Why is the novel of Jane Austen entitled "Pride and Prejudice"?

Answer 1

it's jane austen's style of writing titles. in both pride and prejudice and sense and sensibility, she's taken two similar sounding words, with wholly different meanings, and yet they (the words) have a very fine line between them.

elizabeth says she only dislikes darcy's proud ways because he insulted her in bingley's hearing ("i would forgive him his pride if he hadn't hurt mine") and yet from then on she starts seeing everything he does in a bad light. even when he's trying to ask her to dance, she suspects him of having motives of embarrassing her. similarly darcy, although very proud of his birth, lineage and money, fails to draw the line between pride and prejudice, and his prejudice against people like elizabeth's mother leads him to break up jane and bingley's engagement.

so, basically, they're both two very proud characters, with strong prejudices against the other and their kind, and learn, through the book, to let go of these prejudiced beliefs, while retaining their pride. that's why the name was given to the book.

Answer 2

Pride and Prejudice was originally titled First Impressions. Critic Brian Southam notes that this phrase comes from the language of the sentimental novels Austen often criticized, where it connoted the idea that one ought to trust one's immediate, intuitive response to things. It is widely believed that Austen derived the later title from the fifth book of Cecilia, a novel by Fanny Burney, where the phrase appears (according to Austen biographer Park Honan, however, the phrase dates earlier, to a 1647 book by Jeremy Taylor called Liberty of Prophesying, and also appears in Gibbon's 1776 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire). Anna Quindlen, in her Introduction to the Modern Library edition, indicates her preference for the second title ("Austen originally named the book First Impressions; thank God for second thoughts!"). Which do you think is the more appropriate title and why?
2. The famous opening line of Pride and Prejudice-"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife "-magnificently displays the irony that suffuses the novel at both local and structural levels. What is the purpose of irony in Pride and Prejudice!?
3. Austen was writing during a time when novels in the form of letters - called epistolary novels-were very popular. There are nearly two dozen letters quoted in whole or in part in Pride and Prejudice, and numerous other references to letters and letter - writing. How do you think letters function in the novel? How do the letters - a narrative element-interact with the dramatic element (manifested in the dialogue)?
4. A number of critics have maintained that Darcy is not a particularly well - developed or believable character, and that his transformation is a mere plot contrivance. Others have argued that this suggestion fails to take into account the fact that the reader in large part only sees Darcy through the prejudiced eyes of Elizabeth. Which side would you take in this debate, and why?
5. Pride and Prejudice has often been criticized for the fact that it appears unconcerned with the politics of Austen's day. For example, in a letter (written before World War 1) to Thomas Hardy, Frederic Harrison refers to Austen as a "heartless little cynic" who composed "satirettes against her neighbors whilst the Dynasts were tearing the world to pieces and consigning millions to their graves." Is this charge fair?
6. Charlotte Bronte wrote in an 1848 letter to G. H. Lewes: Why do you like Miss Austen so very much? I am puzzled on that point. What induced you to say that you would have rather written Pride and Prejudice, or Tom Jones, than any of the Waverley Novels? I had not seen Pride and Prejudice till I read that sentence of yours, and then I got the book. And what did I find? An accurate, daguerreotyped portrait of a commonplace face; a carefully - fenced, highly - cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but no glance of a bright, vivid physiognomy, no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses. Do you agree with Bronte's claim that there is no poetry or passion in Pride and Prejudice, and her conclusion that "Miss Austen being ... without sentiment, without poetry, maybe is sensible, real (more real than true), but she cannot be great"?

Answer 3

Both Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth deal with these issues. He is prejudiced against her due to her station in life (poor) and her wacky family. She has too much pride to see his good side and keeps him at arms-length.

Also, these terms could describe the dynamics of regency society as a whole. Lots of prejudice and lots of pride flying around!

There's probably a more scholarly analysis to be had, but this is just my personal take...

Answer 4

Pride and prejudice are the sins of the protagonists. Elizabeth Bennet has too much prejudices about Darcy, and Darcy is too proud of his nobility