Corsets and Cravats: Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice

Download the complete novel at Project Gutenberg.

Summary

(beware of plot details!)

The novel opens with the famous line, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.". The arrival of such a single man "of considerable fortune" in the neighbourhood greatly excites Mrs. Bennet. Mrs Bennet's sole interest in life is to see her five eligible daughters well settled and happily married to fine men of 'considerable fortune'. Mr. Bingley, the man in question, leased the Netherfield estate where he plans to temporarily settle with his two sisters, Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst, and his sister's husband, Mr. Hurst. Soon after moving in, Mr. Bingley and his party, which now includes his close friend Fitzwilliam Darcy, attend a public ball in the village of Meryton. At first, Mr. Darcy is admired for his fine figure and income of £10,000 a year and is far more the subject of attention than Mr. Bingley. However, he is soon regarded contemptuously as the villagers become disgusted with his pride. This is brought home to the Bennet family when Elizabeth Bennet overhears Mr. Darcy decline Mr. Bingley's suggestion that he dance with her because she is not handsome enough to tempt him. Mr. Bingley, on the other hand, proves highly agreeable, dancing with many of the eligible ladies in attendance and showing his decided admiration for Jane Bennet.

Bingley's sisters invite Jane for an evening at Netherfield which turns into an extended stay when Jane catches a bad cold. Elizabeth comes to nurse her sister and stays at Netherfield, engaging Darcy's guarded attention and Miss Bingley's not-so-guarded scorn.

Shortly after the ball, Mr. Collins—a cousin who, because of an entail, will inherit the Bennet estate—visits the family. Mr. Collins, a pompous buffoon of a clergyman whose idea of a pleasant evening is reading to his female cousins from Fordyce's Sermons, delights in dropping the name of his great patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, with great frequency. Following Lady Catherine's imperious suggestion that he marry, Mr. Collins has decided to make amends for his role in the Bennets' future impoverishment by marrying one of his cousins. Mr. Collins proposes to Elizabeth but she refuses him point-blank. Although Mrs. Bennet tries to promote the marriage, Elizabeth, supported by her father, will not have him. Meanwhile, Elizabeth is introduced to Mr. Wickham, a pleasing, amiable officer in the regiment. Mr. Wickham informs her that he had known Mr. Darcy his entire life, but was dealt a serious wrong after the death of Mr. Darcy's father. After the tale is told, Elizabeth begins to harbour a strong prejudice against Mr. Darcy.

After Elizabeth rejects Mr. Collins, he hurriedly marries her best friend, Charlotte Lucas, and Elizabeth is invited to visit the newlyweds. While she is staying with them, Mr. Darcy visits his aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, at the adjoining estate, Rosings. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy are therefore thrown daily into each other's company. Elizabeth's charms eventually entrance Mr. Darcy, leading him to finally declare his love for her "against his own will" and his desire to marry her in spite of her objectionable family. Surprised and insulted by Mr. Darcy's high-handed method of proposing, as well as having recently learnt that Mr. Darcy convinced Mr. Bingley to sever ties with Jane and still contemptuous of Mr. Darcy's supposed wrongs against Mr. Wickham, Elizabeth refuses him in no uncertain terms, saying that he is "the last man in the world whom [she] could ever be prevailed on to marry." The next day, Mr. Darcy intercepts Elizabeth on her morning walk and hands her a letter before coldly taking his leave. In the letter, Mr. Darcy justifies his actions regarding his interference in Mr. Bingley and Jane's relationship, and reveals his history concerning Mr. Wickham and Mr. Wickham's true nature. The letter sheds a new light on Mr. Darcy's personality for Elizabeth and she begins to reconsider her opinion of him, particularly in the case of Mr. Wickham.

