GENDER AND CLASS OPPRESSION IN JANE AUSTEN'S PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (original) (raw)

Hence Elizabeth certainly suffers from pride and prejudice, but this is no less an ailment of Darcy as well. Darcy has to overcome his preconceived ideas about Elizabeth's inferior looks and class in order to concede she is handsome, eloquent, and very witty and intelligent – his equal in intelligence, if not in possessions. Class distinctions are then exposed to be illusions and minor barriers to true love because it is she who captivates him with her wit, honesty and intelligence rather than all the simpering fawners who throw themselves at him and defer to him simply by virtue of his looks and fortune. Pride and Prejudice is thus a novel about the overcoming of these vices of pride and prejudice in the protagonists Elizabeth and Darcy in order to encounter true love.