TRI SUTYOSO H.

907222407117
FINAL TERM-PROSE II

ANALYZING PRIDE AND PREJUDICE ON PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

Pride and Prejudice is Jane Austens first convinced masterwork in 1813. The book
pointed up on the Bennet family and also the effort of the Bennet daughters: Elizabeth, Jane, and
Lydia to find the most appropriate husbands for them. Austen enlightened the issue of husband
seeking and marriage in sort of materialistic society. She satirized the attitudes of the rural
middle and upper-middle classes. Indeed, marriage became the first topic which is discussed.
Yet, there is another topic which is more interesting; it is the title itself, Pride and Prejudice.
Elizabeth, a spirited girl, is prejudiced against the wealthy landowner Fitzwilliam Darcy,
hatred his lofty attitudes and pride. The author framed more details about Elizabeth and Darcy
instead of the other characters.
Before going to the further analysis, first I want to describe the character of Elizabeth and
Darcy. Darcy is commonly serious and formal, but he is actually uncomplicated, obvious, and
self-possessed. Though he is intelligent and very firm in his judgment, he actually kept away
from arrogance. Yet he has recognized his behavior and his style explicitly. It is made easier to
anyone who valued him as a man who has bad-mannered. Followed by, Elizabeth is an
intelligent too. But she is so humorous when talking to others. She is so bright to play words in
an argumentative speech. Comparing to her sisters, she is totally different since she always
challenge others with her argument. But then her argument will reflect her own changing and
understanding.

From Encarta dictionary, pride means feeling of superiority. It showed by an arrogant

attitude who believed, even excessively, that he or she is better than others. Then prejudice
means opinion formed beforehand. It is like a preformed opinion, usually an unfavorable one,
based on insufficient knowledge, irrational feelings, or inaccurate stereotype. By seeing those
meaning, the word pride in Pride and Prejudice can also be recognized as self-respect when we
talked about pride, it is surely about our understanding of ourselves and also our position in
society. We think what we are then we perform our pride. In society, it is not essentially an awful
characteristic. And pride is different from vanity. Vanity is an excessive pride and it is more
about how people perceive us. Very often, they considered vanity as unpleasant manner. Pride is
simply respecting our higher talent, education, or position in life; this is not wrong if there is no
sign to show the arrogance. Yet pride which directs to superiority made us tends to be arrogant
and also guide into vanity. Vanity and pride is become bias. Then I am questioning something.
How the attitude of Darcys pride influenced Elizabeths prejudice? How her family and society
react to the Darcys behavior? By this then, how society and others can influence a person? Are
Elizabeth and Darcy less prideful at the end of the book than at the beginning?
Mr. Darcy danced only once with Mrs. Hurst and once with Miss Bingley, declined being introduced to any
other lady, and spent the rest of the evening in walking about the room, speaking occasionally to one of his
own party. His character was decided. He was the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world, and
everybody hoped that he would never come there again. Amongst the most violent against him was Mrs.
Bennet, whose dislike of his general behaviour was sharpened into particular resentment by his having
slighted one of her daughters.

First, I see the circumstance in the ballroom, when Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy come at
the first time to the Netherfield, Mr. Darcy is so snobbish, He is too pride of himself. He did not
want to dance with the woman that he did not know. He just danced twice with Mrs. Hurst and
Miss Bingley. He rejected any woman who invited him to dance. He is too proud of himself.
Moreover, his manners made Mrs. Bennet disliked him.

Which do you mean? and turning round he looked for a moment at Elizabeth, till catching her eye, he
withdrew his own and coldly said: She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me; I am in no
humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men. You had better
return to your partner and enjoy her smiles, for you are wasting your time with me. (14-15)

When Bingley uttered Darcy that Elizabeth is beautiful as well as Jane, Elizabeths big
sister, Darcy showed his disagreeable statement. Even, Bingley is also asked him to dance with
her. He saw Elizabeth from eyes to eyes then he irritated her with saying that she is not beautiful
enough to attract him even though Darcy also stated that Elizabeth is tolerable. It is kind of
irrespective act from Darcy to Elizabeth. From that point, I examined prejudice was also a
problem for Darcy in that he disliked Elizabeth in the beginning because of her low social status,
poverty, and socially inappropriate family.
"His pride," said Miss Lucas, "does not offend me so much as pride often does, because there is an excuse
for it. One cannot wonder that so very fine a young man, with family, fortune, everything in his favour,
should think highly of himself. If I may so express it, he has a right to be proud."
"That is very true," replied Elizabeth,"and I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine."
(26)

