WELCOME TO THE 3rd DISCUSSION!
I am completely bummed that Pride and Prejudice is over! This is only my second re-read but I feel like my love for this story has grown sufficiently to read it again every year. Do you ever re-read something again as constantly? I’d love to know if you do and what book(s)! Next week I’ve finally decided to post my reviews of Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice on my blog. But they will really just be my string of thoughts about them and just fan-gushing about Jane and her lovely works.
Emma is up next in April so I hope that you are prepared to sink into another Austen classic! I will send off the schedule email for that VERY soon.
I wanted to do another live showing of Pride and Prejudice, like I did for Sense and Sensibility, but I don’t think that IG was the way to go about it. If you have any suggestions for me, feel free to send them over via email! I have borrowed 3 different versions of the P&P movie as well as the one that I own. 4 versions again! I just watched one last night and hope to watch one every night. It is SO fun for me to see the differences in films trying to depict this classic. Which is your favorite?
Anyways, I guess I should just get to the point with the discussion questions! Here you go!
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
- If Lady Catherine had not shown up at Longbourn, do you think Lizzy and Darcy would have still ended up together? Why/why not?
- Which characters change the most throughout the novel? Which ones remain static? Do you think there is significance in these two types of characters?
- How does Pemberley play a role in Elizabeth’s change of heart? Does she really fall in
love with Darcy after seeing his estate? Why is Darcy attracted to Elizabeth? - Why do you think Austen might have used letters so often in this novel? What is the difference, for you as the reader, between reading it in third person narrative, or in letter form? (There are 59 references to letters in the book.)
- Which do you think is the better title, now that you have read the novel: Pride and Prejudice, or First Impressions? Does it relate to other characters in the novel (besides the obvious)?
- Who is the better parent…Mr. or Mrs. Bennet? What role does family play in this novel?
- Darcy says that Wickham tried to elope with Georgiana for revenge. Why does he run
away with Lydia (other than the obvious…)? - Let’s imagine that the characters (or just the Bennet sisters, if you want) each have their own Facebook/Instagram/Twitter page. Who would be most active? Nonactive? What would a post from them look like? What would they share?
- Why is this novel so popular? Why do readers keep coming back to it, even after the
original suspense is gone and they know how it ends? - Did you like this better than Sense and Sensibility? Was Sense and Sensibility better? Why do you think so? Have you found similarities/differences between S&S and P&P? In the characters? In the writing style? Etc.
- Tell us your concluding feelings about the characters.
I love it when you answer the questions above but I also love your string of thoughts after reading the current volume we are at! Anything goes. Thanks for participating for another month of JABBR, this journey is so much fun with you all!!!!
Comment away, or as Lady Catherine said…
The Hunt for Paperbacks 
Q1 I’d like to think they would still be together! I think it would’ve just taken more time. Elizabeth had learned much more about Darcy since refusing his proposal, and Darcy clearly still cared about her but wasn’t sure she reciprocated so it would’ve been up to Elizabeth to give the go-ahead.
Of course, she does give a sign in the book as it’s currently written, approaching Darcy to thank him for helping her sister. It does seem in this scene that it would’ve all come together even if Darcy hadn’t learned from Lady Catherine what Elizabeth felt.
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Q4 I really don’t know the history of letters so this is more my way of thinking of them, but it seems in this book like people were able to be much more direct and to the point in letters versus face-to-face, though of course they still were quite proper and polite.
A lot of the conversations in person seemed to center a lot around embarrassment and saving face so they’re not always able to say everything they’d like. In this book with so many hidden feelings, letters are necessary to get the truth out.
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Q6 Ugh, family! That’s definitely a mess in this one! I’m just gonna tackle Mr and Mrs Bennet right now but there’s obviously a lot more to talk about.
First of all, I’ve seen parts of the 2005 movie and I LOVED Donald Sutherland as the father. (Un)fortunately, I was let down when I learned all there is to know about him from this book. I was under the impression that he was wonderful but it seems he also has his faults.
Now in terms of who’s the better parent, that’s a tough one. I think both parents in this case didn’t fully take on the responsibilities they needed to. Mrs. Bennet is very concerned with marriage of course, but she also focuses on the superficial aspects without thinking of consequences (see: Lydia going to Brighton!). I don’t know that she has the immaturity of Mrs. Dashwood but she does get carried away, and while she plans for these marriages for her daughters she doesn’t seem to see the whole picture and the impact she’s having.
Mr. Bennet on the other hand is not a great father, sorry to say. He withdrew from his daughters and until there’s serious trouble, he doesn’t really concern himself with them. He’s more a figurehead than a parent in the way he conducts himself in the family.
Of course, we can see a difference in his attitude towards Elizabeth (and perhaps Jane though I don’t remember much interaction between them) but this seems to be mainly because Elizabeth is intelligent like him. If she hadn’t been so similar to him, would he have paid her any notice? Hmmm….
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I think that both parents are to blame. They indulged or ignored Lydia and that was about the extent of their parenting. It ended up falling to Jane and Lizzy to parent them when it shouldn’t have. They tried their best to steer their younger sisters towards being sensible, but they can only do so much.
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Wow what a great month!!! I missed the last discussion completely but I’m back ☺ I’m going to start with q8. I think that Lydia would be one of those girls that wound overshare on all forms of social media. Mary would have a bookstagram page for sure.
