Pride And Prejudice Notes For Paper

-Marriage

-The way people perceive marriage shows that marriage makes up the most important thing in life. Prejudice signifies a lot to people because that becomes a key aspect when choosing a partner to marry. According to Mrs. Bennet: "I am quite sorry, Lizzy, that you should be forced to have that disagreeable man all to yourself. But I hope you will not mind it: it is all for Jane's sake" (pg281). The prejudice of Mr. Darcy is so negative in Mrs. Bennet's mind that she sees the walk with him as a torture. On the other hand Lizzy would have a different opinion regarding the walk with Mr. Darcy.

-Money and social class also plays a big role in marriage. A perfect marriage would be considered the one where the people that are marrying are of similar social classes. The case of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth is very different and the bond between them is expressed by Lady Catherine as "You will be censured, slighted, and despised, by everyone connected with him. Your alliance will be a disgrace; your name will never be mentioned by any of us" (pg266). The hate of Lady Catherine is very big and it is only because Elizabeth comes from a lower social class. The marriage between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth exemplifies the marriage where they are joined together because of love, rather than money.

Pride And Prejudice Ideas For Paper

-Women's roles

-The main purpose of a woman in her life revolves around marriage. There are different ways that marriage can be looked for. Some characters want to marry because of love like Elizabeth and Jane, others because of pleasure like Wickham and Lydia, but Mrs. Bennet wants to marry her daughters for money. It doesn't matter which kind o marriage happens, a married woman is considered so much better than the rest of the women. Lydia's pride after being married has increases a lot and the way she treats her sisters as inferiors demonstrate this. According to Lydia: "But you know married women have never much time for writing. My sisters may write to me. They will have nothing else to do" (pg246). Lydia's arrogance has made her think herself superior, having something to do compared to her sisters.

-Having a son in that time was inevitably the most important thing. All the property and possessions of a father would be inherited by the son. In the case there was no son then all his possessions would go to another family member, leaving the family poor. That case is the case of the Bennets. This situation is described when according to Austen: "When first Mr. Bennet had married, economy was held to be perfectly useless; for, of course, they were to have a son" (pg229). The economical situation of a family would be perfect if a son was in the family because all the money would go to him. The woman was not considered such a powerful figure to be able to inherit the father's possessions, even though they belonged to their family.

Pride And Prejudice Ideas For Paper

-Mr. Darcy changes a lot in his attitude, especially towards Elizabeth. He is not considered to be as excessively arrogant and proud as before. Jane Austen describes Darcy's new attitude as "Never, even in the company of his friends at Netherfield, or his dignified relations at Rosings, has she seen him so desirous to please, so free from self-consequence" (pg195). Since he is in his house he has to live up to his prejudice or fame, therefore being far kinder than in other occasions. Another option is that he feels a lot more comfortable in his house to show his real self than in other situations. The general prejudice of Mr. Darcy in his house is very positive. Mrs. Reynolds's opinion regarding Darcy's marriage is described as "I do not know when that will be. I do not know who is good enough for him" (pg.183).

-Mrs. Bennet possesses several different qualities. She constantly wants the best for her daughters but will over control them. Her main goal is for them to marry and she will do anything she can to accomplish that. I would also describe her as very exaggerated and a pessimist. According to Mrs. Bennet: "Mr. Bennet gone away, and I know he will fight Wickham wherever he meets him, and then he will be killed, and what is to become of us all? The Collinses will turn us out before he is cold in his grave" (pg213). Mrs. Bennet is really exaggerating the situation as well as looking at the worst case scenario. I would also describe her as annoying because she gets too much into the problems of others like the ones of her daughters as well as the ones of the whole town.

Pride And Prejudice Ideas For Paper

-Pride

-A characteristic of every character in the book is pride. Pride can be defined as the way a person thinks about himself. The level of pride also determines the attitude of the character. Mr. Darcy is described as having a great pride, leading to arrogance and dislike.

-Elizabeth's refusal of Mr. Darcy's marriage proposal must have been a hard hit in his pride. He was completely sure that Elizabeth would quickly accept. When he found out that there was a woman that had rejected his proposal his pride must have been destroyed. According to Jane: "His being so sure of succeeding was wrong, and certainly ought not to have appeared; but consider how much it would increase his disappointment" (Austen, pg.167).

-Prejudice

-Prejudice affects everyone in the book, being subjects to constant criticism. Prejudice is what others think about you. According to Elizabeth: "The general prejudice against Mr. Darcy is so violent that it would be the death of half the good people in Meryton to attempt to place him in an aimable light" (Austen, pg.169). The general prejudice of Mr. Darcy has already been established as so bad that it is impossible to show the real Mr. Darcy now.

-Criticism

-Criticizing seems like the favorite past time of the characters in Pride and Prejudice. The public opinion is very important and people can't bear having a negative prejudice against them.

