Orgullo y Prejuicio Flashcards
MEMORABLE COMIC CHARACTERS
- Mrs. Bennet
- Mr. Collins
- Lady Catherine
- Caroline Bingley
Mrs Bennet (COMIC CHARACTER):
always talking of her nerves and the prospects of marrying her daughters
Mr Collins (COMIC CHARACTER):
idiotic, socially clumsy, pedantic, sycophantic with Lady Catherine and impertinent with Elizabeth
Lady Catherine (COMIC CHARACTER):
the personification of pride, too full of her own importance and power
Caroline Bingley (COMIC CHARACTER):
proud, snobbish, pretentious, too clearly interested in marrying Darcy for his wealth and social rank
Other characters, not so comic, equally memorable:
- Mr. Bennet
- Wickham
- Mr. Darcy
Mr Bennet:
- anti-social behaviour, hiding in his library, not
wanting to be disturbed, always reading, always
ready with a quip, a witty, ironic remark - His saving grace is his regard for ‘Lizzy’
Wickham:
• his charm and impudence, his ability to keep his
countenance
• flirts with Elizabeth
• pays his addresses to Miss King for her fortune’s
sake
• finds no difficulty in later coming back to
Longbourn as Lydia’s husband
• as Mr Bennet notices, Wickham can still say
pretty things to all the family
Mr. Darcy:
JA’s first attempt at sketching the prototype of the perfect
gentleman (Mr Knightley in Emma)
• Not meant to be the hero, today is in competition with Elizabeth
• Popular culture: Colin Firth’s Darcy for the BBC, prequels and
sequels, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Me and Mr. Darcy, Pride and Prejudice
and Zombies
• Icon of masculine sex-appeal – never meant to be in the original
Wickham:
- The foil and contrast of Mr Darcy
- The rake – William Hogarth’s The Rake’s Progress
- Lives above his means, gambling debts, unethical, flirts with women, builds lies to get out of predicaments, deceitful, selfish, but impeccable address, polished manners, has the looks, the appearance of the gentleman, none of its substance
- His fate ought to have been to die in a duel: Jane Austen rescues him through Lydia
The most memorable character of them all is:
Elizabeth Bennet
Jane Austen said of Elizabeth:
‘as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print’
Elizabeth Bennet:
- her ‘liveliness’ (she is energetic, doesn’t mind walking and getting mud on her petticoat)
- her ‘wit’ (she is intelligent, controls any conversation
she enters into and has a wonderful sense of humour)
Caroline Bingley:
• Caroline Bingley’s snobbish pride in his
brother’s money contrasts with Elizabeth’s pride
in herself and her own abilities
• Caroline is rich and elegant in a sophisticated way
but also unlearned, uneducated: her pretended
love for books is a gimmick to attract Darcy and
contrasts with Elizabeth’s real interest in books
• Caroline tries to be witty and comes across as
bitchy; Elizabeth’s wit flows naturally as the
product of an intelligent, observing mind
Georgiana Darcy’s shyness offers a contrast to
Elizabeth’s confidence
Characters we strongly associate with the words ‘pride’ and ‘prejudice’:
- Elizabeth Bennet: proud of her family, of herself, but prejudiced against Darcy, prejudiced against
Charlotte Lucas’s decision to marry Mr Collins - Mr Darcy: proud of his wealth and social status, but prejudiced against Elizabeth and Jane for the vulgar
manners of their family, their non-genteel connections, prejudiced against Jane for thinking she is toocold with Bingley and that her interest in him arises from the prospect of marrying well
Pride leads to Prejudice:
- Darcy’s pride in his rank and fortune makes him prejudiced against others
- Elizabeth’s hurt pride makes her prejudiced against Darcy
Many other characters are also victims of either pride, prejudice or both:
• Lady Catherine, Miss Bingley, Mrs Hurst, Wickham
FIRST IMPRESSIONS:
The novel’s original title of First Impressions is revealing
• Clue about one of its recurrent themes
• One has to be careful about trusting first impressions
• Most obvious instance: Elizabeth’s first impressions of Darcy and Wickham change after she reads Darcy’s letter
Elizabeth relies too much on her first impressions of
Darcy and Wickham
Elizabeth and Jane spend a good deal of time in the novel discussing, comparing and disagreeing about the motives of
- Bingley and Darcy
- the Bingley sisters
- Wickham
Mrs Bennet asks Mr Bennet to go to visit
Mr Bingley, so the two families can be on visiting terms
Surprises pepper the novel throughout: (7)
- The absence of Wickham at the Netherfield ball (surprise for Elizabeth, who expects him there)
- Charlotte Lucas acceptance of Mr Collins - when told about it, Elizabeth exclaims “Engaged to Mr Collins! My dear Charlotte, - impossible!”