Q1. I agree with spinesinaline that Darcy and Elizabeth would have eventually come together maybe just not as quickly.
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Lydia would definitely be all over social media! I’m sure she’d be very active on Instagram with all her adventures.
I wonder if Mary would get into YouTube. She’d finally have a place where she would be able to talk about whatever she’d like and not be overshadowed by her sisters
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I can so see Mary uploading videos to YouTube! hahaha
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My favourite had always been the BBC version with Colin firth 😍 and I have always preferred P&P to S&S.
These characters have always been the ones that I have always enjoyed reading about and I will continue to read this book a lot.
They show more depth I think than the characters in S&S and I enjoy them especially Lady Catherine and Mr Collins. Wickham is the man we all love to hate with good reason although I think he is a product of his time as well. Being forced to marry Lydia made the choice for him as it was quite public that they ran away together and it ruined his chances also at another match.
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Pride and Prejudice is my favourite of the three Jane Austen books I’ve read so far and I was looking forward to rereading it for JABBR, so I was really disappointed that I was unable to. It’s been some years since I first read it so I don’t think I’ll attempt to answer the questions because I’ve gotten a bit vague on the finer details. I’ll definitely be joining this month for Emma though!
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I know we’re technically on Emma now but I had a few more thoughts I wanted to share!
Q9 I have no idea but I definitely feel the pull of this book! I really enjoyed the story and I can see myself coming back for another read!
Q10 So initially, I did prefer S&S because I had iffy feelings about Elizabeth. There were parts of her character that just didn’t sit well with me. However, about halfway through I was really entranced by this story and it had a much more enjoyable ending than S&S! I think her writing has become stronger with this book so I did prefer P&P by the end.
Someone mentioned it last month I think that Jane Austen does a lot of telling rather than showing, and I don’t know that this changed at all for P&P. She does seem to prefer to end a story by telling us what happens rather than including any dialogue.
I find her dialogue sections really interesting though because we don’t always get the full conversation word for word. There were several parts where one person would be quoted and the next person’s answer would be described rather than spoken, like “She gave a curt answer that showed her contempt for him” (not a real quote :P)
I wonder if she does this because it’s easier to give the reader the exact attitudes of the characters rather than giving us a quote and we have to deduce what they’re feeling for ourselves. I don’t know that it’s better the Austen way but it probably helps avoid misunderstandings with the reader. What do you guys think?
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Don’t you just hate it when life gets in the way and you missed the discussion and the start of April book challenges! Nope? Just me 🙈
So guys we made it! Another book down! I have to say I was not looking forward to Pride and Prejudice but I enjoyed it much more second time round. I know we have started Emma(well I haven’t quite had a chance to just yet but still😅) I could not miss this final discussion for P&P! Okay thoughts and feelings time now! Once again I am going to attempt to answer some of these amazing questions Jessica has come up with so first up
Question 1. I think Darcy and Elizabeth would have still ended up together in the end buuuut I think Elizabeth’s confrontation with Lady Catherine might have opened Elizabeth up to her feelings quicker. Like yes she was thinking of Darcy in a new light but Lady Catherine trying to make her promise not to marry/get engaged to Darcy she was forced to confront her feelings. Because she did not want to do that. She was still hopeful for another proposal (although trying to convince herself otherwise). Elizabeth’s pride in herself and her love for Darcy allowed her to stand up to Lady C.
Question 3. I think Pemberley played a part in changing Elizabeth’s heart but not in a oh wow his estate is amazing I must marry him. I think when Elizabeth visited Pemberley and spoke to the housekeeper I think it was? The housekeepers glowing praise of Darcy and the description of Darcy. It was a new side of Darcy that she had never seen or heard of before. So it gave Elizabeth pause to think of her initial prejudice towards Darcy. Then of course who shows up but Darcy himself! But a new improved Darcy who is very courteous to Elizabeth. He has got over his pride and has a change of attitude to Elizabeth which shoes his love for her and also makes Elizabeth’s feelings for him grow.
Question 5. At first I thought First Impressions was the best title and didn’t know why Austen changed it to Pride and Prejudice. But after some thought I can see why she would. We all know Darcy is Pride and Elizabeth is Prejudice. But both of them have bits of both in their characteristics. Both have pride and both harbour prejudice, which they both learn to conquer for their love for each other. Love triumphed pride and prejudice and isn’t that what this novel is about? Love wins out. Romance wins out. Elizabeth marries for love. Jane married for love. When Elizabeth was telling her friends and family she was marrying Darcy. Her family didn’t care about social class etc they wanted to know if she loved him. Which for Austen was the most important question. Even with the undeniable relevant social issues of class and money everybody asks Elizabeth if she is marrying for love. I think I went on a slight tangent there but anyway….
Question 6. I think that is a difficult question to answer. On one hand Mrs B just wants her daughters married for their security but on the other hand she is a very infuriating woman who is very naive. Then we have Mr B who withdraws from his family, especially in times of crisis, who attempts and fails to step up when Lydia runs off with Wickham. I don’t think either of them are better than the other…. I mean Mrs B tried to blame the Colonel for Lydia running away.. i.e. Blaming someone else for her bad parenting. I think the Gardiners were the real role models and good parents in this book. I mean time and again they stepped up to act responsible. Even when Mr B returns home Mr Gardiner stays and fills the parent role that Mr and Mrs Bennet have vacated.
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