His wealth made him a suitable marriage partner because he could provide financial security for Jane. One of the first comments Mrs. Bennet makes after hearing about the impending marriage is, "Why, he has four or five thousand a year, and likely more." The fact that they got along well was less important than his economic status.
The Ideal Marriage
According to Hinnant, "One of the unstated conventions of the courtship novel is that the lovers must undergo traumatic experience, a violent shift from innocence to self-knowledge before their union can be consummated (1). In the relationship between Darcy and Elizabeth, Austen explores the connection between two people who originally loathe each other but grow and change throughout the novel. Unlike the other characters that tend to remain static throughout the novel, Elizabeth must undergo a mental and emotional journey before she and Darcy can achieve a successful relationship.
When Elizabeth first meets Darcy, she believes that he is the most disagreeable man that she has ever met. He is "haughty, reserved and fastidious, and his manners, though well bred, were not inviting" (11). She decides that her first impressions of Mr. Darcy were correct after spending some time with Mr. Wickham, who accused Darcy of defrauding him of his inherited property. Morgan states, "One of the most powerful facts in Pride and Prejudice is that after Elizabeth has her moment of shame and revelation at Hunsford so many of her perceptions continue to be quite wrong" (66). Morgan indicates that Elizabeth is almost always wrong about Mr. Darcy. Despite her sister Jane's reasoning, she misjudges him at every opportunity. She begins to suspect that she had judged him incorrectly after a letter in which he explained his side of the story regarding Mr. Wickham's inheritance, but does not realize just how badly she has misjudged him until she discovers that he has intervened in the affairs of her family by traveling to London to bring about the marriage of Lydia and Wickham by agreeing to pay off Wickham's gambling debts. At this point she realizes that he is a good man and that she was foolish to turn down his offer of marriage.
Darcy has a large estate. He is worth over ten thousand pounds per year. Although Elizabeth does not directly mention his wealth when she discusses her reasons for pursuing a second proposal, she reveals a good deal in her conversation with Jane on page 272. When Jane asks, "Will you tell me how long you have loved him?" Elizabeth answers by saying partly in jest, "It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley." Although Jane urges her to quit joking and to be serious, there are several quotes that indicate her feelings when she saw the estate. First, on page 177 when she first sees Pemberley she is in wonder at the size and grandeur of the estate. "At that moment...
Darcy. All of these problems are worked out by the conclusion of the novel, but not before Lydia has run off with Mr. Wickham and eloped. This is considered a great disgrace and a shame for the Bennet's because it is found out that Mr. Wickham is not a very wholesome character and in fact has quite a few skeletons in his closet. But Lydia does not seem to
Pride and Prejudice Women in society today have come a long way from those in the 18th and 19th centuries. In terms of education, work, and marriage prospects, women today have many more choices than those in Jane Austen's novels, for example. Education for a young lady was generally seen as a way towards becoming a school teacher or becoming a high society married woman. There were few choices inbetween. For
Chapter 50 shows this in the gossip and the interest people partake in of the relationship of Mr. Wickham and Lydia. "How Wickham and Lydia were to be supported in tolerable independence, she could not imagine. But how little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue, she could easily conjecture." (Austen, 596) Good marriages, at least
A discussion between friends casts a light on the issue of pride, which appears to be Darcy's main enemy in his relationship with the society outside his most intimate acquaintances. Miss Lucas, one of the friends of the Bennet girls finds an excuse for Darcy's overflow of pride through his social status, fortune and image. Elisabeth agrees with her, but she also admits that her pride is even bigger than
Pride & Prejudice Prideful The institution of marriage is one of the primary themes of Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice. The emphasis placed upon marriage by the vast majority of the characters in the novel, however, is largely due to the fact that most of them see a successful marriage as a principle means of achieving happiness. However, the specific conditions of an individual marriage account for the degree of happiness
...For the rest, it is self-evident that the abolition of the present system of production must bring with it the abolition of the community of women springing from that system, i. e., of prostitution both public and private. Marx 339-340) The communist manifesto clearly demonstrates that ideals that regard women and men, through the eyes of economic marriage partnership is abhorrent to the natural state, a satire in the subtle irony of
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