Pride and Prejudice and A Midsummer Night's Dream

First Impressions Revisited

“The course of true love never did run smooth.”

-William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

‘Pride and Prejudice' first appeared between 1796 and 1797 under the title, ‘First Impressions'. At first, the novel was written anonymously; however, after Jane Austen's death, the novel became publicly known to people. The novel itself is a comedy of manners set in a quiet and charming rural England, between 1796 and 1813; to be exact, Pride and Prejudice is set amidst Napoleonic Wars, dating from 1797 up to 1815. In Austen's words, the novel was ‘light and bright and sparkling'. The quote from William Shakespeare best describes the love stories of Jane Bennet and Charles Bingley; Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy. They say that true love has challenges. Most couples start as bitter enemies at first then afterwards to lovers. This is exactly true about Lizzy and Darcy, since both of them dislike each other. However through the course of time, they eventually learned to care for each other and their mistakes made them a strong couple. Jane and Bingley also found true happiness since both Darcy and Elizabeth approves of their affair. The novel starts with Mr. Bennet, the patriarch and the owner of Longbourn, the Bennet's family estate. He is the spouse of Mrs. Bennet, an ill-bred woman of lowly upbringing. She is a noisy, tiresome and foolish woman driven with a desire to see all of her daughters secured with their future husbands. Their residence is near the fictional town of Meryton, the place where the militia lives with civilians. Since their residence is near the headquarters and ordinary people, it is not surprising that most of the family, excluding Jane and Lizzy, have intolerable mannerisms....

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...his acceptance to inherit the Longbourn estate shows his love for praising himself. Darcy's letter for Elizabeth, though he talked about himself on the first part of his letter, he is just trying to explain the things unknown to Elizabeth and the real nature of Wickham's character. The letters in Pride and Prejudice weaves the novel to it endpoint whilst making clear to the readers about the real intentions of the characters.

Works Cited

Books:

Austen, Jane and Linda M Jennings. Pride and Prejudice. Abr. Ed. London: Puffin, 1995. Print.

Bebris, Carrie. North by Northanger, or, The Shades of Pemberley. New York: Forge, 2006. Print.

Websites:

Loney, Robert. "Jane Austen Stayed Here." Orchard-gate.com, n.d. Web. 22 Mar 2014. .

Unknown. "Pride and Prejudice - Chatsworth House Official Website." Chatsworth.org, n.d. Web. 22 Mar 2014. .