How does Austen use contrasting characters in Pride and Prejudice? Essay

How does Austen use direct contrasting characters in primp and Prejudice? (Part B question) Jane Austen uses contrasting characters in Pride and Prejudice to highlight her characters traits, both good and bad, and analyze them to others, and by doing this she can shape the plot of the novel. One obvious contrast in the novel is that of Mr Wickham and Mr Darcy and is employ to build tension in the plot and convey Jane Austens message of being too nousal. When we, and the characters of the novel, ar introduced to Wickham for the counterbalance time we see him in an extremely good light because of the overwhelmingly positive exposition of his gentlemanlike appearance, perfectly correct and unassuming manners and everyone in the communities good opinion of him.This contrasts to when we prototypic meet to Darcy who is instantly discovered to be proud, to be above his company and above being glad. This is judged by Elizabeth as well as the whole community the effect of this is th at as a subscriber we are instantly prejudiced against him and have a very low opinion of his character from the start. that this view is challenged by Austens use of a casual narrator that can switch from the, more(prenominal) usual, point of view of Elizabeth to the view of the Binglys and Mr Darcy at Netherfield, which shows Darcy in a better light than we previously saw him. We go from hearing his outrageously rude manners at the ball saying there is non another woman in the room whom it would not be a punishment to him to leap out up with to the narrator informing us that he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the delightful expression of her fine eyes.However the most drastic alteration of our view of him comes in tawdriness two of the novel, when we find out about Wickhams true character and how much of a skulker he is, and the repercussions of this for the Darcy and Bennet families. Austen uses these characters and their contrasts in order to hi ghlight one of the main themes of the novel first impressions (which was primitively going to be the name of the novel) and how wrong they can be, because after judging Darcy and Wickham at two ends of the spectrum with minor information, the reader, and the characters, find out that actually, not only were we wrong, but they turn out to be exact opposites of who we expected, and the consequence of this is shown to us by the drastic effect on the plot-line that the characters judgements have. Another influential character contrast that Austen creates is that of Jane and Elizabeth Bennet.This contrast is important to the novel because it highlights the other main theme and message that Austen is putting across Pride and Prejudice. In the novel Elizabeth is a drastic contrast to her sister Jane because of the prejudice attitudes she shows throughout when she judges race, and sometimes rightly, on her first impressions, and then it too proud to change these opinions, until it is to o late in the case of Wickham and Lydia. This is shown to us from the very start of the novel although we do not immediately pick up on the dangers of this. Elizabeth first shows her pride when she says that Darcys pride had mortified hers when he called her tolerable, but not handsome enough to entrance him, and she holds this against him for the majority of the rest of the book.She is also very sceptical of the Bingly sisters from the very start, although she knows little about them besides her judgement that their behaviour at the assembly had not been calculated to please. This contrasts to Janes blind trust of everybody, which, although sometimes proves itself a bad thing, it does show that she is a far kinder person than Elizabeth, always thinking the best of people to take good of everybodys character and make it still better, and say nothing of the bad belongs to Jane completely.Sometimes her judgement is portrayed to us as a positive aspect of Lizzy, showing she is can ny for font when she deduces Collins character after just reading his letter, however it goes to extremes though the novel for example when she believes Wickhams twisted story of Darcy because she has already judged Darcy badly for the sole reason that he insulted her when they first met. cause like this, when Jane would not wish to be hasty in censuring anyone portray Austens message that we should not judge people on our first impressions, or hold our pride against them, and show us her clever use of contrasting characters to develop theme.