mrs.Bennet
Mr. Bennet—The patriarch of the Bennet family, a gentleman
of modest income with five unmarried daughters. Mr. Bennet
has a sarcastic, cynical sense of humor that he uses to
purposefully irritate his wife. Though he loves his daughters
(Elizabeth in particular), he often fails as a parent, preferring
to withdraw from the never-ending marriage concerns of the
women around him rather than offer help.
Mrs. Bennet—Mr. Bennet’s wife, a foolish, noisy woman
whose only goal in life is to see her daughters married.
Because of her low breeding and often unbecoming behavior,
Mrs. Bennet often repels the very suitors whom she tries to
attract for her daughters.
First Couple
Jane Bennet—The eldest and most beautiful Bennet
sister. Jane is more reserved and gentler than Elizabeth.
The easy pleasantness with which she and Bingley
interact contrasts starkly with the mutual distaste that
marks the encounters between Elizabeth and Darcy.
Charles Bingley—Darcy’s considerably wealthy best
friend. Bingley’s purchase of Netherfield, an estate near
the Bennets, serves as the impetus for the novel. He is a
genial, well-intentioned gentleman, whose easygoing
nature contrasts with Darcy’s initially discourteous
demeanor. He is blissfully uncaring about class
differences.
Second Couple
Elizabeth Bennet—The novel’s protagonist. The second
daughter of Mr.Bennet, Elizabeth is the most intelligent and
sensible of the five Bennet sisters. She is well read and quick-
witted, with a tongue that occasionally proves too sharp for
her own good. Her realization of Darcy’s essential goodness
eventually triumphs over her initial prejudice against him.
Fitzwilliam Darcy—A wealthy gentleman, the master of
Pemberley, and the nephew of Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
Though Darcy is intelligent and honest, his excess of pride
causes him to look down on his social inferiors. Over the
course of the novel, he tempers his class-consciousness and
learns to admire and love Elizabeth for her strong character.
Third Couple
Lydia Bennet—The youngest Bennet sister, she is
gossipy, immature, and self-involved. Unlike
Elizabeth, Lydia flings herself headlong into romance
and ends up running off with Wickham.
George Wickham—A handsome, fortune-hunting
militia officer. Wickham’s good looks and charm
attract Elizabeth initially, but Darcy’s revelation about
Wickham’s disreputable past clues her in to his true
nature and simultaneously draws her closer to Darcy.
Fourth Couple
Mr. Collins—A pompous, generally idiotic clergyman who
stands to inherit Mr. Bennet’s property. Mr. Collins’s own
social status is nothing to brag about, but he takes great
pains to let everyone and anyone know that Lady Catherine
de Bourgh serves as his patroness. He is the worst
combination of snobbish and obsequious.
Charlotte Lucas—Elizabeth’s dear friend. Pragmatic where
Elizabeth is romantic, and also six years older than
Elizabeth, Charlotte does not view love as the most vital
component of a marriage. She is more interested in having a
comfortable home. Thus, when Mr. Collins proposes, she
accepts.
Negative Characters
Lady Catherine de Bourgh—A rich, bossy noblewoman;
Mr. Collins’s patron and Darcy’s aunt. Lady Catherine
epitomizes class snobbery,especially in her attempts to order
the middle-class Elizabeth away from her well-bred nephew.
Miss Bingley—Bingley’s snobbish sister. Miss Bingley bears
inordinate disdain for Elizabeth’s middle-class background.
Her vain attempts to garner Darcy’s attention cause Darcy to
admire Elizabeth’s self-possessed character even more.
George Wickham—A handsome, fortune-hunting militia
officer
.
Georgiana Darcy—Darcy’s sister. She is immensely
pretty and just as shy. She has great skill at playing the
pianoforte.
Mary Bennet—The middle Bennet sister, bookish
and pedantic.
Catherine Bennet—The fourth Bennet sister. Like
Lydia, she is girlishly enthralled with the soldiers.
Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner—Mrs. Bennet’s brother and
his wife. The Gardiners, caring, nurturing, and full of
common sense, often prove to be better parents to the
Bennet daughters than Mr. Bennet and his wife.
Analysis
The opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice—“It is a
truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in
possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a
wife”—immediately establishes the centrality of
advantageous marriage, a fundamental social value of
Regency England. The arrival of Mr. Bingley (and the
news of his fortune) is the event that sets the novel in
motion because it creates the prospect of a marriage of
wealth and good connections for the eager Bennet
girls.
.