Later, while on holiday with her aunt and uncle, the Gardiners, Elizabeth is persuaded to visit nearby Pemberley, Mr. Darcy's estate, but only goes because she is told he is away. She is therefore mortified when she bumps into him unexpectedly while on a tour of the grounds; however, his altered behaviour towards her - distinctly warmer from their last meeting - and his polite and friendly manner towards her aunt and uncle begins to persuade Elizabeth that underneath his pride lies a true and generous nature. Her revised opinion of Mr. Darcy is supported through meeting his younger sister Georgiana, a gentle-natured and shy girl upon whom Mr. Darcy lovingly dotes.

Just as her relationship with Mr. Darcy starts to thaw, Elizabeth is horrified by news that, in her absence, her headstrong younger sister Lydia has attracted Mr. Wickham's attentions and eloped with him. When the family investigates, they learn that Mr. Wickham resigned his commission to evade gambling debts. When told of this by Elizabeth, Mr. Darcy takes it upon himself to find Mr. Wickham and bribe him into marrying Lydia, but keeps this secret from Elizabeth and her family. Elizabeth accidentally learns of Mr. Darcy's involvement from Lydia's careless remarks, later confirmed by Mrs. Gardiner. This final act completes the reversal in Elizabeth's sentiments, and she begins to regret having turned down Mr. Darcy's earlier proposal of marriage.

Lady Catherine discovers Mr. Darcy's feelings for Elizabeth, threatening her long cherished ambition for him to marry her own daughter. She pays Elizabeth an unannounced visit and brusquely tries to intimidate her into refusing such an engagement. Unfortunately, Catherine's visit serves to consolidate Elizabeth's intentions. Furthermore, Lady Catherine visits Mr. Darcy later, and relates the entire conversation to him, leading Mr. Darcy to the conviction that if he proposes to Elizabeth again, she may accept him. After ensuring that Mr. Bingley and Jane Bennet's relationship is rekindled, Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth become engaged.

The book ends with two marriages: Jane and Bingley's, as well as Darcy and Elizabeth's. Both couples are assumed to live happily ever after.

(source: Wikipedia)

Main Characters

Elizabeth Bennet: The protagonist of the novel and the second oldest of five sisters, Elizabeth is lively, quick-witted, sharp-tongued, bold and intelligent. Elizabeth is good-looking, and is especially distinguished by her fine eyes. The importance of her eyes may be symbolic of her abilities of perception. She has pride in her abilities to perceive the truth of situations and of people's characters. However, her perceptive abilities fail her frequently because she is influenced by vanity and judges people rashly. By the end of the novel she overcomes her prejudice through her dealings with Darcy. Elizabeth is concerned with propriety, good-manners, and virtue, but is not impressed by mere wealth or titles.

Mr. (Fitzwilliam) Darcy: An extremely wealthy aristocrat, Darcy is proud, haughty and extremely conscious of class differences at the beginning of the novel. He does, however, have a strong sense of honor and virtue. Elizabeth's rebukes after his first proposal to her help him to recognize his faults of pride and social prejudice. It is, in fact, precisely because Elizabeth is not so awed by his high social status as to be afraid to criticize his character that he is attracted to her. The self-knowledge acquired from Elizabeth's rebukes and the desire to win Elizabeth's love spur him to change and judge people more by their character than by their social class.

Jane Bennet: Jane is the oldest in the family. Beautiful, good-tempered, sweet, amiable, humble and selfless, Jane is universally well-liked. She refuses to judge anyone badly, always making excuses for people when Elizabeth brings their faults to her attention. Her tendency to give people the benefit of the doubt leads her to be hurt by insincere friends such as Caroline Bingley, although in the end her judgments seem to be more accurate than Elizabeth's overall and to do her much less harm. Jane is a static characteras she is basically a model of virtue from the beginning, there is no room for her to develop in the novel.

Charles Bingley: Mr. Bingley, much like Jane, is an amiable and good-tempered person. He is not overly concerned with class differences, and Jane's poor family connections are not a serious deterrent to his attachment to her. Bingley is very modest and easily swayed by the advice of his friends, as seen in his decision not to propose to Jane as a result of Darcy's belief that Jane is not really attached to him. Also like Jane, Bingley lacks serious character faults and is thus static throughout the novel. His character and his love for Jane remain constant; the only thing that changes is the advice of Darcy, which leads him not to propose to Jane in the beginning of the novel but to propose to her in the end.

