Prejudice and pride in Pride and PrejudiceIn any literary work the title and introduction make at least some allusion to the important events of the novel. With Pride and Prejudice, Austen takes this convention to the extreme, drawing the entire first and part of the second half of the novel after the title and the first sentence, as well as the interpretation of such concepts, are the central focus of the novel, they dictate the actions of almost all the main characters (not just Darcy and Elizabeth) and foreshadow all the major events of the novel, especially in the first chapters, which involve the first ball at Netherfield representing pride and Elizabeth prejudice, all the characters in Pride and Prejudice are influenced by both pride and prejudice, and their contempt towards the two central characters of the novel becomes only hypocritical. While everyone (at first) despises Darcy's excessive pride, that same pride in self and family influences the actions of many characters. Pride in her daughters makes Mrs. Bennet confident that they will soon marry. “It is very probable,” she tells her husband, “that [Bingley] may fall in love with one of them” (52). Pride makes the first Darcy cold and disrespectful, and Miss Bingley haughty, jealous and spiteful. "[The Bingley sisters] were in fact very refined ladies... but proud and presumptuous. They were quite beautiful, had studied at one of the first private seminaries in the city, had a fortune of twenty thousand pounds... and were therefore under every aspect authorized to think well of themselves and meanly of others" (63). Pride drives Mr. Colonel... middle of paper... Donald Gray. New York: Norton and Co., 1993. Butler, Marilyn Jane Austen and the war of Ideas. Oxford. Claredon Press, 1975Harding, D.W. "Regulated Hatred: An Aspect in the Work of Jane Austen." pp. 291-295."Jane Austen, "Discovering Authors' Modules, http://galenet.gale.com/a/acp/netacgi/nphrs?d=DAMA&s1 =bio&s2=Austen,+Jane&1=50&pg1=DT&pg2=NM&p=17Johnson, Claudia L. “Pride and Prejudice and the Pursuit of Happiness” Pride and Prejudice. By Jane Austen. Ed. Donald Gray. New York: Norton and Co., 1993. pp. 367-376.Mudrick, Marvin."Irony as Discovery in Pride and Prejudice." Pride and prejudice. By Jane Austen. Ed. Donald Gray. New York: Norton and Co., 1993. pp. 295-303.Sherry, Norman. Jane Austen. London. Casa Montegue, 1966