First Impressions in Pride and Prejudice

The narrative describes how the prejudices and first impressions (especially those dealing with pride) of the main characters change throughout the novel, focusing on those of Elizabeth Bennet. She had a smart first impression about Mr. Collins and how absurdly self-serving he is and about Lady Catherine de Bourgh and how proud and snobbish she is. Her first impressions of Wickham and Darcy steer her in opposites which ironically so, they do not like each other. Wickham is first thought to be a gentleman by all. His good looks and his easy manner hits Elizabeth without question. Elizabeth and many of the other characters see Darcy as proud. His pride is shown here, “The gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which tuned the tide of his popularity; for he as discovered to be proud, to be above his company, and above being pleased; and not all his large estate in Derbyshire could then save him from having a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared with his friend.”