Love is a very powerful and driving force in Pride and Prejudice. However, love is not always about stereotypical romantics and, as illustrated in the novel, love can actually bloom from unlikely sources. Contradicting the typical fairytale direction of love stories, Pride and Prejudice instead requires that characters overcome their own sense of pride and initial feelings of prejudice in order to find their one true love. This is contrary to the external obstacles and hardships which are often presented in Disney movies and fairytale stories that so many people refer to when looking to cite examples of love and/or romance. Throughout the book, it is made clear that individuals do not expect to find love, marriages are not defined by love and love is for the chosen few. There are no princes and princesses, no one believes they will get a happily ever after. These chosen few are required to fully develop their character, being intelligent and thoughtful, in order to experience love.
Darcy and Elizabeth are a prime example of this. They have to be very methodical and intelligent when it comes to their love because they have to overcome their own sense of pride and prejudices in order to experience love. They have to emotionally remove themselves from their situations, looking at it from an educational perspective, rather than personal or social, in order to accomplish this.
To begin with, Elizabeth is overcome with pride and prejudice. She has a very difficult time coming to a different conclusion of Darcy contrary to her first impression. "His character was decided. He was the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world, and everybody hoped that he would never come there again...Elizabeth remained with no very cordial feeling toward him" (8). For his part, Darcy looks down on Elizabeth for her place in society. He refers to her as common and not as agreeable as others (7-9). Darcy does not think she
Cited: Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Waiheke Island: Floating Press, 2008. Print.