Mr. (George) Wickham: An officer in the regiment stationed at Meryton, Wickham is quickly judged to be a perfectly good and amiable man because of his friendliness and the ease of his manners. He initially shows a preference for Elizabeth, and she is pleased by his attentions and inclined to believe his story about Darcy. Yet while Wickham has the appearance of goodness and virtue, this appearance is deceptive. His true nature begins to show itself through his attachment to Miss King for purely mercenary purposes and then through Darcy's exposition of his past and through his elopement with Lydia, deceiving her to believe that he intends to marry her.

Mrs. Bennet: Mrs. Bennet is a foolish and frivolous woman. She lacks all sense of propriety and virtue and has no concern for the moral or intellectual education of her daughters. From the beginning of the novel her sole obsession is to marry off her daughters. She is perfectly happy with Lydia's marriage, and never once censures her daughter for her shameful conduct or for the worry she has caused her family. Her impropriety is a constant source of mortification for the Elizabeth, and the inane nature of her conversation makes her society so difficult to bear that even Jane and Bingley decide to move out of the neighborhood a year after they are married.

Mr. Bennet: An intelligent man with good sense, Mr. Bennet made the mistake of marrying a foolish woman. He takes refuge in his books and seems to want nothing more than to be bothered as little as possible by his family. His indolence leads to the neglect of the education of daughters. Even when Elizabeth warns him not to allow Lydia to go to Brighton because of the moral danger of the situation, he does not listen to her because he does not want to be bothered with Lydia's complaints.

Lydia Bennet: The youngest of the Bennet sisters, Lydia is foolish and flirtatious, given up to indolence and the gratification of every whim. She is the favorite of Mrs. Bennet, because the two have such similar characters. Lydia is constantly obsessed with the officers in the regiment, and sees no purpose to life beyond entertainment and diversion. She lacks any sense of virtue, propriety or good-judgment, as seen in her elopement with Wickham and her complete lack of remorse afterward.

Catherine (Kitty) Bennet: Kitty seems to have little personality of her own, but simply to act as a shadow to Lydia, following Lydia's lead in whatever she does. The end of the novel provides hope that Lydia's character will improve by being removed from the society of Lydia and her mother and being taken care of primarily by Jane and Elizabeth.

Mary Bennet: The third oldest of the Bennet sisters, Mary is strangely solemn and pedantic. She dislikes going out into society, and to prefers to spend her time studying. In conversation, Mary is constantly moralizing or trying to make profound observations about human nature and life in general.

Mr. Collins: A clergyman and an extremely comical character because of his mix of obsequiousness and pride, Mr. Collins is fond of making long and silly speeches and stating formalities which have absolutely no meaning in themselves. For Mr. Collins, speech is not a means to communicate truth but a means to say what he thinks the people around him want to hear or what will make the people around him think well of him. He is in line to inherit Longbourn once Mr. Bennet dies, and wants to marry one of the Miss Bennets to lessen the burden of the entailment. When Elizabeth refuses him, he considers his duty discharged and transfers his affections to Charlotte Lucas.

Charlotte Lucas: Charlotte acts as a foil to Elizabeth by embodying the opposite view of marriage. Charlotte makes no attempt to find a husband whom she loves and esteems, but simply gives in to the necessity of acquiring financial security through marriage. She deals as well with Mr. Collins as is possible, but Elizabeth doubts their long-term happiness.

Sir William Lucas: A pleasant but not overly deep or intellectual man, he is a friend of the Bennet family. He is civil but his conversation is basically limited to empty observations and descriptions of his presentation and knighthood. Elizabeth accompanies him and his younger daughter Maria to visit Charlotte.

