Why Elizabeth believed Mr. Wickham?

It’s a fact universally acknowledged, that Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin is a piece of art. The incomparable love story of Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy leaves an extremely magical impression on the reader who invests his heart and soul into the story. Pride and Prejudice stole my heart on the first read and then it was impossible to stop me from going crazy over it. I have read it many times after that, and here is my look out on why Elizabeth Bennett believed Mr. Wickham’s lies so easily.

We all very well know that Elizabeth was one of the finest characters ever written in the world of English Literature. She is the wisest and wittiest characters I have ever read. Thus being so witty and smart, how did she fall prey to Mr. Wickham’s wicked plans?

Do you recall the scene where Mr. Darcy says to Mr. Bingley that the second Miss Bennett was not so handsome and barely tolerable, thus hurting Elizabeth’s pride, who was listening to this private conversation between the men. Elizabeth immediately prejudiced about Mr. Darcy as an extremely proud and pompous man, who did not care about other people’s feelings. This was the first impression of him on her which going forward led to too many misunderstandings between the two of them.

Mr. Wickham just proved to Elizabeth that whatever she had imagined Mr. Darcy to be, was absolutely right. His story about how Mr. Darcy drove him away from Pimberly and left him off to lead a poor life fits exactly the story she had made up in her mind. This was the main reason why she believed Mr. Wickham to be an innocent as she believed her prejudice to be correct. She did not doubt Mr. Wickham’s intensions until she received the letter from Mr. Darcy after he made his feelings clear to her, even after receiving timely warnings from her Aunt, Mrs. Gardiner.

I have believed that the stories which we read always leave an impression on all of us. We need to learn what’s good and what’s bad and how it can affect our relationships with our loved once. With the story of Pride and Prejudice, it was made clear that prejudice can never end up right. It is good to know the other person before we cook up an opinion of them.

Do let me know what you think of the novel, Pride and Prejudice and how it changed your look out of the world. Stay tuned for more blogs and articles on literary heroes and characters.

— Anjali Vaman.