Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice

1. Marriage

   • 'It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of good fortune must be in want of a wife.' - ironic opening line
   • Ch6: 'Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance' - Charlotte Lucas
   • Ch6: 'A lady's admiration is very rapid; It jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.'
   • Ch22: 'I ask only a comfortable home'

2. Wealth

   • Ch1: 'a single man of large fortune' --> 'what a fine thing for our girls'
   • Ch33: 'there are not many in my rank of life who can afford to marry without some attention to money'
   • entailment of the estate --> importance of male heirs in Regency England

3. Pride

   • 'Ch3: 'He was the proudest and most disagreeable man in the world.'
   • Ch15: 'Made him altogether a mixture of pride and obsequiousness, self-importance and humility.'
   • Ch3: 'She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me'

4. Prejudice

   • Ch36:'with a strong prejudice against everything he might say'

5. Class & social expectations

   • Miss Bingley & Lady Catherine = gatekeepers to upper class
     • Ch29: 'She likes to have the distinction of rank preserved' (LC)
       • Ch56:'Miss Bennet, do you know who I am?'
     • Ch29: 'No governess! How is that possible?'
   • Ch35: 'total want of propriety'-Bennet family
     • Ch37: Jane had been 'deprived, by the folly and decorum of her own family!'
   • Piano playing, conversation skills and propriety => good breeding

6. Transforming judgments

   • Ch36: 'Till this moment I never knew myself'; blind --> self-aware
   • Darcy's letter --> 'gradually all her former prejudices had been removed'
   • Ch 40: 'One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it'