First Impressions Of Pride And Prejudice Analysis

It takes a few seconds for someone to evaluate a person by their appearances guiding them to make a biased judgement on them. This is the basis for the common knowledge that people have to dress and act a certain way to get hired in a job interview. Based on the title of Jane Austen’s novel, “Pride and Prejudice”, it is more than implied that Austen’s Georgian Era, middle to high class, society would be focused on judging people for irrelevant things like their appearance or how much money they made. The limited contacts between men and women in this marriage hunting society influences the wide impact of first impressions making it understandable why “Pride and Prejudice” was intially called “First Impressions. “Pride and Prejudice” demonstrates

Mr. Darcy is introduced to the readers in the Meryton Ball, a public social ball, a perfect place for different people to interact and subsequently form first impressions out of others. Jane Austen describes the rich Mr. Darcy of “having a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared with his friend (Mr. Bingley)” (Austen 12). Like in most romance books and movies, Darcy, the smart charming man that ends up taking Elizabeth as his wife, starts out as being portrayed as an arrogant and supercilious man. In fact, Darcy unlikability goes so far that he unawaringly insults Elizabeth Bennet. This bad first impression of Elizabeth Bennet on Mr. Darcy makes her view all of his action in a negative light. However, it is understandable the Austen wrote it this way, as if “Lizzie” would have liked Darcy since the beginning, all the problems that would pull them apart in the story and make the book interesting would be resolved before a few chapters into the book. Real life presents difficulty and the dilemma of a bad first impression was the main problem in Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy’s love life.

First impressions manipulated how the relationships in “Pride and Prejudice” were formulated; through right and wrong first impressions Elizabeth was permitted to eventually see people who they really are and everything ended up being for the best before it was too late. First impressions can give you a false interpretation of people; therefore, you should not rely on them too much; however, they do serve as a survival mechanism innate for