 The opening sentence has a subtle, unstated significance. In its

declarative and hopeful claim that a wealthy man must be looking for
a wife, it hides just beneath its surface the real truth of such matters:
a single woman must be in want of a husband, especially a wealthy
one.

 The first chapter consists almost entirely of dialogue, a typical

instance of Austen’s technique of using the manner in which
characters express themselves to reveal their traits and attitudes. Its
last paragraph, in which the narrator describes Mr. Bennet as a
“mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice,” and
his wife as “a woman of mean understanding, little information, and
uncertain temper,” simply confirms the character assessments that
the reader has already made based on their conversation: Mrs.
Bennett embodies ill breeding and is prone to monotone hysteria;
Mr. Bennet is a wit who retreats from his wife’s overly serious
demeanor.
.
There is little physical description of the characters in Pride
and Prejudice, so the reader’s perception of them is shaped
largely by their words. Darcy makes the importance of the
verbal explicit at the end of the novel when he tells Elizabeth
that he was first attracted to her by “the liveliness of [her]
mind.”
The ball at Meryton is important to the structure of the novel
since it brings the two couples—Darcy and Elizabeth, Bingley
and Jane—together for the first time. Austen’s original title
for the novel was First Impressions, and these individuals’ first
impressions at the ball initiate the contrasting patterns of the
two principal male-female relationships. The relative
effortlessness with which Bingley and Jane interact is
indicative of their easygoing natures; the obstacles that the
novel places in the way of their happiness are in no way
caused by Jane or Bingley themselves.
.