Maria Lucas: Charlotte's younger sister, she is as empty-headed as her father. Her only role in the novel is to travel with Elizabeth and Sir William to visit Charlotte.

Mrs. Gardiner: An intelligent, caring and sensible woman, Mrs. Gardiner acts a mother to Elizabeth and Jane, filling in for the inadequacy of Mrs. Bennet. She brings Jane to London with her in order to help cheer her up when she is heartbroken because of Bingley's failure to return to Netherfield, and she advises Elizabeth to avoid encouraging Wickham's affections. She attempts to help Lydia see why her elopement with Wickham was wrong, but Lydia is completely inattentive.

Mr. Gardiner: Mr. Gardiner is a merchant, and is an upright and intelligent man. The fact that he earns his money by working puts him in a lower social class than those who simply live off the interest of their land. Like his wife, Mr. Gardiner is one of those people whom Austen portrays as a natural aristocrat, and whom Darcy comes to like after overcoming his class prejudice.

Caroline Bingley: Miss Bingley is a superficial and selfish. She has all of Darcy's class prejudice but none of his honor and virtue. Throughout the novel she panders to Darcy in an attempt to win his affections, but to no avail. She pretends to be a genuine friend to Jane but is extremely rude to her when she comes to London. She also tries to prevent the marriage of Jane and Bingley and to prevent Darcy's attachment to Elizabeth by constantly ridiculing the poor manners of Elizabeth's mother and younger sisters.

Mrs. Hurst: Bingley's other sister, Mrs. Hurst's character basically matches that of her sister Caroline. She seems to have no real affection or esteem for her husband.

Mr. Hurst: An indolent man, he does almost nothing but eat and entertain himself by playing cards. He never says an intelligent word in the entire novel, and seems to be concerned only with the quality of the food.

Georgiana Darcy: Georgiana is Darcy's sister and is ten years his junior. She is quiet and shy but amiable and good-natured. She has great reverence and affection for her brother. She and Elizabeth get along well and become good friends after Elizabeth's marriage to Darcy. Bingley's sisters had hoped that Bingley would marry Georgiana, thus uniting the fortunes of the two families.

Lady Catherine de Bourgh: Lady Catherine is extremely wealthy and likes to let others know of their inferiority to her. She loves to give people advice about how to conduct their lives down to the minutest details, loves to hear flattery from others and hates to be contradicted. Extremely conscious of class differences, she attempts to prevent Darcy from marrying Elizabeth but actually unwittingly gives him the courage to propose a second time.

Miss de Bourgh: Miss de Bourgh is a frail, weak and sickly child who is extremely pampered by Lady Catherine. She speaks little in the novel but seems to be generally good-natured. Lady Catherine had wanted Darcy to marry Miss de Bourgh.

Colonel Fitzwilliam: A cousin of Mr. Darcy and a pleasant and amiable gentleman, he is a companion to Elizabeth during her stay with the Collinses. Colonel Fitzwilliam tells Elizabeth that he must marry someone with a large fortune because he is the second son, the first case in the novel where a man's marriage choices are constrained by financial need.

Mrs. Phillips: Mrs. Phillips is Mrs. Bennet's sister, and shares her sister's foolishness and frivolity. She lives in Meryton, and the Bennet sisters, particularly Lydia and Kitty, often visit her in order to socialize with the officers.

Mrs. Forster: The wife of Colonel Forster, who is the head of the regiment stationed at Meryton, she becomes friends with Lydia and invites her to spend the summer with them in Brighton. She is clearly not very responsible in her supervision of Lydia, and seems to have a rather frivolous character.

Colonel Forster: A good-natured and basically responsible man, Colonel Forster tries to do all that he possibly can to help the Bennets recover Lydia after her elopement with Wickham. While the elopement is not his fault, Lydia was under his care and he did not seem to be observing her conduct very closely.

