Too Much Pride, Too Much Prejudice?

Too Much Pride, Too Much Prejudice?

In everyday life, people are affected by bias and, also, the guilt of bias against others. Bias can be cultural, racial, or personal, but the primary basis for all bias is ignorance. It is believed that women are the lesser of the sexes. Society believes that in this time period that women always need to get married and social standings are held by wealth. Pride and Prejudice is an historically accurate depiction of the time. Jane Austen, in Pride and Prejudice, demonstrates, through Elizabeth Bennet’s actions towards others, that Ms. Bennet holds many biases against other characters based on her prideful spirit and tendency to prejudge others.

Mr. Collins, a clergyman intended to inherit Mr.Bennet’s property, offers his hand in marriage to Elizabeth because he knows that the Bennet’s want to keep the property in the family. Elizabeth rejects Mr. Collins’s proposal because her pride will not allow her to marry a man she does not love. Elizabeth replies to Collins’s proposal:

Accept my thanks for the compliment you are paying me, I am very sensible of the honour of your proposals, but it is impossible for me to do otherwise than decline them . . . could not make me happy, and I am convinced that I am the last women in the world who would make you so. (Austen 74)

Mr. Collins’s love interest in Elizabeth is truly sincere. His proposal is more than a proposal of security. Elizabeth’s pride, in her beliefs, is one of the primary reasons that she rejects Collins’s offer.

Elizabeth is clearly not in love with Collins. She is willing to take the risk of rejecting this proposal and waiting for another one from someone else. Even with her denial of his proposal, Mr. Collins does not accept