How would life be different if you lived in the early 1800s in a small town of England? How did the courtship rituals exist at that time? These questions are the main subjects of the book, Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, who wrote the book about the time that these things took place. When you open to the first page and begin reading, the Bennet family is instantly introduced, along with Mr. Bingley. The Bennet family , which is composed of parents who generally have opposite opinions, and four daughters, each with their own special abilities, play the main role, especially the second daughter Elizabeth.
The whole story is narrated through her point of view, so the opinions of other people that eventually become your own are taken from whom Elizabeth is close to and whom she dislikes. That brings us to the other characters, namely the Bingley family and Mr. Darcy. The Bingley family represents a very wealthy family, whose son would be a prize for any girl, and who is deeply interested in Jane, the eldest, beautiful Bennet daughter. The family though doesn’t believe the Bennet’s to be of a high enough standard, and move their brother to London to distract him with Mr. Darcy’s sister, who supposedly was as unlikable as Mr. Darcy himself.
Disliked by many because of his pompousness and pride, Mr. Darcy ruined his chances with Elizabeth for himself. In his own desire, he would have easily married her, she even hated to dance with the man. This type of love triangle, with one person liking a certain someone, but having to settle with someone else, happens throughout the book, just with different people. Most of the time all the characters were either in the a household or at a formal party where these loves, courtships, and dislikes began.
This form of settings in the book I found rather boring, and it made it very difficult for me to continue reading, though I now know it is Jane Austen style to not have much action but to develop more of the character’s personalities. This book is a great suggestion if you love to really understand a character and her feelings towards others. The neat idea is what Austen did with the title of the book. With this book, “Pride and Prejudice,” and also with “Sense and Sensibility,” she took two characters and applied the two characteristics, one to each of them.
In this book, I believe wanted Jane and Elizabeth Bennet to represent pride, and Mr. Darcy and the Bingley sisters to be prejudice. The Bennet sisters worked through many trials and tribulations, between a predicted husband leaving without keeping in touch, to being proposed to by Mr. Collins whom Elizabeth dispised and had to graciously turn down more than once, and still kept their heads up and were respectable to people. Meanwhile, the Bennet sisters had this fake friendship with Elizabeth, while underneath they dispised her for being of a “lower” class.
Mr. Darcy overall won the label prejudiced, for he always believed himself a bit higher than the others, especially because he knew Lady Catherine. I do find this interesting and a very creative idea, but it is one of the only things I enjoyed about the book. So overall, Jane Austen’s creation “Pride and Prejudice” is a very good historical book, and I know is one of the classics, but as I said before, the action is very slow, she develops characters and feelings much more than anything else. I suggest the book if you like that sort of style, overall it is very well written.