What It Means To Be Proud

Evident in the title, pride is a recurring factor in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.  Not only does this focus on pride relate to pride of one's self, but it connects to the other ideas of class and reputation present in the book.  To demonstrate, one conversation in particular demonstrates this.  Many of the women begin to discuss the previous assembly.  Mr. Darcy becomes the topic of discussion and Mrs. Bennet says that "everybody says that he is eat up with pride" obviously in disgust of his apparent conceitedness (40).  Mrs. Lucas adds in that "His pride, does not offend me so much as pride often does, because there is an excuse for it.  One cannot wonder that so very fine a young man, with family, fortune, everything in his favour, should think highly of himself. If I may so express it, he has a right to be proud" (43).  There is an emphasis not only on pride, but the reason behind someone's pride.  If it has a place, it is deemed more acceptable, whereas pride that someone else believes has no reason is outrageous.  The amount of judgement in this book is quite large, as a lot of the book is characters talking about other characters.  Where is the line between what is acceptable and what is not? In that same conversation above among the women, Elizabeth replies to Mrs. Lucas' comment with "That is very true, and I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine" (44).  This brings in another aspect of the role of pride in the book- how it affects other people.  If other people feel slighted by your pride, it automatically becomes a bad type of pride.  Now that Elizabeth has heard some of Darcy's pride in himself and observed it at the Meryton assemblies, she has gathered a preconception about what he is like as a person, without knowing much more about him.  Pride is one of the most important factors in first impressions in this book.  Because this time period does rely so heavily on class, reputation, money, marriage, etc., the way someone appears to view themselves affects how others seem to view him.  Darcy immediately gains a bad reputation amongst lots of the women after just one night because of how his pride came off to them.  One very important statement in the novel about pride comes from the very same conversation.  Mary says that, "Pride, is a very common failing, I believe.  by all that I have ever read, I am convinced that it is very common indeed; that human nature is particularly prone to it., and that there are few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality or other. Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain.  Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us" (46).  This comes in sort of as defense against Darcy and what Mrs. Bennet perceives of him.  Mary tries to create the distinction between having pride and being vain, but I believe that Mrs. Bennet is relying so heavily on her emotions and emotional reactions to everything around her, and will not be able to be swayed from the first idea she has of pride, specifically Darcy's pride.  Obviously Austen chose her title carefully, and strongly supported such an idea throughout her entire novel.  Although it is a story of many courtships, the underlying focus on reputation based off of one's self pride is an obvious message of Austen's.