- Darcy’s proposal to Elizabeth, followed by his letter – Elizabeth is taken aback
- Elizabeth’s rejection of Darcy’s proposal – Darcy is astonished
- Elizabeth learns about Wickham’s true character - Elizabeth is shocked
- Elizabeth is surprised to hear from the housekeeper at Pemberley that Darcy is a very good master who never has a bad word for his employees
- Darcy’s unexpected arrival at his house and his meeting Elizabeth there by chance
Pride and Prejudice’s plot falls neatly into
two parts
The central turning-point in the novel:
Darcy’s proposal of marriage to Elizabeth and his explanatory letter
Elizabeth and Darcy were separated by ___
After the letter they are united by ____
secrets
The second daughter of Mr. Bennet, Elizabeth is the most
intelligent and sensible of the five Bennet sisters.
Elizabeth’s four sisters:
- Jane (eldest)
- Mary
- Catherine “Kitty”
- Lydia (youngest)
Pride and Prejudice is a novel in which characters have difficulty in
understanding each other.
The most obvious instance is provided by Darcy and Elizabeth. Bingley and Jane provide another example.
Surprises, like secrets, contribute to the novel’s structure, marking the beginning, the middle and the end of the novel: (5)
- Surprise, because no one could expect Wickham to end up marrying Lydia
- Surprise, because Mr Bingley comes back to Netherfield and proposes to Jane
- Surprise, because one could hardly expect Darcy’s pride and prejudices would let him propose for the second time to a woman who has rejected him
- Surprise because Elizabeth Bennet gets married in the end against all odds (Mr Collins had told her when he proposed that it was unlikely – given her lack of fortune and her non-genteel relatives - that she would never receive another offer of marriage)
- Mr. Bennet is surprised to hear from Elizabeth she has accepted Darcy for love
Secrets - function in the final resolution of the plot: (5)
• Darcy’s presence at Lydia’s wedding with Wickham
was supposed to be a secret but Lydia reveals it
• A secret carelessly revealed by Lydia makes Elizabeth
realise Darcy still entertains some feelings for her
• So this is another secret which brings the lovers
closer to each other
• Elizabeth’s refusal to tell Lady Catherine her secret
intention to accept Darcy if he proposes a second
time infuriates Lady Catherine
• When Darcy hears about it from her, he concludes
her reluctance to give an answer is an indication her
feelings have changed
Secrets as elements of characterization: (4)
• Elizabeth different from Lydia -Lydia is incapable
of keeping a secret
• Elizabeth is quite good at keeping secrets
• She keeps secrets even from Jane: she never tells
her sister about
- Darcy’s role in taking Bingley away from her - Darcy’s changed behaviour at Pemberly - the change in her own feelings towards him
• Elizabeth takes her own decisions about which
secrets can be shared and which ones are unfit for
disclosure (even to Jane)
Secrets and Silence are
responsible for mis-communication
Surprise leads to ____ – ____ leads to silence
astonishment
Pride and Prejudice is a novel about books and reading (2)
- Mr Bennet, Mr Darcy and Elizabeth are associated with reading
- Mr. Bingley and Miss Bingley reveal anxiety about not owning books and reading enough
Pride and Prejudice collapses the distinction between characters and real people: (5)
- Mr Bennet’s unhappy marriage: he married his wife when she was young and beautiful
- Books are a replacement for lack of domestic happiness
- This lack he has replaced with his pleasure in books
- His taste in books supplies the enjoyments his domestic arrangements deny
- His hiding in his library - metaphor for the absentee lord, the owner who doesn’t take care of his estate
Elizabeth is staying at Netherfield when ____
Jane is ill.
