Impressions in Pride and Prejudice

¶ … Impressions in Pride and Prejudice

First impressions are often considered the most important, and though this often proves a false notion, there are also many instances in life and literature where it remains very true. Jane Austen's novels are known for the quick and often instant judgments and classifications that the characters make of one another, so first impressions are often the only ones these characters make. Even in instances in Austen's novels when first impressions prove false -- indeed, perhaps especially in these situations -- these first impressions are of great importance. They provide insight not only into the characters of whom the impressions are formed, but even more so they provide insight into the characters who form the impressions. In this way, certain prejudices of class and individuals are revealed, with important consequences not only for the plot of Jane Austen's novels, but also for their meaning overall.

Of all of Austen's novels, the importance of first impressions and their affect on character relationships -- and though these relationships, their affect on plot -- is perhaps most clearly illustrated in Pride and Prejudice. In this novel, the five Bennett sisters are all looking for -- or trying to avoid -- husbands, and the opinions they form of the men they meet from their first impressions of them are hugely influential in the outcome of various romances and intrigues. The plot of an Austen novel is almost always driven by characters rather than events, and because first impressions have such a large effect on the characters in the novel, the necessarily have a huge effect on the plot as well. Whether the first impressions the women form lead to positive or negative opinions of the men whom they are beholding, the effects of these impressions tend to be immediate and profound, both in terms of the relationships the women form and subsequently on the actions they take and the overall course of the novel.

First impressions can even be made without actually meeting a person, and in fact this is how Pride and Prejudice opens. The first line of the novel, in fact, contains an assumption about just such an unmet character -- characters, really, although it is applied directly to one specific person -- which drives that action of the novel almost in its entirety: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife" (Austen, 5). Though it is the unnamed third-person narrator that speaks this opening line, it can be safely assumed that this is the first thought that springs to Mrs. Bennett's mind when she hears of her new neighbor, Mr. Bingley. She begins to form an impression of him as not only a suitable but ideal husband for her daughters, which one doesn't particularly matter, before she has done anything other than heard of him from a neighbor. This impression she instantly develops proves a huge force in driving and changing the relationships in the play, and the general assumption made in the first line of the novel also leads to many other similar first impressions, all of which have an affect on character and plot.

Interestingly, Mr. Bingley forms a similar sort of impression of the Bennett girls before he meets them. When visiting Mr. Bennett in his library for the first time, the narrator notes that Mr. Bingley "had entertained hopes of being admitted to a sight of the young ladies, of whose beauty he had heard much" (Austen, 11). Just like Mrs. Bennett and certain of the girls formed opinions of Mr. Bingley even without meeting them, Mr. Bingley has formed his opinions of the girls. This illustrates the way rumors and beliefs work in this novel; first impressions are formed long before there is a rational reason to do so, with some comic and some tragic results.

These two instances of prematurely formed first impressions make up one way in which the "prejudice" of the title is shown in the novel. The characters in this novel are very quick to form opinions of each other, doing so even before they meet each other, and this has a major effect on their relationships. The result of these first two cases of unseen first impressions is actually positive, and fairly quickly resolved -- Jane and Mr. Bingley end up falling in love, proving the correctness of their hastily formed first impressions. These are instances where the affects of first impressions on character relationships are actually beneficial, because they are fulfilled. More often in the novel, however, the gossip and ballroom behavior that tends to lead to first impressions between the characters -- especially the Bennett sisters and the various men they become involved with -- ends with a different twist, sometimes even disaster. First impressions can be dangerous and frustrating when they are wrong.

The first impression that the neighborhood, Elizabeth, and the reader gets of Mr. Darcy is not at all favorable. Seen standing alone and not dancing with any of the women, the admiration of his handsomeness and fortune quickly turns to a belief that he is "proud...and above being pleased," with "a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance...unworthy to be compared with his friend" (Austen, 12). It is Mr. Darcy's actions and others' perceptions of them that lead to this belief, and not any actual conversation with him (though what Elizabeth overhears is certainly personally insulting). This first impression does much to affect other characters' attitudes towards Mr. Darcy, especially Elizabeth's. Becuase of this first impression, the two find each other ta odds for much of the novel, only realizing and admitting late in the action that they love each other.