Pride and Prejudice: Inescapable Interconnectedness

 

Pride and prejudice are key flaws that certain characters must overcome in the novel. I’ve seen many people discussing how different characters (like Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth) are either pride or prejudice—one or the other. However, I believe each character that suffers from one also suffers from the other, as pride and prejudice are so inherently connected.

Mr. Darcy is not only prideful, as he is so often claimed to be, but also prejudiced. He is arguably the most evident character in these flaws. Despite his mountain of wealth and being “much handsomer than Mr. Bingley,” (8), he manages to earn the hatred of the room in being “the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world” (8) with his manners. His prejudice against Elizabeth is evident to the reader when he believes that “were it not for the inferiority of her connections, he should be in some danger” (38) of truly falling in love with her. Even in his proposal to her, he dwells on “his sense of her inferiority” (131), referring to her and her family's societal position. It is clear that Darcy not only embodies pride, but prejudice.

            Elizabeth, surprisingly enough, is in the same state as Darcy. Although Darcy is evident to all in his haughtiness, Elizabeth only truly despises him so because of his remarks towards her, stating that “I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine” (15). She greatly dislikes being thought of as inferior. She is “in agonies” (72) when at a dinner with Mr. Darcy, Mr. Collins, the Bingleys, and the Lucases, and her family seemed to have “made an agreement to expose themselves as much as they could” (73). She is clearly prideful and wishes herself and her family to appear respectable and well-bred. Additionally, she is prejudiced against Mr. Darcy. This is evident that despite the recommendations from Mr. Bingley, the Gardiners, and other reports of Darcy’s good behavior, she refuses to reconsider and continues to believe in his atrociousness and is led further astray by Wickham’s lies. Although only hearing one side of the story and disregarding the other, she tells doubtful Jane that “one knows exactly what to think” (62) on the issue. She does not hesitate to believe that Mr. Darcy could have left Wickham in such a position and that it’s possible he is “no man of common humanity” (62). The reader finds out that this is false and that Darcy did no such thing, thus making Elizabeth’s prejudice apparent.

Although both Darcy and Elizabeth are blinded by pride and prejudice, they are able to overcome these flaws with each other. Darcy is taken aback when Elizabeth tells him he could have “behaved in a more gentleman-like manner” (134) in proposing to her, and how upon meeting him, his manners affirmed her of his “arrogance, [his] conceit, and [his] selfish disdain of the feelings of others” (134). In Elizabeth’s case, it is also only after Darcy’s letter does she realize she has “courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away” (144) despite “[priding herself] on [her] discernment” (144).  After these shocks to their pride, they begin to unlearn it, as well as unlearning their prejudice, allowing them to see the goodness in each other and fall in love happily. This development certainly shows their growth as characters, but also how they are both guilty of having these flaws.  

One can rarely be prejudiced against another without thinking of oneself as better in some way, thus making pride an inescapable consequence. One cannot be prideful without thinking of others as less in some way, regardless of evidence, thus making prejudice an equally inescapable consequence. To claim that characters are either one or the other simplifies the complexity of these flaws, as they overlap and connect in many ways.