Miss Younge: Miss Younge was Georgiana Darcy's governess at one point and conspired with Wickham to get Georgiana to elope with him. Clearly lacking in all moral sense, she is mentioned in the novel again when Darcy bribes her to tell him the whereabouts of Wickham and Lydia.

Themes

Pride

As said in the words of Mary at the beginning of the novel, "human nature is particularly prone to [pride]" (Volume I, Chapter 5). In the novel, pride prevents the characters from seeing the truth of a situation and from achieving happiness in life. Pride is one of the main barriers that creates an obstacle to Elizabeth and Darcy's marriage. Darcy's pride in his position in society leads him initially to scorn anyone outside of his own social circle. Elizabeth's vanity clouds her judgment, making her prone to think ill of Darcy and to think well of Wickham. In the end, Elizabeth's rebukes of Darcy help him to realize his fault and to change accordingly, as demonstrated in his genuinely friendly treatment of the Gardiners, whom he previously would have scorned because of their low social class. Darcy's letter shows Elizabeth that her judgments were wrong and she realizes that they were based on vanity, not on reason.

Prejudice

Pride and prejudice are intimately related in the novel. As critic A. Walton Litz comments, "in Pride and Prejudice one cannot equate Darcy with Pride, or Elizabeth with Prejudice; Darcy's pride of place is founded on social prejudice, while Elizabeth's initial prejudice against him is rooted in pride of her own quick perceptions." Darcy, having been brought up in such a way that he began to scorn all those outside his own social circle, must overcome his prejudice in order to see that Elizabeth would be a good wife for him and to win Elizabeth's heart. The overcoming of his prejudice is demonstrated when he treats the Gardiners with great civility. The Gardiners are a much lower class than Darcy, because Mr. Darcy is a lawyer and must practice a trade to earn a living, rather than living off of the interest of an estate as gentlemen do. From the beginning of the novel Elizabeth prides herself on her keen ability for perception. Yet this supposed ability is often lacking, as in Elizabeth's judgments of Darcy and Wickham.

Family

Austen portrays the family as primarily responsible for the intellectual and moral education of children. Mr. and Mrs. Bennet's failure to provide this education for their daughters leads to the utter shamelessness, foolishness, frivolity, and immorality of Lydia. Elizabeth and Jane have managed to develop virtue and strong characters in spite of the negligence of their parents, perhaps through the help of their studies and the good influence of Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, who are the only relatives in the novel that take a serious concern in the girls' well-being and provide sound guidance. Elizabeth and Jane are constantly forced to put up with the foolishness and poor judgment of their mother and the sarcastic indifference of their father. Even when Elizabeth advises her father not to allow Lydia to go to Brighton, he ignores the advice because he thinks it would too difficult to deal with Lydia's complaining. The result is the scandal of Lydia's elopement with Wickham.

Women and Marriage

Austen is critical of the gender injustices present in 19th century English society. The novel demonstrates how money such as Charlotte need to marry men they are not in love with simply in order to gain financial security. The entailment of the Longbourn estate is an extreme hardship on the Bennet family, and is quite obviously unjust. The entailment of Mr. Bennet's estate leaves his daughters in a poor financial situation which both requires them to marry and makes it more difficult to marry well. Clearly, Austen believes that woman are at least as intelligent and capable as men, and considers their inferior status in society to be unjust. She herself went against convention by remaining single and earning a living through her novels. In her personal letters Austen advises friends only to marry for love. Through the plot of the novel it is clear that Austen wants to show how Elizabeth is able to be happy by refusing to marry for financial purposes and only marrying a man whom she truly loves and esteems.