A Marriage Ruined By Mr. Darcy

Jane's marriage with Mr. Bingley displayed the perfect marriage. There existed only one problem in this encounter, Mr. Darcy. Mr. Darcy didn't see this marriage as the best for his friend. What did he see wrong about these two families joining together? Did he have better plans for Mr. Bingley? According to Mr. Darcy: "I have no wish of denying that I did everything in my power to separate my friend from your sister, or that I have rejoice in my success" (Austen, pg144). Mr. Darcy could have separated his friend from Jane for two reasons. One, Jane's family is very poor. Or two, he preferred that his dear friend married his sister instead of Jane. When Mr. Darcy describes his effects on the marriage as having "rejoice in my success," he must have something to gain in the separation. According to this I would have to say that the option that brings more happiness to him is the marrying with his sister. If Mr. Bingley marries his sister then that means that their friendship will be consolidated by joining the two families by marriage. If it were my case I wouldn't mind one of my best friends marrying with one of my cousins or my sister, because in that sense our friendship will be consolidated.

That explanation for his wanting to break up the marriage convinced me of his reasoning. I was surprised to be proved wrong when later, in the letter he wrote to Elizabeth, he gave other reasons for this breaking up. One of his reasons was "The situation of your mother's family, though objectionable, was nothing in comparison of that total want of propriety so frequently, so almost uniformly betrayed by herself, by your three younger sisters" (Austen, pg148). Mr. Darcy couldn't forget the economical part of Jane's family. He mentions the fact that the situation Jane's family is not the best. Also the fact that every daughter is looking for a man to marry, preferably with money conforms one of the reasons Mr. Darcy broke up the marriage. In other words, he was afraid that his friend marriage's main objective was money rather than love. The state of wealth in this family is the reason why Mr. Darcy disapproved this marriage.

The Clothes Of Wealth

There exists nothing that displays wealth better than clothes. Education and attitude do show in some aspects the wealth of a person, but clothing and the elegance of it just mirror wealth. Today examples of this are constantly seen. When people buy the brand new cleats or shoes everyone knows that they have certain amount of wealth. On the other hand, when people buy cheaper shoes their wealth is also shown. A person who can't afford the new shoes will certainly have to buy another brand of shoes. In other words clothes do vary depending on levels of wealth, in some way they classify people as wealthy or poor. As said by Mr. Collins "Lady Catherine is far from requiring that elegance of dress in us which becomes herself and daughter. I would advise you merely to put on whatever of your clothes is superior to the rest" (Austen, pg120). Elizabeth's clothes are not expected to be as good as Lady Catherine's. Lady Catherine has a lot of wealth compared to Elizabeth. In effect, their clothing differs greatly showing their differences of money. In other words, clothes are constantly showing the level of wealth a person has.

 

 

Wealthier people in Pride and Prejudice are seen as better and their opinion has a higher value. Lady Catherine constantly talks almost without letting anyone speak their opinion. The lower the wealth of person is the less he talks. This might be a clear distinction Austen wants to make of social class. According to Austen: "The two girls had the honour of assisting Mrs. Jenkinson to make up her party. Their table was superlatively stupid. Scarcely a syllable was uttered" (Austen, pg 125). Mrs. Jenkinson occupies the charge of a nurse. She is portrayed as the least wealthy person out of the whole party. Since she has less money than the rest her opinion doesn't value as much, making her a silent person in presence of wealthier people. The more money a person has, the more his opinion will value, and the amount he talks is affected by this.

Fame And Pride

Fame consists mainly of the public opinion about a person. How others see this person affects greatly their fame. Jane Austen's seems to think that fame is very important. Being famous in Pride and Prejudice signifies a lot because vanity is very high as well as prejudice. According to Austen: "It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us. Women fancy admiration means more than it does" (Austen, pg102). At first, I didn't understand how vanity could deceive a woman, but I do know how pride can deceive a person. Pride can make a person think excessively good of himself and when reality hits this person he will be disappointed that his actual self didn't stand up to his pride. Also having a very low pride makes a person feel bad about himself and have self esteem problems. However, vanity can affect pride, also having an effect on the person. Vanity could be described as the level of importance the prejudice of others has in a person. If vanity is very high, which is the case in the book, then the prejudice of others could greatly affect pride. The way "Women fancy admiration" is nothing more than their vanity, wanting to be admired.

As a matter of fact public opinion has a great effect in pride of people. A person who is always talked about as good and honorable would have a high pride. Since everyone thinks well of him, he will most likely think good of him as well. If this public opinion is the contrary the pride of the person could also go down. Mrs. Bennet's pride went down a lot when the marriage vents happened. According to Austen: "Mrs. Bennet had many grievances to relate, and much to complain of. […] Two of her girls had been on the point of marriage, and after all there was nothing" (pg. 105). The main objective of Mrs. Bennet is to marry her daughters and preferably to a wealthy man. In this case she was very close to achieving this two times but had failed at the end. This event was a direct hit to her pride. Prejudice about how her two daughters were so close to marriage and in the end nothing happened could have appeared, being obstacles of Mrs. Bennet's objective.