The talk about books at Netherfield when Jane is ill.
the difference between Mr Darcy and Mr Bingley:
- Darcy’s library is very good, the work of several generations
- Mr Bingley’s library is not remarkable and he feels the need to apologise to Elizabeth
CLASS MOBILITY:
Permeability of class barriers
Permeability of class barriers (BEFORE, DURING AND IN END OF NOVEL)
- Before the novel begins, two instances of upward class mobility have taken place:
(a) Mrs Bennet, the daughter of an attorney, moved up the social rank scale when she married Mr. Bennet
(b) Mr Lucas, a tradesman, has become Sir William Lucas, a knight and member of the gentry - During the novel, Mrs Bennet’s five daughters have diminished marriage possibilities because of her associations with:
(a) her former social class (her sister married her father’s clerk and his brother is in trade, so they are not gentry, they
are middle-class)
(b) the lack of a fortune - When the novel ends, Miss Elizabeth Bennet will become Mrs Darcy:
(a) daughter of a not very rich landlord with a wife with non-gentry relatives
(b) wife of one of the richest landlords amongst the gentry with aristocratic relatives
Sir William Lucas, in spite of his title,
has middle-class origins –– his title is new, not inherited
Sir William Lucas VS. Mr. Darcy:
Sir William is the more ‘gentleman-like’ of the two
The Bingleys come from
middle-class background
The Bennets sisters are born in a
landowning family, they are gentry already
Mr Bingley’s sisters do not deserve to be
members of the gentry in spite of their fortunes.
Mr Darcy first does not behave in a
gentleman-like manner
Charlotte is left out of
the happy ending.
Jane and Elizabeth are granted.
Charlotte’s ambitions are seen as unnatural because
she marries without love
Wickham and Colonel Fitzwilliam (Darcy’s cousin) VS. Charlotte
young men need something to live on but society condemns ambition and individualism in women
marriage is the engine that
moves the plot
The main plot - two central couples:
Jane-Bingley and Elizabeth-Darcy
The sub-plot - two other couples:
Charlotte-Mr.Collins and Lydia-Wickham
Elizabeth – differs from Charlotte, Mrs Bennet and Lydia in her view on marriage
- marriage less as a social institution and more as a private matter
- individuals, not family or society, are concerned
Elizabeth, Jane and Darcy, together with the authorial voice, advocate a reformed version of marriage:
- affection, admiration, esteem, respect for each other and suitability of character
- more important than economic concerns or family interest
Critique of the social and economic basis of gentry:
family and property
the motive of loving against one’s will:
(Darcy at first loves Elizabeth against his will)
Lydia is the foil or counterpart to the
heroine
Lydia Bennet is also a character with a ____
‘tragic’ fate.
she has to be married off to a rascal such as Wickham so that credibility is restored to the family and the happy ending can take place with the marriages of Elizabeth and Jane.
Elizabeth as a great ___
walker
Pride and Prejudice relies very much on
dialogue as a means of sketching characters
Austen’s narrative technique can create
expectations about a character
Miss Bingley
• Her manipulative, hypocritical machinations are reveal in the note and letter she sends to Jane
Mr Collins
- The first time the reader meets the character of Mr Collins is through a letter
- He is first seen simultaneously through his self-exposure in the letter and through the eyes of the Bennet family
- His character is discussed before he appears – when he arrives, dialogue confirms expectations raised by letter
Mr Darcy
• His letter to Elizabeth gives other shades to his character – educated, gentleman-like, hurt and apologetic, though still proud
Lydia
• Her note to Colonel Foster’s wife when she elopes with Wickham – reveals her as naïve, spoilt child she is, but also as rash, gullible and ignorant of the ways of the world
the axis of volubility in Pride and Prejudice: (3)
a) the characters who talk most are the most stupid (Mrs Bennet)
b) the characters who speak less, in fewer words, those reluctant to talk and reticent in company are the most intelligent (Elizabeth, Mr Darcy and Mr Bennet)
c) Miss de Bourgh, though, who never speaks a word, joins the club of those characters in which extreme taciturnity is an indication of stupidity
the axis of conventionality in Pride and Prejudice: (2)
a) the characters who use words, clichés, jargon and formalities learnt in a book are superficial, vain or ethically erratic (Mr Collins and Mary Bennet)
b) the characters who use fashionable words, clichés, jargon are also superficial, ignorant or silly (Lydia Bennet)
Mrs. Bennet is characterised by the frequent
contradictions to be found in her speech, an example of volubility.
• The well-known example is the long tirade Mrs Bennet salutes Elizabeth with after she has rejected Mr Collins.
The internal narrative angle, the focaliser, is provided by
the thinking process of a character: Elizabeth, Mr Bennet, Charlotte Lucas
Elizabeth is often the ____
focaliser - many events in the novel are presented from her point of view
Mr Bennet’s importance in offering a
viewpoint for the reader to identify is not frequently stressed
