Themes — Pride, Prejudice & First Impressions

Themes are the big ideas that run through the entire novel. AQA expects you to track these themes across the text and connect them to context. This lesson covers three closely linked themes: pride, prejudice, and first impressions.

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Pride

Pride is one of the novel's two title themes, and Austen presents it as a complex, multifaceted quality — not simply a vice.

Different forms of pride in the novel

Character	Type of pride	How it manifests
Darcy	Social pride / class consciousness	His insulting first proposal; his aloofness at the ball
Elizabeth	Pride in her own judgement	Her refusal to reconsider her opinion of Darcy
Lady Catherine	Pride of rank	Her demand that Elizabeth refuse Darcy
Mr Collins	Reflected pride (from Lady Catherine)	His constant boasting about his patroness
Mrs Bennet	Maternal pride	Her boasting about her daughters' marriages
Lydia	Self-centred pride	Her refusal to feel shame after the elopement

Darcy's pride

Darcy's pride is the most complex in the novel. It has two aspects:

Justified pride — Darcy is genuinely intelligent, wealthy, and moral. His housekeeper describes him as "the best landlord, and the best master... that ever lived" (Chapter 43). His reserve is partly natural shyness, not arrogance.

Unjustified pride — Darcy's first proposal reveals a class-based pride that is deeply offensive:

"His sense of her inferiority — of its being a degradation — of the family obstacles which had always opposed to inclination"

He later acknowledges this flaw:

"I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle... I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit" (Chapter 58)

Elizabeth's pride

Elizabeth's pride is often overlooked because it is disguised as wit. But she admits early on:

"I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine" (Chapter 5)

Her pride in her own perceptiveness makes her resistant to evidence that contradicts her initial judgements.

Austen's message about pride

Austen does not condemn pride outright. Instead, she distinguishes between:

• Legitimate self-respect — knowing your own worth without looking down on others
• Destructive arrogance — assuming superiority over others based on rank, wealth, or self-regard

Mary Bennet's pedantic observation is actually insightful:

"Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us" (Chapter 5)

Examiner's tip: When writing about pride, always show its complexity. Do not simply say "Darcy is proud." Instead, explore how his pride is both a flaw (it blinds him to how his proposal will be received) and a quality (it gives him the strength to reform and act honourably).

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Prejudice

Prejudice — pre-judgement based on incomplete information — is the novel's other title theme. It affects almost every character.

How prejudice operates in the novel

Character	Prejudice against	Basis of prejudice	Consequence
Elizabeth	Darcy	His insult at the ball; Wickham's lies	She misreads his character entirely
Elizabeth	(in favour of) Wickham	His charm; his flattery; confirmation bias	She is completely deceived
Darcy	The Bennet family	Their lower social rank; Mrs Bennet's behaviour	He insults Elizabeth in his proposal
Miss Bingley	Elizabeth / the Bennets	Their connections to trade	She tries to undermine Elizabeth
Lady Catherine	Elizabeth	Elizabeth's lack of rank and fortune	She tries to forbid the marriage
Society	The Gardiners	They are "in trade"	They are assumed to be socially inferior

Elizabeth's prejudice

Elizabeth's prejudice is the more dangerous precisely because she is intelligent. She trusts her own judgement so completely that she fails to question it.

Key moment: When Elizabeth reads Darcy's letter, she is forced to acknowledge her prejudice:

"How despicably I have acted!... I, who have prided myself on my discernment!... I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away"

The word "courted" is telling — Elizabeth has actively sought out prejudice, not merely fallen into it. She has pursued evidence that confirms her initial impression and rejected evidence that contradicts it.

Darcy's prejudice

Darcy's prejudice is class-based. He has been raised to see the world through a hierarchy of rank:

"I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit" (Chapter 58)

His second proposal shows that he has overcome this prejudice — he no longer dwells on Elizabeth's "inferior" connections.

Austen's message about prejudice

Austen shows that prejudice:

• Arises from first impressions that are not examined critically
• Is strengthened by confirmation bias — we seek evidence that supports what we already believe
• Can affect intelligent people as easily as foolish ones (Elizabeth is proof)
• Can only be overcome through self-examination and the willingness to admit error
• Is deeply connected to social structures — class prejudice is not individual but systemic

Examiner's tip: Link prejudice to the original title — First Impressions. Austen's argument is that first impressions are inherently unreliable, and that moral maturity requires the willingness to revise them.

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First Impressions

The novel was originally titled First Impressions, and the theme runs through every major plot development.

Key first impressions and their accuracy

First impression	Accurate?	What the truth is
Darcy is proud and disagreeable	Partly	He is reserved and shy, but also genuinely proud
Wickham is charming and honest	No	He is manipulative and dishonest
Jane is merely sweet and passive	Partly	She feels deeply but conceals it
Mr Collins is merely funny	Partly	He is also a symptom of a patronage system that demands servility
Charlotte is unromantic	Partly	She is pragmatic because she has no choice

The danger of first impressions

Austen shows that first impressions are unreliable because:

1. We judge by appearance — Wickham is handsome and open; Darcy is reserved. The surface impression is exactly wrong.
2. Social settings distort — a ball is not the right place to judge someone's character.
3. We see what we expect — Elizabeth expects Darcy to be proud after his insult, so she interprets everything he does as confirmation.
4. Charm is not virtue — Wickham's charm conceals dishonesty; Darcy's reserve conceals integrity.

How Austen structures the novel around first impressions

Volume	First impressions...
I	Are formed — Darcy is proud, Wickham is charming, Bingley is agreeable
II	Are challenged — Darcy's letter reveals the truth about both himself and Wickham
III	Are corrected — Elizabeth sees the real Darcy; Wickham's true nature is exposed

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Grade 9 Model Paragraph: Prejudice

Question: How does Austen present prejudice as a theme in Pride and Prejudice?