Pride And Prejudice Foils

By contrasting her characters with others, Jane Austen emphasizes both the good and bad aspects of her characters in Pride and Prejudice. She can affect the book's plot by doing this. There are many connections throughout Pride and Prejudice—potential relationships, ones that are just beginning to form, and ones that are already well established. Relationships can also act as foils because the people involved in them are polar opposites of one another. The contrast between Mr. Wickham and Mr. Darcy serves to heighten tension and highlight Jane Austen's advice not to pass judgment on others.

Due to the overly flattering descriptions of Wickham's "gentlemanlike appearance" (Austen 61). "perfectly correct and unassuming" manners (Austen 62), as

"to take good of everybody’s character and make it still better, and say nothing of the bad – belongs to [Jane] alone" (Austen 11). It goes overboard, though, at other points in the book. For instance, she believes Wickham's twisted account of Darcy since she already holds him in low regard due to the fact that he insulted her when they first met. Sometimes Lizzy's judgment is presented to us as a strength, demonstrating her intelligence, as when she infers Collins' personality after only reading his letter. Jane says she "would not like to be quick in censuring someone" in this and other circumstances (Austen 11). They highlight Austen's lesson that we shouldn't judge others by their pride or first impressions.

Mr. Wickham and Mr. Darcy come to symbolize each other's opposites through their numerous relationships with Elizabeth. Prejudices are developed about people based on initial impressions, and they are challenging to change. Elizabeth initially encounters Mr. Darcy at a ball, where "the gentlemen pronounced him to be a good figure of a man" Mr. Darcy quickly captured the attention of the room with his fine, tall, attractive features, and noble demeanor (Austen