Book Review: Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Welcome to my book review of the one and only Pride and Prejudice by miss Jane Austen!
Based on Jane’s own first impressions about Tom Lefroy (please watch Becoming Jane if you don’t know who he is), Pride and Prejudice was initially called “First Impressions” — and that’s exactly what the story is about. Mr. Darcy, a wealthy man - whose reserved and non-convenient temper gave him a social image of a disagreeable and proud person — falls in love with Elizabeth Bennet, a lively of mind and as much non-convenient upper middle-class young woman — whose prejudice slows her understanding of Darcy’s true character. It’s, indeed, her tendency to judge on first impressions which makes her unable to have a wider perspective on the truth.
As the chosen title says, it’s a novel which centers itself around the concepts of pride and prejudice, as well as vanity. The first is initially referred to as an immoral quality (of Mr. Darcy’s character); but as the plot develops, so does the notion of pride, which becomes an esteemed self-regard — confirming the early quote “a person may be proud without being vain”. This latter, as we are taught, is the image we want to give of ourselves, and it’s Elizabeth’s vanity which leads her to prejudice in the beginning, concerning both Mr. Darcy and Wickham.
It’s through their witty interactions and critiques of each other that both Elizabeth and Darcy become aware of their own faults and start seeing each other in a different light. Their main enemies were their own selves; he tore apart her prejudice and she tore apart his pride. “Your defect is a propensity to hate everybody”, she says to Darcy; “and yours (…) is willfully to misunderstand them.” But they come to find that they are equals, as we realize when Darcy says to her: “we neither of us perform to strangers”. And, in the end, “she was proud of him” — in contrast with her early prejudice concerning his own pride.
What I like most about this love story is perfectly expressed in these following words by Ian Littlewood (in his introduction for the Wordsworth Classics edition):
“What she has successfully conveyed is the meeting of two sympathetic intelligences; the couple are identified not just as potential lovers but potential allies. (…) The hero and the heroine rescue each other, and what they escape is the fate that society has ordained for them.”
Another aspect I find really interesting, which is present in all of Jane’s novels that I’ve read, is how she crafts this timeless love story without any kisses involved. Rather than writing about any kind of physical romantic expressions, she focuses on the psychology of her characters — and still succeeds to have one the most famous love stories of all time.
All in all, Pride and Prejudice is a most delightful reading which I could not put away, by pleasure and the thrill of what would come next. Its main characters had me falling in love at every new passage, sighing and smiling and longing for every new encounter. It’s a surprisingly captivating story, written in a most quick-witted style and delightfully reproducing the characteristics of early 19th century’s society. It introduced me to the Jane Austen world and became, right away, one of my favorite novels.