In this talk, Miss Lucas told Elizabeth that if you have everything going for you, you have a right
to be proud. Elizabeth agreed with Charlotte, but the real problem is that Mr. Darcy offended her!
Elizabeth is just as proud, even if not as rich. Elizabeth had her own problems with prejudice
with which to deal. Darcy's cold arrogance and snobbery prejudiced her from him from the
beginning and it took Elizabeth a lot longer time to overcome her prejudices than it did Darcy.
This was because Elizabeth was a very caring person and did not like the things that Darcy had
said about her and her family.
"Perhaps that is not possible for anyone. But it has been the study of my life to avoid those weaknesses
which often expose a strong understanding to ridicule."
"Such as vanity and pride."
"Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride--where there is a real superiority of mind, pride will be always
under good regulation." (85)

Here, Darcy talked about vanity and proud. He added that two of them are different.
According to his saying, vanity is a weakness yet pride is the real superiority of mind and pride

will be always considered in a fine rule. It can be seen in Darcy's pride in the first excerpt, it
leaded to prejudice and Elizabeth's prejudice stems from a pride in her own perception. Darcy
warned Elizabeth against her own prejudice conclusions and reminded her that her experience
was limited. Darcy is not just a representative of a society that primarily values wealth and
consequence, as Elizabeth initially saw him, but he is also of a larger society. The heroine raises
her conclusion as new experience justifies, in the case of Darcy and Wickham altering their
opinion.
"I have made no such pretension. I have faults enough, but they are not, I hope, of understanding. My
temper I dare not vouch for. It is, I believe, too little yielding--certainly too little for the convenience of the
world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of other so soon as I ought, nor their offenses against myself.
My feelings are not puffed about with every attempt to move them. My temper would perhaps be called
resentful. My good opinion once lost, is lost forever." (85)

From that excerpt, Darcy explained about his temper. I assumed that it deals with, his
involvement, his feeling, and his character. Elizabeth and Darcy start by disliking one another
but intelligence turns dislike and disregard into love and leads then to a greater understanding of
themselves and others. Pride and prejudice are not always faults. The pride and prejudice shown
in this novel through these characters reveal some do the self-respect and intelligence that they
posses. Though Elizabeth's prejudices were often influences by others, she managed to look past
it as she learned that Darcy did in fact have an immense measure of pride. However, the pride in
which he possessed was that of a good standing.
"That is a failing indeed!" cried Elizabeth. "Implacable resentment is a shade in a character. But you have
chosen your fault well. I really cannot laugh at it. You are safe from me."
"There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil--a natural defect, which not
even the best education can overcome."
"And your defect is to hate everybody."
"And yours," he replied with a smile, "is willfully to misunderstand them." (85-86)

Elizabeth argued that Darcy is so proud of himself. He thinks of nobody but himself; he replied
that she intentionally misunderstands people. I think these mutual character analyses are
followed by their feeling, which is love. Here is the proof:
My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love
you. (286)

Surprisingly, in chapter 34, Darcy said such a contrasting statement with her impression
to Elizabeth. He has changed his prejudice towards Elizabeth directly. He truly cannot deny
himself that he is really loved Elizabeth. He also could not keep his feeling inside his heart
without confessing to her.
From the above analysis, I really agree that the title describes the underlying theme to the
book. Pride and Prejudice were both influences on the characters and their relationships. Darcy
alienated himself from the others at first because of his intense pride. His prejudice against the
Bennet's because of their poverty was also something that he would have to overcome. For
Elizabeth, her prejudice against Darcy came from his snobbery. It caused her to not see his
feelings for her and to believe whatever Wickham said.
Darcy was forced to deal with his prejudice when he fell in love with Elizabeth. This was
not easy for him to do but it was necessary. His snobbery was opposed by his love for Elizabeth.
In the end, he overcame his pride and gave in to his feelings by marrying her in spite of her and
her family's shortcomings. When given the chance, Elizabeth loved to hear about how awful
Darcy was, such as when she met Wickham, who was eager to slander Darcy. However,
Elizabeth gradually came around and began to fall in love with Darcy, but it was difficult for her
to overcome the prejudices that had been imposed on her by both herself and Darcy.

To make such a conclusion, Darcys attitude of being pride really made a kind of
misunderstanding between him and Elizabeth. Indeed, his pride rightly affected the Elizabeths
prejudice. Even, Elizabeths family, particularly her mother thinks that Darcy is snobbish and
arrogant. She thinks that Darcy is the most unpleasant person. For sure, society and others also
persuaded a person, like Elizabeth who is provoked by Wickham. Of course then, Darcy realized
eventually that he was going to have to change. He tried to look at his behavior and analyze why
he acted as he did. For Elizabeth, she needed to overcome her prejudices about Darcy and see
through his snobbery. In the end, all the pride and prejudice was dealt with and Darcy and
Elizabeth were left in love.

REFERENCES
Austen, Jane. 1994. Pride and Prejudice. United Kingdom: Wordsworth Classics. (Online),
(http://www.planetpdf.com/), accessed on August 31st 2010.
Janani. 2009. Pride and Prejudice. (Online),
(http://humanscience.wikia.com/wiki/Pride_and_Prejudice), accessed on November 10th
2010.
Reaske, Christopher Russel. 1966. How To Analyze Fiction. New Jersey: Monarch Press.