During these three weeks, I am read the original work of Pride and Prejudice. Even though  have already read the simplification one before; it is still very difficult for me to read this original work. Here’s some of my understanding to this novel.

Pride and Prejudice is Jane Austen’s earliest work, and in some senses also one of her most mature works. It’s also considered to be most popular of Austen’s novels.

The story happened in the town of Hertfordshire. Mr. and Mrs. Bennet have five beautiful daughters: Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty and Lydia. Mrs. Bennet, whose obsession is to find husbands for her daughters. So in a sense, this is a story of love. It’s mainly about the love between Darcy and Elizabeth, Bingley and Jane. Darcy, a handsome and proud gentleman, falls in love with Elizabeth. He is attracted by her fine eyes, elegant figure, quick wit and intelligence. Elizabeth find him very proud and at first strongly dislikes him, even has prejudice against him. But after experiencing a lot of things, Elizabeth realizes the true worth of Darcy. When Darcy proposes to her a second time, he has lost his pride and she has given up her prejudice. This story ends in comedy for Darcy winning the love of Elizabeth and taking her hand in marriage.

Just as many people do, I really appreciate Elizabeth very much after reading this novel. Her admirable qualities are numerous—she is lovely, beautiful, clever, intelligent…As the second daughter in her family, Elizabeth must not only cope with her wordy mother, two ignorant sisters—Kitty and Lydia, she must also overcome her own misunderstanding about Darcy, which makes her reject his proposal first. Fortunately, she overcomes her prejudice and recognizes the nobility of Darcy’s character and married Darcy at last. They find their happiness in the end.

In my opinion, this story describes two kinds of attitudes towards marriage. First, there is marriage only for fortune or money. It can be found in Miss Bingley’s pursuit of Darcy and Charlotte Lucas’s marriage to Mr. Collins. The other one is the perfect marriage, which is a love match with consideration of the lover’s personal qualities.   Such perfect happiness is to be found in the marriage of Darcy and Elizabeth. We can see Darcy’s rich, good education, intelligent, sense of responsibility and capacity to love. What’s more, Elizabeth is so beautiful, kind, lively and intelligent. They are actually a perfect pair of lovers.