Essay Questions for Pride and Prejudice

Darcy’s behavior is very different at the end of the novel from what it is at the start. Do you think this change is credible within the story? Explain why or why not.

The Meryton community is described as materialistic and fickle. How does town opinion affect the novel’s progress?

Show how Austen uses minor characters like Miss Bingley, Mr. Collins, and Lady Catherine De Bourgh to bring Elizabeth and Darcy together.

Examine Austen’s use of irony throughout the novel. Give examples of structural irony as well as irony within the narrator’s descriptions and characters’ dialogue.

Elizabeth’s displays wit and intelligence and independence throughout the novel. Explain how these traits both benefit and hurt her as the story progresses.

The book had the original, working title First Impressions. Do you think Pride and Prejudice is a better title? Why or why not?

Compare and contrast the attraction Darcy feels toward Elizabeth with the attraction that Elizabeth feels toward Darcy. How does this contribute to the story?

For much of the novel, Austen seems to be offering a fairly pointed critique of marrying for social considerations. But it’s also true that the happy marriages that bring the novel to a close are favorable by the terms of the society. In the end, both Elizabeth and Jane do marry “up.” Does this undermine the critique the book offers? Is it meant to be read ironically? Do you think that Austen is critiquing Elizabeth and Jane?

Pride and Prejudice is a novel that many Austen fans read and reread. What keeps readers returning to the book once the suspense of whether or not Darcy and Elizabeth will end up together is taken away?