Justification of the title Pride and Prejudice.
At the beginning of the novel "Pride And Prejudice" , Mary says " human nature is particularly prone to it (pride)". In the novel, pride prevents the characters from seeing the truth of a situation and from achieving happiness in life. In the novel, Jane Austen displays a stark contrast between two characters of the story. She discusses the theme of pride throughout the novel. .
Darcy's pride in his position in society leads him initially to scorn anyone outside of his own social circle while Elizabeth's vanity clouds her judgment , making her prone to think ill of Darcy. At the end of the novel, Darcy admits being "almost taught" to be "selfish and overbearing".
The Meryton ball introduces us to the two main protagonists of the novel -: Darcy and Elizabeth. Elizabeth's quickness to judge Darcy and her pride in the accuracy of her perceptions prevents her from seeing the good side of Darcy's character. At the ball, Darcy was decided as the "proudest, most disagreeable man" as he danced only one dance and even commented that Elizabeth was only "tolerable, not handsome enough to tempt me". Later Elizabeth meets Wickham and as she was already prejudiced against Darcy, she blindly believed every word that Wickham said about Darcy. Elizabeth's folly in her misjudgments of Darcy and Wickham is that her vanity has prevented her from reasoning objectively.
If Elizabeth's pride had not been wounded, she would have been a better judge and observer of Wickham's character. But swayed by his "fine countenance, a good figure and very pleasing address", she could not see through his deceit and impressed herself with Darcy being the most arrogant, haughty and proud man alive. Elizabeth's first impressions catalogue Darcy as arrogant and self-satisfied; as a result, she later accepts slanderous accusations made by Wickham against him (Darcy) as true.
