Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice

All human beings share a common defect among each other. That is that we all have a sense of pride in ourselves. Pride is not what other people think of us it is more what we think of ourselves. It is the thing humans use to make them selves feel better then others, to give themselves a higher feeling of importance. In the book Pride and Prejudice the author Jane Austen shows pride in her book through Mr. Darcy’s actions, Mr. Collins refusal to believe Elizabeth’s rejection, and Elizabeth’s feelings of her self.

In the book Mr. Darcy shows a great amount of pride at the beginning of the book. At the first ball in the book Mr. Darcy shows his pride by scorning every one he meets that is not in his social circle. This is proven by what he says to Mr. Bingley about Elizabeth. He says “She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me” (13).By saying this Mr. Darcy proves the pride in himself. He believes that since he is so much higher class then Elizabeth that she isn’t worthy of him so he puts her aside. He further proves the pride in himself by finding faults in other people. Since he has so much pride in himself he believes that everyone is inferior and so he finds faults in them. For example, he says Elizabeth is not handsome enough to tempt him and that Jane smiles too much. Mr. Darcy also shows pride by letting his pride get in the way of his love for Elizabeth. If it were not for his pride he and Elizabeth would have found out that they make a good match much quicker and avoided a lot of trouble.

The theme of pride is further illustrated in this book by Mr. Collins. Mr. Collins decides that he wants to marry one of the women of the estate to lessen the difficulty of entailment of the estate. He turns he attention to Elizabeth and after a short while asks to marry her. When Elizabeth turns him down he replies by saying “That it is usual with young ladies to reject the addresses of the man whom they secretly mean to accept, when he first applies for their favor” (106). By not believing Elizabeth’s refusal the first time, even though she showed clearly that she meant no, he shows his pride in himself. He also beliefs high of himself so when he was refused in stead of believing Elizabeth and taking the fault on himself he thinks that the reason for her saying