Everybody is Proud and Prejudiced!

Pride and Prejudice?  Really?  Yes.  While it seems out of place on a blog about God in the Great Everyday, I have read or watched Pride and Prejudice several dozen times, analyzed it with my high school English class under Dr. Grosch and with my daughter Sarah to do her final paper and I believe it has great lessons for our daily lives. 

Many people like to characterize Elizabeth and Darcy as either Pride or Prejudice. Remember Tom Hanks's character in You've Got Mail: "Elizabeth Bennet is pride and Darcy is prejudice -- or is it the other way?  I forget."  But, every good book has a theme that runs throughout the book and Jane Austen, being a great author, does not let a single character slip through her fingers untouched by her theme: that Pride and Prejudice go together. 

The most extreme example of pride and prejudice is Mrs. Bennett.  Mrs. Bennet has egregious pride about things and people which are either not worthy of it, such as the ill-behaved Lydia, or she had nothing to do with, such as Bingley's fortune.  Along with that goes her prejudice, both for and against.  Her pride in Lydia causes her to prejudiced toward her in such a way that it actually makes Lydia behave worse.  She is embarrassingly prejudiced in favor of Wickham, who made off with her daughter but finally marries her, her highest goal of motherhood, and Bingley, though there is no actual discussion of marriage with her daughter Jane, just her daydreams and an inclination on Jane's and Bingley's parts.  She is rude to Darcy because of her prejudice against him, when he had saved the whole family from social and financial ruin by financing Lydia's and Wickham's marriage and future career.  While it could be argued that she was not aware of this, if she had had less prejudice and more grace, she would have exhibited common courtesy, been more polite and saved herself embarrassment when she was told that Elizabeth had made the most successful marriage of all of her daughters in marrying Darcy.


The opposite end of the spectrum are Jane and Bingley, who are very humble and not prejudiced in the least.  Jane likes Bingley but doesn't presume to think he will marry her just because he danced with her a few times and is quietly mortified by her mother's bragging on her beauty.  She also thinks the best of everyone and is always giving others the benefit of the doubt, most noticeably Bingley's sisters, who are selfish and thoughtless and deliberately hurt Jane's feelings when they leave for London by talking about their hopes for Bingley and Darcy's sister.  Jane thinks he must never have truly cared for her.  Bingley, according to Darcy, "was persuaded that she didn't care for him."  His lack of prejudice is shown in his patience with Jane's overwhelmingly thoughtful mother, Mrs. Bennett. 

The reason that Elizabeth and Darcy are the main characters is that they exhibit the theme by changing.  Elizabeth is a smart and honest girl, with an innate sense of fairness, though she is a girl like any other.  Her personal pride was already hurt by Darcy's overheard insult that she wasn't pretty enough to tempt him to dance, making her prejudiced against him to begin with.  Because of that prejudice, she was inclined to take Wickham's tale of Darcy's wrongdoings at face value, rather than being sure to hear Darcy's side of the story.  She becomes severely prejudiced against Darcy after hearing that he separated Jane and Bingley through his influence. 

Darcy's initial pride at the Assembly dance, where he meets the Bennetts, causes him to speak thoughtlessly to Bingley.  He is like many people when put into an unfamiliar environment: he puts others down to make himself feel stronger.  Unfortunately, someone was hurt - Elizabeth - and he soon comes to the conclusion that she's not as indifferent-looking as he had expressed earlier.  He doesn't know why she doesn't care for him and is unaware that it was his own thoughtless words that prejudiced her against him.  His greatest pride is not in his money or connections, but the other attributes of being a gentleman: behavior and honor.

The marriage proposal is the turning point of the story.  Elizabeth finally expresses all of her pent up prejudice against him concerning Wickham and Jane.  She is too nice a character to yell at him based on her own slights; she defends the weak, in her mind.  She accuses Darcy of not being a gentleman.  For the first time, he is struck to the quick and humbled.  This exchange causes both of them to reevaluate their opinions.  Darcy's humiliation prompts him to write the letter of explanation about Wickham and his sister, Georgiana, which he would have hidden as ungentlemanly to talk about.  The letter itself humbles Elizabeth, who is made aware of how unreasonable her prejudices were and how unfair she was to Darcy.  She even admits that Jane's modest behavior might have looked as though she didn't have a decided preference for Bingley.  They see each other with new eyes, especially seen in their interchange at Pemberley, where he graciously entertains her aunt and uncle and she is friendly to his sister. 

The final humility and grace (as opposed to pride) is shown at the end of the story when she must receive a gift from him that she can never repay and the substance of that gift is Darcy making possible a marriage with Lydia and Wickham, whom he hoped never to see again, in the hopes that he will be able to marry Elizabeth, making him Wickham's brother-in-law!  Talk about humbling.

When Lady Catherine shows up on the Bennett doorstep to insist that Elizabeth not marry Darcy, Elizabeth shows Darcy grace by not saying, "Don't worry about me, lady.  I wouldn't have him on a plate!", which is, essentially, what she was saying the whole first half of the book.  Darcy shows Elizabeth grace by not sneering at her family, which Mrs. Bennett's embarrassing fluttering over Bingley and ignoring of Darcy could very well have called for.

Jane Austen is telling us that pride leads us to say and do hurtful things, the outworking of prejudice,  and that humility gives us grace for others. Elizabeth and Darcy show us that it is possible to be transformed and gain both humility and grace.   "For God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."  James 4:6, I Peter 5:5.