Contemporary Relevance

By: Ashley Jose

Section 2

                       After I had read this phenomenal novel, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, I realized that there were many issues and themes within the novel that can relate to our society in different ways. I enjoyed reading this novel a lot because of the relevance it has to our society yet it still manages to maintain the old English feel. The contemporary relevance in this novel is that people today continue to hold prejudices towards each other.  It is human nature to create judgments when first meeting but sometimes our judgments towards other people can hurt them. These prejudices hurt people’s chances to communicate and grow as a community. Even in the society we live in today, we can all learn from Elizabeth’s mistake and be more careful about the prejudices we form before we learn the truth about a person.

                      

                       Elizabeth assumed a feeling of prejudice towards Mr. Darcy after their first encounter. She assumed him full of pride and rude. Although she thinks this way, there had been some understanding of her dislike towards Darcy. He had called her “tolerable” and refuses to dance with her. Later on in the book, Elizabeth’s opinion of Darcy is confirmed when she realizes he ruined her sisters happiness by breaking up her relationship with Mr. Bingley. These are many of the examples of Elizabeth’s prejudice. I understand it was rude of Mr. Darcy to not dance with anyone except those he already knew, but if Elizabeth took the time to know him, the reason may have been he was shy rather than proud. Instead of concluding he had been proud, she could have assumed he did not feel comfortable dancing with strangers.  It seemed as if many individuals in this novel that had seen Darcy in the ball had thought negatively towards him and his pride. The theme of class definitely plays a huge role in this scene because they thought he was an arrogant jerk because he stands in a higher social class than the Bennett’s.

             I decided to choose this topic because many of us whether we are in school, work, home, or just walking around in a park, we all feel the need to judge or put others down. It may sometimes not be your intention to do so but rather because of the pride we have within our self. An example of this is making a rude comment or making fun of someone because they are different. Whether it is their cultural background, skin color, name, appearance, religion, we are equal and we shouldn’t let our pride blind us from learning the truth. If we are able to overcome our pride, we may also be able to see the good and find true happiness of life as Elizabeth did with Darcy.  As W. Triesthof once said, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”