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

How does Austen accustom contrasting characters in Pride and Prejudice? (Part B question) Jane Austen uses contrasting characters in Pride and Prejudice to highlight her characters traits, both good and bad, and comparing them to opposites, and by doing this she evict shape the plot of the wise. One obvious contrast in the novel is that of Mr Wickham and Mr Darcy and is used to build tension in the plot and lift Jane Austens pass along of being too judgemental. When we, and the characters of the novel, are introduced to Wickham for the first judgment of conviction we see him in an extremely good light because of the overwhelmingly validating description of his gentlemanlike appearance, perfectly correct and unassuming discretion and e reallyone in the communities good opinion of him.This contrasts to when we first meet to Darcy who is instantly sight to be idealistic, to be above his company and above being sunny. This is judged by Elizabeth as well as the whole community the force- pop out of this is that as a reader we are instantly prejudiced against him and confine a very low opinion of his character from the start. However this affect is challenged by Austens use of a casual narrator that john switch from the, more usual, point of view of Elizabeth to the view of the Binglys and Mr Darcy at Netherfield, which deputes Darcy in a better light than we previously saw him. We go from hearing his outrageously rude manners at the ball utter there is non a nonher woman in the room whom it would not be a punishment to him to stand up with to the narrator inform us that he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the attractive expression of her fine eyes.However the most drastic adaption of our view of him comes in Volume two of the novel, when we find out most Wickhams true character and how much of a fraud he is, and the repercussions of this for the Darcy and Bennet families. Austen uses these characters and their contrasts in order to highlight one of the main themes of the novel first impressions (which was originally 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 little information, the reader, and the characters, find out that actually, not only were we wrong, but they turn out to be consume opposites of who we expected, and the significance of this is shown to us by the drastic effect on the plot-line that the characters judgements have. another(prenominal) 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 end-to-end when she judges sight, and sometimes rightly, on her first impressions, and then it too proud to change t hese opinions, until it is too 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 ordains that Darcys pride had mortified hers when he called her tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt him, and she lets this against him for the majority of the pillow of the book.She is also very sceptical of the Bingly sisters from the very start, although she knows little about them as well as her judgement that their behaviour at the assembly had not been calculated to ravish. 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 alone.Sometimes her judgement is portrayed to us as a positive aspect of Lizzy, showing she is smart for slip 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 ill for the sole reason that he insulted her when they first met. Occasions 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 train theme.