Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

¶ … Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen investigates the way in which vanity and prepossession can affect the relationships between people. Not accidentally, the main protagonists of the story, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, are two very witty and levelheaded persons who pride themselves with their own judgment at first, but end up feeling ashamed of their blinding vanity later on. As such, both undergo an important development throughout the novel, going from prejudice to true understanding and from self-love to mutual love.

Elizabeth's dislike for Darcy is obviously grounded in his rejection of her soon after they first meet. Her vanity is hurt when she overhears him say that he would not dance with her because she is neither handsome nor interesting enough, and after that, she gradually grows more and more prejudiced against him until she lays as much guilt as possible on his account.

Darcy on the other hand, is prejudiced against Elizabeth because of her family and her social inferiority but quite soon forms a very good opinion of her character. Both of their transformations begin after Darcy's first marriage proposal. Elizabeth indignantly refuses Darcy because she persuaded herself that he was the cause of her sister's separation from Bingley, and of all of Wickham's misfortunes.

Darcy's honest confession of his own prejudice against her only enrages her more as she sees in them a token of his extreme vanity: "why [...] [did you choose] to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character?"(Austen, 125) the confrontation brings to light all the hidden tensions between them, and the frustrations connected with their pride and their partial thinking. However, the letter that Elizabeth receives from Darcy the next day is the actual point where her transformation begins.

She realizes how wrong she has been in her judgment of Darcy and how blinded by vanity, instead of being blinded by love: "She grew absolutely ashamed of herself.

Of neither Darcy nor Wickham could she think without feeling she had been blind, partial, prejudiced, absurd."(Austen, 129) the grounds of her preference for Wickham are now clearly revealed, as she herself realizes her prejudice against Darcy began with his rejection of her: "Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance..."(Austen, 130) the extent of the transformation that ensue is given by her realization that she had not known herself up to that moment, because she was completely blinded by her prejudice and her pride: "Till this moment I never knew myself."(Austen, 130) Step-by-step she tries to reconstruct her feelings for Wickham and the basis of her preference for him, but she discovers that she immediately believed the latter's false confessions only because she was ready to believe anything ill of the man who had humiliated her so on the night of the ball.

Indeed, in her conversations with Wickham, Elizabeth was extremely superficial, appreciating him because of his pleasant manners and positive attitude towards her, and omitting any other considerations: "Elizabeth honoured him for such feelings, and thought him handsomer than ever as he expressed them."(Austen, 36) Elizabeth had been definitely wrong in her opinions of both Darcy and Wickham, but had been right about the other man who proposed to her, Mr. Collins.

Her match with Collins would have helped the family's situation since he was supposed to inherit their property after Mr. Bennet's death, but Elizabeth dismisses the proposal immediately, being persuaded that neither of them would have been happy and that it would be a mistake: "You could not make _me_ happy, and I am convinced that I am the last woman in the world who could make you so."(Austen, 89) in this episode, Elizabeth is true to her own feelings and unprejudiced.

She is witty as usual, but honest and she demonstrates that she believes in marrying for love. This version of Elizabeth can be identified in many other episodes, but in none where Darcy is also involved. Although she is not prejudiced, she is still proud however and refuses to marry Collins also because he emphasizes that he is doing her a favor, just as Darcy will do later.

The ultimate stage of her transformation begins when she is at Pemberly, and she sees Darcy again with the knowledge that she has misjudged him terribly. Meanwhile, she had also found out that he had been the secret benefactor of Lydia and Wickham by.