Pride and Prejudice

The first line of Pride and Prejudice alludes to the townspeople’s gossip about wealthy men, and Mrs. Bennet’s informing Mr. Bennet of Bingley’s arrival at Netherfield demonstrates the quickness with which news travels. Soon, the family knows about the size of Bingley’s entourage and who will attend the Meryton ball; after the ball, the Bennets and the Lucases gather to discuss the event. These little incidents establish the prevalence of gossip, setting the stage for Wickham’s false accusations against Darcy to circulate.

At the Meryton ball, Darcy is decided to be “the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world” (12); later, when the Bingley party leaves Netherfield and Wickham spreads the accusations widely, “every body [is] pleased to think how much they had always disliked Mr. Darcy before they had known anything of the matter” (134). Like Elizabeth, they make these judgments without truly knowing the man, who by his own account does not have “the talent […] of conversing easily” with strangers, for he “cannot catch their tone of conversation” (167).

When Wickham runs away with Lydia and people discover his debts, people “[seem] striving to blacken the man who, but three months before, had been almost an angel of light,” claiming “that they had always distrusted the appearance of his goodness” (272). They regret that he and Lydia will actually marry, for “it would have been more for the advantage of conversation” (287) if Lydia had been turned out of her house or forced to become a prostitute. They take solace in the fact that “with such a husband her misery [is] considered certain” (287). The townspeople thus treat people’s lives as mere entertainment, soaking up drama and spreading rumors despite the effects on its subjects. Their opinion turns again when Jane becomes engaged to Bingley; then, the Bennet family is seen as “the luckiest family in the world; though only a few weeks before, when Lydia had first run away, they had been generally proved to be marked out for misfortune” (325).

Elizabeth learns the dangers of speaking ill of people before gathering the facts, first when she reads Darcy’s letter and then when she speaks with Mrs. Reynolds, who is actually in a position to judge his true character. After visiting Pemberley, Mrs. Gardiner states how much she likes Darcy and asks Elizabeth why she told them “he was so disagreeable” (241). In fact, Mrs. Gardiner herself at first believes the gossip when she “trie[s] to remember something” (138) of Darcy’s “reputed disposition, when quite a lad which might agree” (138) with the accusations; she finally “recollect[s] having heard” (138) that he was “a proud, ill-natured boy” (138). By the time Darcy proposes for the second time, Elizabeth has learned her lesson. She wishes “that her former opinions had been more reasonable, her expressions more moderate” (349).