Pride and Prejudice as an Appropriate Title

In Jane Austen's original draft of Pride and Prejudice, it was titled First Impressions. This title fits the book well considering how frequently characters are judged and judge one another based on their first encounters. Throughout the novel we continuously see this occur. Take for instance, Mr. Darcy's first meeting of Elizabeth. As Mr. Darcy discusses with Mr. Bingley the ladies at the first ball they attend, he speaks of Elizabeth saying, “She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me” (17). This is very clearly only based on his first impression of seeing Elizabeth, and he had not really interacted with her, but it greatly impacted the way he viewed her, and the way Elizabeth viewed Mr. Darcy as she overheard the conversation herself.

However, while the title First Impressions would do well to describe this scene, the title Pride and Prejudice is more fitting considering the way the novel continues from this scene. Mr. Darcy clearly demonstrates a prejudice against Elizabeth and her family throughout the book based on their status in society, and therefore his pride prevents him from pursuing Elizabeth as he becomes more interested and in love with her. While, First Impressions would have been fitting, I prefer the title Pride and Prejudice, because it does well to describe the entirety of the novel and how the judgements from the characters’ first meetings are carried throughout their interactions. Additionally, the title demonstrates the changes in the characters, as Darcy pushes aside his pride and prejudices to instead focus on his love and interest in Elizabeth. 

I also prefer the title Pride and Prejudice to First Impressions, because we see how the first impressions of characters are heavily impacted by both pride and prejudice. We observe the characters adjust their impressions of one another as well, despite their pride or prejudices. In addition to the example of Darcy’s first judgement of Elizabeth, while I read chapter 34, I felt it was a very fitting example of the title of the novel. As Mr. Darcy clearly demonstrates both pride and prejudice in his proposal to Elizabeth. His pride led him to believe he would have success in his proposal, despite including his prejudice against her status and her family. His pride also kept him from apologizing for the way he handled the situation of convincing Mr. Bingley that Jane was not interested and was below his level to be worth further pursuing. 

Mr. Darcy is the main character within the novel to me that stands out as being both prideful and holding many prejudices. While all the characters have some type of pride or prejudice, Mr. Darcy’s are the most clear and obvious. It would be interesting to discuss more what others think of Austen’s decision to change the title and in what scenes or characters it is most noticeable how Austen demonstrates the title as I feel many other scenes and characters would be a strong fit in addition to those previously mentioned.