Lady Catherine vs Elizabeth and Darcy

    The character of Lady Catherine de Bourgh is perhaps the closest thing that "Pride and Prejudice" has to an explicit antagonist. She actively works against Elizabeth and Darcy's marriage, and is generally a rude and conceited person in all interactions portrayed with her. The interactions between Elizabeth and Lady Catherine are utilized as a device in the novel to show the progression of Elizabeth's character growth throughout the novel, and how she overcomes her fatal flaw of prejudice.

    Elizabeth's first impression of Lady Catherine comes in the form of Mr. Collins's descriptions of her when he first visits Longbourn. Collins's praise proves ineffectual however, as when later speaking to Wickham, Elizabeth states that she suspects "that in spite of her being his patroness, she is an arrogant, conceited woman," an assessment that Wickham agrees with (Ch. 16). Upon her first physical interaction with Lady Catherine later in the novel, Elizabeth's first instinct is that "Lady Catherine [was] exactly what [Wickham] had represented." (Ch. 29) This prejudice is seemingly borne out over the course of Elizabeth's visit with Lady Catherine. She is continually presented as being arrogant and unlikable, and Alcott's tone similarly pokes fun at Lady Catherine, mocking her ego and overblown sense of self importance. The visit serves to demonstrate Elizabeth's prejudice, particularly since Lady Catherine is closely associated with Darcy as his aunt, and at the climax of the visit, Elizabeth rejects Darcy's proposal founded on the very prejudices that she holds against him and Catherine.

    Although it is humorous and entertaining to mock Lady Catherine's ego when Elizabeth is merely a passive observer of it, eventually the two women's interests come into direct conflict. Lady Catherine hears rumors that Elizabeth and Darcy desire to be married, and comes to visit Elizabeth and warn her to stay away from her nephew. When Lady Catherine first visits, Elizabeth wonders "How could I ever think her like her nephew?" (Ch. 56) This explicitly states that while Elizabeth had been proven wrong in her prejudice of Darcy, Lady Catherine continues to be a detestable specimen of a human being. The contrast between the two aristocrats makes it even clearer how unfounded Elizabeth's prejudice against Darcy was. Her passive aggressive dialogue with Lady Catherine also serves to contrast her "lively sportive manner" of talking to Darcy (Ch. 61). In the weeks following the visit from Lady Catherine, Elizabeth accepts Darcy's second proposal, and the two are married, a very different outcome from the end of the first visit with Lady Catherine.

    In the final paragraphs of the book, however, Elizabeth has apparently overcome this dislike of Lady Catherine. Alcott writes that it was with Elizabeth's persuasion the Darcy "sought a reconciliation" with Lady Catherine, ultimately resulting in her visiting the couple at Pemberley (Ch. 61). Elizabeth's decision to encourage some form of reconciliation with the woman who has continually proved unlikeable and counter to any of Elizabeth's desires indicates that at the end of the book Elizabeth has become a different person, someone who recognizes that part of life in high society is accepting interactions with those you dislike. Perhaps Elizabeth is just grateful for Lady Catherine for showing her that comparably Darcy wasn't actually that bad.