Pride and Prejudice York Notes

There are many marriages in Pride and Prejudice and I am going to write different attitudes to love and position in society.

Mr and Mrs Bennet appear in the first chapter and Mrs Bennet is upset with her husband. Mrs Bennet thinks that Mr Bennet should visit Mr Bingley because he is rich and could be a husband for one of her daughters. She thinks that he is ‘in possession of a good fortune and must be in want of a wife’. All that she wants is to make sure that all her daughters are married. ‘I am thinking of his marrying one of them.’

Mr and Mrs Bennet are not very happy because he only married her because she was once beautiful but she is now a just a silly woman who is always going on about her nerves which Mr Bennet calls his old friends.

Lydia is silly like her mother. She is a teenager. She falls in love with a soldier called Wickham and elopes with him and marries him. When she comes back home she boasts, ‘Ah! Jane, I take your place now, and you must go lower, because I am a married woman.’ This explains that because she is married she has become better than Jane. Lydia is irresponsible and sees marriage as a laugh. ‘She went after dinner to show her ring and boast of being married.’

Charlotte Lucas shows another side to marriage. She is not romantic but when she marries the horrible Mr Collins she makes sure that she will never be poor. She says all she wants is a comfortable home. Elizabeth is sorry for her but Charlotte feels safe with no worries about her future.