In her novel Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
takes the
reader into the world of the early nineteenth century, where men with any form
of money are obviously looking for a suitable match, and not all the women
willing to catch him are worthy of his notice, whether they’re aware of it or
not. Elizabeth Bennet is a young
lady with a fiery disposition and a great deal of wit, whose mother means to marry
off her three oldest
daughters to the well-to-do men she chooses for them. Unfotunately, several plans to do this fall
through, and her daughters are left to their own devices and the whims of fate
(to a degree) in choosing a match. When Elizabeth
meets the wealthy, slightly standoffish Mr. Darcy, their personalities clash immediately, and so begins a
hilarious set of meetings, misunderstandings, and accidents that ultimately
lead to their honest admiration and
love for one another. Not everything between them is rosy: the
esteemed, if rude and cruel, Lady Catherine de Bourgh means to have Mr. Darcy for her equally despicable daughter,
Anne, and takes advantage of everything she can to push Elizabeth away from
him. Mr. Darcy himself proposes marriage,
but Elizabeth feels she has to
decline, and tension mounts between them afterwards.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth’s sixteen year old
sister, Lydia, brings shame upon
their family by running off with a cad of a militia man in such a way as to be
scandalous, and marrying him (though, he does join the regular armed forces
soon after, a more esteemed position by far).
When she's found with him, it's Darcy that has helped out of his
love for Elizabeth, though she doesn't realize it at the time.
Her oldest sister, Joan, may just become a spinster given the lack of
interest in her, but in the end the powerful Mr. Bingley takes a fancy
to
her. Everyone has a happy ending as all
three of the Bennett girls marry well, and Elizabeth and Darcy manage to live
happily ever after despite their trials and tribulations.
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