Marriage In Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice

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In the 1800s, marriage was less about love and more about increasing one's social status. Jane Austen conveys this to the readers in her novel Pride and Prejudice using the Bennet family and their 5 daughters. The main character experienced much change throughout the novel by interacting with Darcy, her family, and many other characters. At the start of the novel, Elizabeth takes pride in her ability to judge a person's character when she first meets them. When first introduced to Mr. Darcy at the ball, Elizabeth saw him as a cold, proud snob. Mr. Darcy thought he was too good to dance with anyone at the party, and when Mr. Bingley offered him to dance with Elizabeth Mr. Darcy claimed she was “not handsome enough to tempt.” In chapter 15, Elizabeth calls Mr. Darcy “very disagreeable” while talking to Mr. Wickham. This reinforces her original thought on Mr. Darcy as he was rude to Mr. Wickham with no reasonable explanation. She saw Mr. Darcy as only being prideful, which he was, however, Elizabeth’s original impression she soon realized was partially false. When Lydia ran away with Mr. Wickham later in the novel, Mr. Darcy convinced Mr. Wickham to elope with Lydia to avoid the Bennet name from going to trash. If Mr. Darcy was truly a proud snob, he would not have sought out to get Mr. Wickham to marry Lydia. Once Elizabeth learns of…show more content…
Darcy had done she regretted being so prejudiced toward Mr. Darcy. This realization from Elizabeth allowed her to start developing feeling toward Mr. Darcy. In fact, Elizabeth said that she realized that her feelings toward Mr. Darcy first occurred when Touring Pemberley, Mr. Darcy's
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