Pride and Prejudice Summary
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Setting
Pride and prejudice is set in the provincial society of Herefordshire, England around the 18th century.
Main Characters
Elizabeth Bennet- she is the protagonist in the novel and the second daughter to Mr. Bennet. She is the most intelligent and sensible among the five Bennet sisters.
Fitzwilliam Darcy- he is a wealthy man and the master of Pemberly. Darcy is the nephew to Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
Jane Bennet- she is the eldest and most beautiful Bennet sister. Jane is more reserved and gentle as compared to Elizabeth.
Charles Bingley- he is Darcy’s wealthy best friend.
Mr. Bennet- he is Bennett’s family patriarch with five unmarried daughters.
Mrs. Bennet- she is the wife to Mr. Bennet whose only goal in life is to see her daughters get married.
George Wickham- he is a handsome, fortune-hunting militia officer whose good looks initially attract Elizabeth.
Lydia Bennet- she is the youngest of the bonnet sisters. Elizabeth is gossipy, immature, and self-involved.
Mary Bennet- she is the middle Bennet sister who is bookish and pedantic.
Catherine Bennet- she is the fourth Bennet sister who is girlishly enthralled with the soldiers.
Plot Summary
News that Charles Bingley has rented the manor of Netherfield Park causes a great stir in the nearby village of Longbourn, especially in the Bennet household since he is wealthy and young. The Bennet’s have five unmarried daughters and Mrs. Bennet is desperate to see them all married. The Bennets attend a ball at which Mr. Bingley is present after Mr. Bennet has paid a social visit to Mr. Bingley. He is attracted to Jane and spends much of the evening dancing with her. His close friend, Mr. Darcy, is less pleased with the evening and haughtily refuses to dance with Elizabeth, which makes everyone view him as arrogant and obnoxious.
However, Mr. Darcy finds himself increasingly attracted to Elizabeth’s charm and intelligence at social functions over subsequent weeks. Jane’s friendship with Mr. Bingley also continues to flourish, and Jane pays a visit to the Bingley mansion. On her way to the house, she is caught in a downpour and falls ill, forcing her to stay at Netherfield for several days. Elizabeth hikes through muddy fields and arrives with a spattered dress while going to tend to Jane much to the contempt of the snobbish Miss Bingley, Charles Bingley’s sister.
Miss Bingley becomes more spiteful towards Elizabeth when she realizes that Darcy, whom she is pursuing, pays quite a bit of attention to her. When Elizabeth and Jane return home, they find Mr. Collins visiting their household. Mr. Collins is a young clergyman is expected to inherit Mr. Bennet’s property, which can only be passed down to male heirs. He proposes marriage to Elizabeth, Shortly after his arrival. She turns him down, wounding his pride. Meanwhile, the Bennet girls have become friendly with militia officers stationed in a nearby town. Wickham, a handsome young man is one of the soldiers and is friendly towards Elizabeth and tells her how Darcy cruelly cheated him out of an inheritance.
At the beginning of winter, the Bingley’s and Darcy leave Netherfield for London, leaving Jane disappointed. They are even more shocked when news arrives that Mr. Collins has become engaged to Charlotte Lucas, Elizabeth’s best friend and the poor daughter of a local knight. Charlotte explains to Elizabeth that she is getting older and needs the match due to financial reasons. Charlotte and Mr. Collins get married and Elizabeth promises to visit them at their new home.
As winter progresses, Jane visits the city to see her friends hoping to also see Mr. Bingley. However, Miss Bingley visits her and behaves rudely, while Mr. Bingley doe not visits her at all. Elizabeth visits Charlotte during spring, who now lives near the home of Mr. Collins’s patron, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who is also Darcy’s aunt. Darcy has an encounter with Elizabeth during her visit and one day, he makes a shocking marriage proposal which Elizabeth quickly refuses. She tells Darcy that she considers him arrogant and unpleasant, and then scolds him for steering Bingley away from Jane and disinheriting Wickham.
Darcy leaves her but delivers a letter to her shortly thereafter. In this letter, he admits that he urged Bingley to distance himself from Jane, but claims he did so only because he thought their romance was not serious. As for Wickham, he informs Elizabeth that the young officer is a liar and that the real cause of their disagreement was Wickham’s attempt to elope with his young sister, Georgiana Darcy. This letter causes Elizabeth to reevaluate her feelings about Darcy. She goes back home and is acting coldly towards Wickham.
The militia is leaving town, which makes the youngest Bennet's sister distraught. Lydia gets permission from her father to spend the summer with an old colonel in Brighton, where Wickham’s regiment will be stationed. Elizabeth embarks on another journey, this time with the Gardiners, who are relatives of the Bennets. The trip takes her to the North and eventually to the neighborhood of Pemberley, Darcy’s estate. She visits Pemberley, after making sure that Darcy is away, and delights in the building and grounds. Darcy suddenly arrives and behaves cordially toward her and does not mention his proposal.
Shortly thereafter a letter arrives from home, telling Elizabeth that Lydia has eloped with Wickham and they are nowhere to be found. This suggests that they may be living together out of wedlock. Fearful of the disgrace such a situation would bring on her entire family, Elizabeth rushes home. Mr. Gardiner and Mr. Bennet go off to search for Lydia, but Mr. Bennet eventually returns home empty-handed. A letter comes in from Mr. Gardiner saying that the couple has been found and that Wickham has agreed to marry Lydia in exchange for an annual income. The Bennets are convinced that Mr. Gardiner has paid off Wickham, but Elizabeth learns that the source of the money, and of her family’s salvation, was none other than Darcy.
Wickham and Lydia return to Longbourn briefly, and Mr. Bennet treats them coldly. They then leave for Wickham’s new assignment in the North of England. Bingley returns to Netherfield and resumes courting Jane. Darcy goes to stay with him and pays visits to the Bennet's but does not mention his desire to marry Elizabeth. Bingley, on the other hand, presses his suit and proposes to Jane, to the delight of everyone but his sister. While the family celebrates, Lady Catherine de Bourgh pays a visit to Longbourn. She corners Elizabeth and says that she has heard that Darcy, her nephew, is planning to marry her.
Lady Catherine considers Bennet an unsuitable match for a Darcy and demands that Elizabeth promises to refuse him. Elizabeth spiritedly refuses, saying that she is not engaged to Darcy, but that she will not promise anything against her own happiness. A little later, Elizabeth and Darcy go out walking together and he tells her that his feelings have not altered since the spring. She tenderly accepts his proposal, and both Jane and Elizabeth get married
Themes
Love- Like in any good love story, the lovers in the novel must overcome numerous drawbacks, starting from tension as a result of their own personalities.
Reputation- the novel brings across a society where a woman’s reputation is important. Women are expected to behave in a certain manner and stepping out of the social norms makes here vulnerable to isolation.
Class- class reflects the strict nature of life between the middle and upper class in regency England. The bonnets, who are middle class socialize with the upper class Darcys and Bingleys but are clearly treated as their social inferiors.