PxP Ch. 1-6

1) "'His pride,' said Miss Lucas, 'does not offend me so much as pride often does, because there is an excuse for it. One cannot wonder that so very fine a young man, with family, fortune, every thing in his favour, should think highly of himself. If I may so express it, he has a right to be proud'" (Austen 13).

I believe this quote to be important because it describes an aspect of Pride, a major concept addressed in the text and one third of its title. It is also a commentary on how people view pride. If someone is simply average, middle class, and ordinary, yet they are proud, then there is a problem, but with someone so well off as Mr. Darcy--handsome and wealthy--his various different outstanding qualities are the type of things that warrant pride in one's self. As Charlotte so eloquently put it, he does have a right to be proud. This quote exactly establishes the requirements for pride in the novel.

2) "'...it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life'...But no sooner had [Mr. Darcy] made it clear to himself and his friends that she had hardly a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. To this discovery succeeded some other equally mortifying. Though he had detected with a critical eye more than one failure of perfect symmetry in her form, he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and pleasing; and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those of the fashionable world, he was caught by their easy playfulness" (16).

When I read the first part of this quote, where Charlotte is speaking of marriage, I did not agree. the first thing that popped into my mind was Agent Myers from Hellboy: "You like someone for their qualities, but love them for their defects." If you truly love someone, you want them entirely, both the good and the bad. As Myers is saying, you only love someone whe you accept their defects. When I read that, immediately I did not really like Charlotte's character as much as before. As I continued reading, Mr. Darcy's all for Elizabeth is detailed, in complete contradiction to Charlotte's words. He acknowledged that she was pretty, but now he is finding himself falling in love with her for the exact reason he at first did not find her beautiful. In other words, he is finding that his love for Elizabeth was because of what he deemed as defects. I also like how these two refuting passages are on the same page. This is yet another reason why I love Mr. Darcy.