Class

Considerations of class are omnipresent in the novel. The novel does not put forth an egalitarian ideology or call for the leveling of all social classes, yet it does criticize an over-emphasis on class. Darcy's inordinate pride is based on his extreme class-consciousness. Yet eventually he sees that factors other than wealth determine who truly belongs in the aristocracy. While those such as Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst, who are born into the aristocracy, are idle, mean-spirited and annoying, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner are not members of the aristocracy in terms of wealth or birth but are natural aristocrats by virtue of their intelligence, good-breeding and virtue. The comic formality of Mr. Collins and his obsequious relationship with Lady Catherine serve as a satire class consciousness and social formalities. In the end, the verdict on class differences is moderate. As critic Samuel Kliger notes, "It the conclusion of the novel makes it clear that Elizabeth accepts class relationships as valid, it becomes equally clear that Darcy, through Elizabeth's genius for treating all people with respect for their natural dignity, is reminded that institutions are not an end in themselves but are intended to serve the end of human happiness."

Individual and Society

The novel portrays a world in which society takes an interest in the private virtue of its members. When Lydia elopes with Wickham, therefore, it is scandal to the whole society and an injury to entire Bennet family. Darcy considers his failure to expose the wickedness of Wickham's character to be a breach of his social duty because if Wickham's true character had been known others would not have been so easily deceived by him. While Austen is critical of society's ability to judge properly, as demonstrated especially in their judgments of Wickham and Darcy, she does believe that society has a crucial role in promoting virtue. Austen has a profound sense that individuals are social beings and that their happiness is found through relationships with others. According to critic Richard Simpson, Austen has a "thorough consciousness that man is a social being, and that apart from society there is not even the individual."

Virtue

Austen's novels unite Aristotelian and Christian conceptions of virtue. She sees human life as purposeful and believes that human beings must guide their appetites and desires through their use of reason. Elizabeth's folly in her misjudgments of Darcy and Wickham is that her vanity has prevented her from reasoning objectively. Lydia seems almost completely devoid of virtue because she has never trained herself to discipline her passions or formed her judgment such that she is capable of making sound moral decisions. Human happiness is found by living a life in accordance with human dignity, which is a life in accordance with virtue. Self-knowledge has a central place in the acquisition of virtue, as it is a prerequisite for moral improvement. Darcy and Elizabeth are only freed of their pride and prejudice when their dealings with one another help them to see their faults and spur them to improve.

Genesis and Critical Appraisal

Pride and Prejudice, published in 1813, is Jane's Austen's earliest work, and in some senses also one of her most mature works.
Austen began writing the novel in 1796 at the age of twenty-one, under the title First Impressions. The original version of the novel was probably in the form of an exchange of letters. Austen's father had offered he manuscript for publication in 1797, but the publishing company refused to even consider it. Shortly after completing First Impressions, Austen began writing Sense and Sensibility, which was not published until 1811. She also wrote some minor works during that time, which were later expanded into full novels.
Between 1810 and 1812 Pride and Prejudice was rewritten for publication. While the original ideas of the novel come from a girl of 21, the final version has the literary and thematic maturity of a thirty-five year old woman who has spent years painstakingly drafting and revising, as is the pattern with all of Austen's works.
Pride and Prejudice is usually considered to be the most popular of Austen's novels.

Adapatations

Movies and Television series

Period

Pride and Prejudice (movie, 1940)
Pride and Prejudice (tv, 1949)
Pride and Prejudice (tv series, 1952)
Pride and Prejudice (tv series, 1958)
Pride and Prejudice (tv series, 1967)
Pride and Prejudice (tv series, 1980)
Pride and Prejudice (tv series, 1985)
Pride and Prejudice (movie, 2005)

Modern Adaptations

Pride and Prejudice: a Latter Day Comedy (movie, 2003)
Bride and Prejudice (movie, 2004)

Novels

Sequels

Assembly such as this, an - Fitzwilliam Darcy Gentleman, Book 1 (Pamela Aidan, 2003)
Bar Sinister, the - Pride and Prejudice Continues (Linda Berdoll, 1999)
Letters from Pemberley: A Continuation of Jane Austen (Jane Dawkins, 1999)
Mr Darcy's Daughters (Elizabeth Aston, 2003)
Presumption: an Entertainment (Julia Barrett, 1993)

Corsets and Cravats