Pride, Prejudice, and Vanity Essay

For two hundred years Jane Austens novels have been read, reread, dog-eared and bookmarked. They have been opened with smiles and closed with reluctant sighs, picked up and non put down again until each word has been read, cherished, and safely secreted away within the reader. Austens novels are each a affluent bouquet of bailiwicks, motifs, and imagery. Perhaps most prominent of these themes is Austens depiction of make applaud in the face of potential lovers pride, prejudice, and void.In gazump and Prejudice, one of the most significant illustrations of these themes can be found in the hallucinations between the white avens girls and their suitors, as courtships are wrought with snap judgments, uncompromising ideals, and extreme anguish with frivolity such as appearance and social standing no relationship in the novel exemplifies this much than that of Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy.In primp and Prejudice, love and propriety harmonized with humor and irony, as A usten displayed her special gift for creating interesting people, places, and things through ironic humor, cynicism, and rapier-like puns, the techniques employed by Austen to name items in her novels provide significant insight into the characters, serve as a insidious means for social criticism, and prove a successful comedic device, creating humor away of the mundane and displaying love in the most unlikely places.Her title for Pride and Prejudice initially appears that she abandoned much of the similar wit for a straightforward description of her text, though upon reading, one is forced to question the rightness of the novels prejudice. slice it can said to be in Darcys general contempt for the lower social classes, it is really more his own vanity that makes him crave status so. Similarly, the Bennets are also overabundant with pride and predetermined facts of life, as Elizabeth has tends to judge upon first impressions and is practically super critical of others.Howeve r, the title speaks to something great than the words themselves, and really speaks of the flaws of most man The meanings that pride and prejudice acquire are related to the central theme of all of Jane Austens novelsthe limitations of human vision (Zimmerman 65). This limitation of human vision, the inability to see moral and actual existence clearly, not only leads to pride, prejudice, exactly also vanity. Through the less-than-clever Mary Bennet, Austen gives her delineation of vanity and pride narcism and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without creation vain.Pride relates to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us (Austen). The romance between Lizzy and Darcy is not unlike Jane Bennet and Mr. Bingleys in that the lovers bundle similar personalities and ultimately find great joy in existence together, although it does differ in the course it takes, hindered by the pride and va nity of each. While Jane and Bingley were immediately enamored with each other, Lizzy and Darcy begin the novel as ultimately, Lizzy and Darcys love epitomizes ardor and devotion in spite of pride and vanity of each, however prejudice may be a misnomer.Lizzy actually has sizeable reasons to dislike Darcy later she meets him 1) his snobbish and insulting remarks about her at the oaf 2) his attempt to break up the romance between Jane and Bingley and 3) his alleged outrage to Wickham (Fox 186). However, her disposition exemplifies her vanity, not prejudice, and her vanity is apparent throughout the novel. When Lizzy writes to Mrs. Gardiner to inform her of the intimacy she writes, I am happier even than Jane she only smiles, I laugh (250).though Lizzy is happy, her vanity lies at the root of what she says, and It is clear that vanity here applies, not to the impression Elizabeth wants to make on others, but to her own opinion of herself (Dooley 188). She is happy, after abandonin g her initial judgments of Darcy, however she still compares her happiness to that of her sister. Through the two romances of Jane and Lizzy, Austen has pied a portrait of the good and of the great and how vanity often leads to greater significance in relationships.While the love between Jane and Bingley is sweet and honest, the love between Lizzy and Darcy is real, visceral, and passionate one produces a smile, the other a jocund laughter that only fills the void where words prove lacking. This is due greatly to the pride and the vanity of both Lizzy and Darcy, who each create higher ideals for them to stand firm by, and the only real prejudice that exists in the novel is that which exists in every human.