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Pride, Prejudice and Shyness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

R. E. Ewin
R. E. Ewin
Affiliation:
University of Western Australia
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Extract

Those of us who were made to study Pride and Prejudice at school know that Darcy represents pride and Elizabeth represents prejudice. Those of us who have actually read the book know that the situation is a good deal more complicated than that. The motivation for a significant part of the action is Elizabeth's pride, a point that is made quite clearly and is recognized by Elizabeth herself in what sounds like a thoroughly rehearsed speech:

‘How despicably have I acted!’ she cried.—‘I, who have prided myself on my discernment!—I, who have valued myself on my abilities! who have disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified my vanity, in useless or blameable distrust.—How humiliating is this discovery!—Yet, how just a humiliation!—Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly.—Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance, I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were concerned. Till this moment, I never knew myself’ (pp. 236–7) (All page references are to the Penguin edition of the novel.)

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 65 , Issue 252 , April 1990 , pp. 137 - 154
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1990

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References

1 Heyd, David, Supererogation (Cambridge University Press, 1982).Google Scholar

2 Urmson, J. O., ‘Saints and Heroes’ in Melden, A. I. (ed.), Essays in Moral Philosophy (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1958).Google Scholar

3 Translations are from The Works of Aristotle Translated into English (volume ix) under the editorship of Ross, W. D. (London: Oxford University Press, 1963).Google Scholar