Indeed, their feelings for one another seem to change

little after the initial attraction—there is no
development of their love, only the delay of its
consummation. Darcy’s bad behavior, on the other
hand, immediately betrays the pride and sense of
social superiority that will most hinder him from
finding his way to Elizabeth. His snub of her creates a
mutual dislike, in contrast to the mutual attraction
between Jane and Bingley. Further, while Darcy’s
opinion of Elizabeth changes within a few chapters,
her (and the reader’s) sense of him as self-important
and arrogant remains unaltered until midway through
the novel.
 The introduction of the Lucases allows Austen to comment on
the pretensions that accompany social rank. Recently knighted,
Sir William is described as having felt his new distinction “a little
too strongly” and moved away from town in order to “think with
pleasure of his own importance.” Sir William remains a
sympathetic figure despite his snobbery, but the same cannot be
said of Bingley’s sister, whose classconsciousness becomes
increasingly evident. Awareness of class difference is a pressing
reality in Pride and Prejudice. This awareness colors the attitudes
that characters of different social status feel toward one another.
This awareness cuts both ways: as Darcy and Elizabeth
demonstrate, the well-born and the socially inferior prove equally
likely to harbor prejudices that blind them to others’ true natures.
Charlotte Lucas’s observation that Jane does not display her
affection for Bingley illuminates the careful structure of the
novel. Darcy notices the same reticence in Jane, but he
assumes that she is not in love with Bingley. Charlotte’s
conversation with Elizabeth, then, foreshadows Darcy’s
justification for separating Bingley from Jane. Similarly, the
author prepares the reader for subsequent developments in
other relationships: Charlotte’s belief that it is better not to
know one’s husband too well foreshadows her “practical”
marriage to Collins, while Elizabeth’s more romantic view
anticipates her refusal of two proposals that might have
been accepted by others.
 As in Sense and Sensibility, Austen emphasizes the matter of
entailment in order to create a sense of urgency about the search
for a husband. Though Jane is the eldest child in a fairly well-off
family, her status as a woman precludes her from enjoying the
success her father has experienced. When her father dies, the
estate will turn over to Mr. Collins, the oldest male relative. The
mention of entailment stresses not just the value society places
on making a good marriage but also the way that the structures of
society make a good marriage a prerequisite for a “good” life (the
connotation of “good” being wealthy). Austen thus offers
commentary on the plight of women. Through both law and
prescribed gender roles, Austen’s society leaves women few
options for the advancement or betterment of their situations.
Language proves of central importance to relationships in Pride
and Prejudice, as Austen uses conversation to reveal character.
The interactions between Darcy and Elizabeth primarily take
the forms of banter and argument, and Elizabeth’s words
provide Darcy access to a deeper aspect of her character, one
that appeals to him and allows him to begin to move past his
initial prejudice. While their disagreement over the possibility
of a “perfect” woman reinforces his apparent egotism and
selfabsorption, it also gives Elizabeth a chance to shine in
debate. Whereas she does not live up to Darcy’s physical and
social requirements for a perfect woman, she exceeds those
concerning the “liveliness” of the perfect woman’s mind.
The novel begins to undermine the reader’s negative
impression of Darcy by contrasting him with Miss Bingley.
Though his arrogance remains unpleasant, he is unwilling
to join in Miss Bingley’s snobbish dismissals of Elizabeth
and her family. Like Lady Catherine de Bourgh later on,
Miss Bingley serves as the voice of “society,” criticizing
Elizabeth’s middle-class status and lack of social
connections. Also like Lady Catherine, her primary
motivation is jealousy: just as Lady Catherine wants Darcy
to marry her niece, Miss Bingley wants him for herself.
Both women exhibit a spite colored by self-interest.
The continuation of Elizabeth’s visit to Netherfield accentuates
the respective attitudes of Miss Bingley and Darcy toward their
guest: jealousy on the part of the former, admiration on that of
the latter. Elizabeth poses a separate threat to each of them.
Miss Bingley fears her as a rival for Darcy’s affection, and Darcy
fears that he will succumb to his growing attraction to her
despite the impracticality of marriage to one of such inferior
rank and family. The anxiety created by classconsciousness
thereby becomes a self-perpetuating, and warping institution.
Darcy, concerned that he may affect his own reputation by
linking it to the poor reputation of another, tries to avoid
talking to Elizabeth entirely on the final day she spends at
Netherfield.
He must tie himself up in a sort of logical knot; class-
consciousness transforms Elizabeth, who is perfect for him,
as something to be feared. Miss Bingley demonstrates how,
once a class system develops, it maintains its coherence.
Miss Bingley feels threatened by Elizabeth and knows she
cannot compete with Elizabeth on the basis of her virtues
or talents. Her means of defense is to bring class-anxiety to
bear; by the luck of her birth, Miss Bingley has been
stamped as superior. She now uses the entire social
institution of class to maintain her superiority, even
though all logic and experience show that superiority to be
a lie.
 .

In these chapters, the narrator portrays Miss Bingley as

Elizabeth’s opposite—foolish where the heroine is quick-witted,
desperate for Darcy’s attention while Elizabeth disdains him.
Bingley’s sister spends her energy attempting to conform to
what she perceives to be Darcy’s idea of a perfect woman. Her
embarrassingly obvious flirtation makes her a figure of
amusement for the reader—she is a parody of the man-hungry,
snobbish, upper-class woman. By toadying up to Darcy, she
ends up losing him to Elizabeth, despite the fact that Elizabeth
does not make any attempt to appeal to him. By showing Miss
Bingley as a scheming rival for Darcy’s love whose tactics are
uninspired, the novel highlights Elizabeth’s originality and
independence of spirit, and suggests that these, not the laundry
list of accomplishments that Darcy gives, are the qualities that
Darcy truly desires in a woman. His rejection of Miss Bingley’s
advances, then, serves to improve the reader’s opinion of Darcy,
as his ability to admire a social inferior separates him from