Pride and Prejudice presents themes of marriage, love and status in society. In the 19th century, people had a tendency to marry because of financial benefits. Austen uses sarcastic wit both as a narrator, Elizabeth, her protagonist’s voice and the centre of consciousness to attack the ideas of marriage and love that her society held in her time. She saw that for marriages and relationships to be happy, society must overcome pride and prejudice and marry for true love.
The book is told in a linear structure. Each volume shows stages in Elizabeth’s growth towards a true understanding of Mr Darcy, and how her opinion of him changes. Darcy displays that he has lost sense of pride in chapter 58 and shows that acknowledges he was wrong to Elizabeth openly. “Much as I respect them, I believe I thought only of you” shows that he is devoted to Elizabeth. Darcy explains how Elizabeth helped him to change and taught him to be a gentleman. “your words. You know not, you can scarcely conceive, how they have tortured me” displays how important he considers her opinion to be. The thought that Elizabeth believes him “devoid of every proper feeling” deeply affects him as Darcy realised that he must change his ways to marry the person who he both loves and respects.
In chapter 58, Darcy uses commas and hyphens frequently and seems unsure of the words to use in front of Elizabeth by using short sentences and repeating “you”. The use of hyphens suggests that he thinking more between sentences. This is especially significant as in chapter 4, “his manners, though well-bred, were not inviting.” His vocabulary is formal previously in the book and is not as emotive, so his character has changes throughout the volumes. I think that Darcy was always kind and generous, but he was too conceited, introverted and perhaps too shy to show it. I think that it was his attitude which changed, not his whole