PRIDE and PREJUDICE

When I see the name of the book, Pride and Prejudice, I found it quite attractive because the title suggests two negative terms that we are taught that we should try our best to avoid. Surprisingly, the author, Jane Austen, chooses them as the title of the book. Therefore, I think reading this novel would be quite interesting and inspiring.

The novel is not just a love story. Instead, it describes British life in the late 18th century. Besides, the novel deals with some important issues such as social and gender inequalities. From the rich to the poor, social classes profoundly affects everyone's life. Because of the inequality of social classes, pride and prejudice thus occur. Although the relationship between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet is so bad from beginning, he still cannot help but fall in love with her. Fortunately, after a series of twists and tests, they change the views of each other and see each other's true natures. They help each other to deal with family issues and in the end, they learn the truth that the once-existed pride and prejudice which almost destroys their relationship disappear as time goes by. Realizing that they love each other very much, they decide to get married in the end. It is really touching and romantic, and I can hardly imagine that they have negative attitudes toward each other then. Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth’s marriage is determined by their own resolutions to break the class differences.

Furthermore, social inequalities also influence how people value love and money. In the story, we can see a big difference between characters because everyone holds different attitudes toward marriage. When it comes to marriages, some of them only are about appearance and others only think about money. For example, Elizabeth and Jane are rational and intelligent. They believe the existence of true love and are not affected by external conditions. On the contrary, Mr. Darcy has been influenced by outside conditions. Although he loves Elizabeth very much, he still wants to obey social expectations which do not encourage his marriage with Elizabeth. Different from Elizabeth’s situation, Charlotte Lucas and Mrs. Bennet consider money important. What’s more, Lydia considers appearance a major factor. Last but not least, Mr. Bennet doesn't believe that the true love exists!

This is a love story that is quite different from what I have read before because of the unexpected developments of Mr. Darcy’s proposal and Mr. Wickham’s evil nature. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy don’t like each other at first because their identities, classes and concepts are very different. Elizabeth represents prejudice and Mr. Darcy stands for pride. It is their continuous efforts to understand the reasons behind each other’s behaviors that bring them together at the end. Jane Austen shows me different ideas of marriages. As for me, although economic condition is very critical, I still think love is more important than bread because money is not everything! I feel if a marriage is not based on true love, no one could be happy! I would rather suffer poverty, I have wanted to be with my true love forever. In the way of pursuing true love, I may encounter many difficulties but I believe all the efforts will pay off as long as I try my best.