Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
...leader of the household and not protecting his daughters from harm. Mrs. Bennet: her behaviour is rather annoying and rude. For example at the balls that the Bennets had attented, she talked loudly without watching over her own behaviour. She is very excentric in marrying her daughters to wealthy men. Plot: Elizabeth is the second daughter in the Bennet family. She has four sisters: forgiving and naive Jane, studious Mary, Kitty, and flamboyant , flirtatious Lydia. The difficulty for Bennet sisters is that because they have no brother their father´s estate will pass to a cousin, the pompous clergyman Mr. Collins, and they will be left with very little to live on. A solution is that at least one of them „must marry VERY well“, meaning - marry money. A new neighbour enters, Mr Bingley, a wealthy young man who takes a house in the neighbourhood. Mrs. Bennet immediately selects him for Jane and the young people oblidge her by showing affection to each other. But Bingley´s friend, Mr. Darcy, persuades him the somewhat weak Bingley that Jane isn´t serious, and Bingley begins to turn his attention elsewhere. Meanwhile, Mrs. Bennet has contrived for Lizzie to marry Mr. Collins, mainly to keep the family home and estate „in the family“. But Elizabeth does not want that and her father takes his head out of his books long enough to support her. Elizabeth thinks Jane and Mr. Bingley are perfectmfor each other and is furious when she realises that the proud, imperious, and VERY wealthy Mr. Darcy is keeping them appart. She has already concluded that Darcy „is the last man on earth I could ever be persuaded to marry“ as indeed she tells him when he, fascinated and attracted in spite of his „better judgement“, proposes to her. But fate intervenes to bring Darcy and Lizzie into contact and she begins to realize there is another side to this proud man. That he is indeed a good man, „the best man I have ever known“ she concludes. This becomes apparent to her when he secretly intervenes to rescue the flighty Lydia, youngest of the Bennet sisters, from a fate worse than death – being seduced but not married by a genuine scoundrel. Gradually Elizabeth realises that her first impression of Darcy´s pride was prejudiced. And Darcy realises there are factors in male-female relationships that class and fortune cannot dictate. Darcy and Elizabeth learn, in course of the novel, how to make decisions based on clear and fair judgments of evidence, combined with a sense of responsible and ethical behaviour towards family and friends. They do not choose to satisfy their own desires at the expense ...