There are two different types of pride. One is more a personality or defines a person’s character like his ego. The other one is a positive feeling of accomplishment. In the first chapters of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice we encounter different characters and two of them caught my attention because they happen to fall into a situation where both sense of pride are reflected.
The novel begins with the Bennet’s, a family of five sisters and the want their mother has for them to marry a wealthy man. Mr. Bingly appears as a suitable man for one of the daughters and as a meeting with him is established Darcy appears. A good friend of Bingly and was the “proudest, most disagreeable man in the world” (7). They were all at the ball and Elizabeth one of the sisters was not dancing instead she heard a conversation between the two friends where Mr. Darcy showed all his pride. When Bingly told him to dance he answered that there “is not another woman in the room whom it would not be a punishment to me to stand up with”(7). If I were Elizabeth, a woman at the ball not dancing at the moment I would not want to ever see Darcy again regardless of how handsome he was.
Pride is reflected in the example above. Clearly there is no one that thinks higher of himself than Darcy and there is nothing wrong with being proud if you know how to manage it. Up to know from what I have read I know he has friends and most people think highly of him until they meet him. But it depends on who that person is because Darcy chooses how to act with each person depending if they are good enough for him or not. So basically depending who are, and your social status depends whether Mr. Darcy’s pride will affect you or not, because he will judge you or not. And Elizabeth could have “forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine” (13).
I agree. There are two types of pride and indeed the novel touches the subject. The few pages I've read, which are the same as yours I notices that pride as well. Mr. Darcy matches a personality of pride that can be confused with arrogance. This kind of pride is often negatively received and often rejected, as Mrs. Bennet did and most of the other guests at the party. On the other hand, the pride as satisfaction is not so negative and the feeling is enjoyable and not so much rejected by others, unless they envy you.
ResponderEliminarNice way of splitting the meaning of the word. :)
"This is where pride is reflected" is a bit wordy. How could you re-write this? Who is acting here? Where exactly is "this"?
ResponderEliminar