Lindsey+H

Lindsey Hollingsworth 3/20/10 Academic English 12 Mr. Kreft__ Pride and Prejudice __ By: Jane Austen
 * __Plot Overview:__**

The book Pride and Prejudice follows the life of a woman, in England during the post revolutionary period, a Miss Elizabeth Bennet. She is one of five sisters Jane, Lydia, Catherine, and Mary. Elizabeth is a headstrong, sharp tongued, and quick witted single woman in a family of unwedded ladies. The story starts out when a prosperous young gentleman, a Mr. Bingley, comes to town. The mother of the family Mrs. Bennet is looking to wed all of her daughters due to an unfortunate circumstance in which her family has been brought upon. The father Mr. Bennet had become elderly and should the occurrence of his death happen before any of the daughters have been wedded, then their estate would be forfeited to the next male heir in the family, the arrogant cousin Mr. Collins, and their daughters security would be lie in his hands. To keep such a situation from happening, the mother pressures the eldest of the daughters Jane, a ravishingly young woman, whose beauty is hard to match, to marry the well off Mr. Bingley. Fortunately for all, the two happen to fall deeply in love at first sight, although his charming sister Caroline and Mr. Bingleys good friend Mr. Darcy seem hardly enamored with the idea of their marriage due to the fact of the Bennet family’s inferiority. The soon to be heir of the estate and cousin Mr. Collins arrives to ask Jane’s hand in marriage though since she seems to be soon to engaged to Mr. Bingley, the next available bachelorette is the second eldest, Elizabeth. Trying desperately to decrease the chances of losing the estate, Mrs. Bennet attempts to set the two together. With the help of Mr. Wickham’s tragic story about how Mr. Darcy selfishly refused him the inheritance to which Mr. Darcy’s father had promised him, Elizabeth’s first impression of Mr. Darcy, she believes him to be arrogant, crude, and thinks highly of himself. With short notice, Mr. Bingley decides to take off with his sister and good friend to visit Mr. Darcy’s sister in another part of England. Nonetheless the Bennet family is anguished with the news of Mr. Bingley’s departure as that means there can be no engagement between the two and yet again the family is worried with what lies in store for their fortunes and estate. Not long after, the eldest sister Jane sets out after Mr. Bingley in hopes that they can still be together. It isn’t much longer until Elizabeth is asked by her cousin Mr. Collins to be wed. This would seem too many to be the solution to the predicament, with one problem. Elizabeth refuses, due to her independence and with her father’s ok. After refusing to marry her cousin she then discovers from an acquaintance of Mr. Darcy’s that he was the one who convinced Mr. Bingley to not propose himself to Jane. It is this that would be the final straw for Elizabeth, which only adds to her hatred for Mr. Darcy. She is then flabbergasted to find herself being proposed to by the one and only Mr. Darcy. With no hesitation she declines, and when asked why she stated the reasons being that she found out he was the reason there was to be no engagement, as well as the situation with Mr. Wickham. With honest intentions to fix things with Elizabeth he explains himself and the true story behind Mr. Wickham. She still ceases to realize his sincerity and his love for her due to her excesses amount of pride. The next step Darcy was willing to take was to try and save the Bennet’s family name in which Lizzy ruined by running off with Wickham and getting physical with him when they weren’t even married. Darcy went about fixing this problem by paying Wickham to marry Lizzy, therefore restoring a good name for the Bennet family. In addition he also then persuaded his best friend Mr. Bingley that Jane was the women for him and that there family inferiority doesn’t matter. When Elizabeth hears of this great news she is ecstatic, her outlook on Darcy is totally different. To her surprise Darcy shows up to their homestead and proposes for the second time, she is shocked but accepts without hesitation.

__ **Character List:** __

//__Elizabeth Bennet-__// The Protagonist in the story and the second daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet. She’s the headstrong, independent open minded character who had no problem speaking her mind in the time when women were frowned upon when they tried to voice their opinion.

//__Mr. Darcy-__// Closest friend of Mr. Bingley, also the richer of the two men. He is very closed off to people he isn’t familiar with. He makes decisions that make himself appear to others as a very arrogant and belligerent person.

//__Mrs. Bennet (Mother)-__// The nagging, self centered, pest of the family who is only concerned with her own well being. In addition she is a very manipulative character when it comes to her wanting to get her daughters married off. __
 * Important Quotations:** __

Pg. 8 “She is tolerable but not handsome enough to tempt me; I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men. You had better return to your partner and enjoy her smiles, for you are wasting your time with me."

-This quote is the response of Mr. Darcy to Mr. Bingley suggesting Darcy to go and dance with Elizabeth. But instead of taking him up on this suggestion he snaps back and insults Elizabeth by saying she isn’t even good looking enough for me to dance with or even bearable to be around. Followed by then snapping back at Bingley stop wasting his time trying to persuade him to dance with Elizabeth and basically leave me alone. Pg. 123 “In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how I ardently I admire and love you.”

-This comment Darcy makes to Elizabeth is when he barges in to confess his love to Elizabeth. He basically says that his feelings will not be shut down. Then at least listen to how passionate he is about her. Pg. 237 “You are too generous to trifle with me. Of your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject forever.”

-This is the last chance Darcy gave Elizabeth to take his hand in marriage, giving her an easy way of declining his offer. He yet again describes his feelings to her as still being unchanged since the first time he had proposed to her in April and demands to know if she still feels the same as she did back in April. If her strong feelings of hatred for Darcy still existed like they did in April and had no interest in him what so ever he was willing to walk away from her and never bother her ever again from that day forward.

__**Study Questions:**__

1.) How does Elizabeth’s pride keep her from being with Darcy? -If Elizabeth wasn’t so prideful she would have realized that Darcy was true to what he was saying and not just an arrogant fool, and because of her foolish pride, she ignored Mr. Darcy and blinded the truth which was that he really loved her.

2.) Why was Mr. Darcy so rude to the Bennet family when he was first introduced to them? -He acted this way because he felt like he shouldn’t have to be around those who were beneath his social class.

3.) What was the importance of marrying into a similar social class during this time? - By doing this, it ensured a better life style for the wife’s family, as well as security. Due to there being such a huge gap between the rich class and the poor class, if one were to marry into a lower class, this could hurt them economically and potentially cause them to be poor as well