Theme of Classism in Pride and Prejudice Essay Example

Classism. The great division everywhere that impacts everyone. Till this day, classism has become more apparent within our communities and the wealthy. We have severe poverty and people who are extremely wealthy, but what else divides us into classes besides money? The way we behave, and act also influence the way others perceive us, especially in Pride and Prejudice. As we know, the rich tend have their way of acting, but let a poor person act the way they act, we are wrong, but it occurs the other way around also. Our judgements on others also impact the way we view people, so when we have a negative bias, our outcome is bound to be negative. With Darcy and Elizabeth, the difference in how they act feeds into their class, meaning the way they are portrayed are due to their significant way of behaving. Jane Austen’s portrayal of Elizabeth’s quick judgement and Darcy’s entitled nature are what makes it difficult for these classes, but their first interaction, Wickham’s introduction, and ability to lure Elizabeth, and Elizabeth’s discovery of Wickham’s true nature provided a critical yet conscious response in Elizabeth showing her, her judgment has failed her in a time where she was being quite harsh in understanding others. 

Elizabeth’s and Darcy’s introduction was quite simple. Darcy made a statement regarding Elizabeth’s appearance stating, “she’s tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me” (Austen 7), which hurt her self esteem and as for Darcy he was seen as supercilious and pompous, which caused him to be the talk at the party. This caused for Elizabeth to have a negative view on Mr. Darcy, which led to her ill judgement on him later. As we see, judgement and first appearances are important and can be powerful, because as said when we have a negative experience, we are bound to have a negative outlook on things. In addition, it was expected of Darcy to act the way he was acting because he was wealthy. This portrays, how wealth and class have a lot to do with how people will perceive you and although many had their opinions on the way he acted, they could not say anything as they did not have the privilege of being wealthy and either way their opinions did not matter. This connects to society, as society is at fault for convincing others that you are superior due to your class and wealth. Society has had this constant believe that having money is a portrayal of superiority and anything below this status is worth nothing. This allows many to act the way they act without consequence or repercussions, showing the unfairness in class, because if someone who was lower class acted the way Darcy was, they would be looked down on. 

In continuation, Elizabeth’s judgment meshes well will Wickham’s view on Darcy. Wickham’s introduction couldn’t have been in a better time, especially since Elizabeth already had a bias on Darcy and Wickham’s “history” with Darcy only added to her hatred as she felt he was wronged by Darcy. This raises questions on Elizabeth’s integrity as she was quick to judge Darcy, from a man who happened to have the same thoughts on him as she did. This provides a point that her judgement could not have been reliable as she put her feelings of disdain for Darcy above everything else. The clash between the high class and lower class in this case, is that people like Elizabeth and Wickham have this idea that Darcy is a bad man just because he is considered “above” them and has been wronged by them, and since Elizabeth fails to see right through Wickham, it shows her hatred for Darcy has clouded her judgement. This provides a connection to humanity as her feelings have come to take a hold of her and convince her that she has all right to feel this way, even thought she doesn’t know much about Darcy, conveying that as humans we tend to jump to conclusions easily with no background information as we have already formed a bias and are stubborn to see past it. 

After all the circumstances regarding Wickham, Elizabeth finally finds out about Wickham’s true intentions and regains her conscious on the situation. For a long period of time Elizabeth had failed to see the truth blinded by Wickham’s “sincerity”, but Darcy enlightened her in the situation and provided her with a whole new outlook on the situation. Darcy providing this evidence to Elizabeth and explaining himself was not something he had to do but chose to do even after all the judgement he received. Elizabeth has no choice but to question her sense of judgement and decorum when she stated, ‘Till this moment, I never knew myself.’ (Austen 141) At this point she has an epiphany where she realized, she continuously made ill judgements of Darcy and acted very harshly not minding basic decency and kindness, but we can’t forget that Darcy also started off with a superiority complex. Moving forward her questioning her propriety comes from ongoing opinions which impacted her view and contributed to an overall biased look. Regarding class its easier to agree with someone who is like you, than someone who is nothing like you, although it can lead to a misrepresentation of who you are as person. For Darcy and Elizabeth, the only thing that made them different from each other was their difference in class, and Wickham being like her, I want to say it was easier to empathize with him since he was charming, while Darcy came off as colder, but we learn that although we see everyone externally, we forget that the internal is just as important. This connects to humanity because yet again we are so concentrated on concluding things that there are times were an ill judgement is made and we act upon it, enforcing Elizabeth to realize that she made a mistake. 

In the end, the Victorian novel has acknowledged classism and has explained how class and judgement can correlate with each other and just clash when they are misunderstandings. Although in modern society classism is apparent, during the Victorian Era, classism was brushed under the rug. Only true nobles and the wealthy were seen as people excused from anything and the excess rules and mannerisms contributed to this culture. In addition, not following basic protocols meant you weren’t classy, and morals and conducts were the main thing about this period, after all this time period was all about reputation and perfection.