In the novel Pride and Prejudice there are many interesting characters and that is what makes the book so good in my opinion, but today I am going to focus on Elizabeth and Darcy. Elizabeth’s and Darcy’s characteristics sway and change over the course of the novel. Elizabeth’s characteristics at the beginning are that she is a little to prejudice,let her own opinions get in the way of her judgement, stubborn, loving, and is proud to be who she is and would not change for anyone.
Her characteristics slightly change towards the end of the novel and are that she is just the right amount of prejudice, loving, doesn’t let her opinions over run what is actually true, more reasonable, and still proud to be who she is. Darcy’s characteristics at the beginning are that he is haughty, elitist, also a bit prejudice, and he also lets his opinion of others get in the way. Towards the end his characteristics change quite a bit more than Elizabeths , he is generous, overcomes his pride, no longer thinks that social class is everything, and is not so quick to judge people.
By the author doing this I think its some what of a message to us showing how people will change through time and we shouldn’t have the same opinion about someone forever. When we first get introduced to Elizabeth its a bit difficult to judge her character, but it really stands out that she is a loving person. When they all go to the ball and Elizabeth is sitting and everyone else is dancing she doesn’t dwell on that fact but she notices that her sister Jane and Mr. Bingley are hitting it off and she is happy for her and she shows this when they get home.
Jane and Elizabeth were talking about the night and Jane said she was happy that she got asked to dance a second time by Mr. Bingley and Elizabeth replied “What could be more natural than his asking you again? He could not help seeing that you were about five times as pretty as every other women in the room”. To me Elizabeth conversing with her sister about how good Jane’s night was and how Elizabeth was happy for her, rather than talking to Jane about how bad her night went and how she was disgusted with Darcy shows she is really caring and doesn’t put herself in front of everyone else.
At the ball we also get to see some of Elizabeths prejudice come out when she over hears Mr. Bingley and Darcy talking, Bingley has the idea that Darcy dance with Elizabeth but he declines saying “she is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me” Elizabeth after hearing this instantly does not like Darcy. This is understandable that she would dislike him after that comment but Darcy could have been having a bad night he didn’t really know anyone there and was out of his comfort zone.
Instead of Elizabeth putting that comment on the back burner until she got acquainted with him and then making her judgement of him, was prejudice. We first see that Elizabeth’s opinions are ruining her judgement when she was talking to Wickham about Darcy. Elizabeth is very smart and very good at judging peoples personality sometimes and you think after listening to someone bad mouth another person you would not believe everything that came out of their mouth but she was so blind on her own opinion of him that it sounded perfect to her.
I must say though that Mr. Wickham is very good at playing the innocent one and making it sound like he can do no bad and making others look bad, it was very clear when Elizabeth said “ He deserves to be publicly disgraced” and he responded very smart with “ Some time or other he will be — but it shall not be by me. Till I can forget his father,I can ever defy or expose him”. That was perfect on Wickham’s part because he basically said I hope so but I could do no such thing because I’m a good man and liked his father, very condescending.
Darcy’s characteristics were very easy to pin point right away, when we got introduced to him it was easy to tell that he was very haughty. The first time it was very clear that he was very haughty was when they were at the first ball and Mr. Bingley was trying to get him to dance and he replied with “I certainly shall not. You know how I detest it, unless I am particularly acquainted with my partner. At such an assembly as this it would be insupportable. Your sisters are engaged, and there is not another woman in the room whom it would not be a punishment to me to stand up with.
I don’t know how anyone could really think like that and be so self centered. Darcy showed he was elitist when he was worried about marrying Elizabeth because they were not apart of the same social class and he was always acting like social class was everything in the beginning of the novel. We start to see Elizabeth’s characteristics change through out the novel. Elizabeth starts to be not so prejudice against Darcy when she hears from both sides and how other people see Darcy, up until this point Elizabeth was jus going off of what Wickham had told her.
The housekeeper said “I have never known a cross word from him in my life, and I have known him ever since he was four years old. ” to Elizabeth about Darcy, Elizabeth was astonished that someone would say something so good about him because she thought he was a horrid man. This was the point when she stared to change her characteristics, this really opened her eyes on the way she viewed him and would be open minded to different opinions about him.
She eventually sees that her opinions were wrong and they would no longer play a role in her judgement when she was with Darcy. Elizabeth shows us that she is very proud and doesn’t care what social class she is in and will not change for anyone when she has a conversation with Lady Catherine. Lady Catherine was asking Elizabeth if her and Darcy were engaged and when Elizabeth finally answered, Lady Catherine was happy to hear they were not engaged and Lady Catherine said “And will you promise me, never to enter into such an engagement?
Elizabeth quickly responded with”I will make no promise of the kind. ” Lady Catherine was not pleased with this answer and said she was not going to leave until Elizabeth had promised not to get engaged with Darcy, Elizabeth wasn’t going to stand down she wasn’t going to make that promise. This showed that it doesn’t matter to Elizabeth who you are she is going to stand up for what she believes in.
She also showed us that she was proud to be her self when the letter came from Mr. Collins saying that her and Darcy need to get married and Elizabeths dad reacted strongly and did not agree with the letter at all, this clearly didn’t stop Elizabeth from doing what she wanted and thought was right. That had to be hard for her to disagree with her parents and do something she wanted to do and that her parents did not agree with. To say the least her characteristics started to change because of Darcy, Elizabeth’s and Darcy”s characteristics were butting heads and they started to change a bit to fit each other with out even knowing it.
