Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice There are many minor characters in the novel, Pride and Prejudice, and every character serves its purpose. In this case, Lady Catherine is a major minor character in this novel. Jane Austen’s purpose of putting Lady Catherine in this novel is to have her serve as an ironic tool. Also throughout the novel, we can see that Lady Catherine is an ugly exaggeration or distortion of Darcy’s worst qualities. We also see his good qualities by the contrast of his estate and Lady Catherine’s. Also, Elizabeth’s strength and independence shows through the conflicts that Elizabeth and Lady Catherine have in the novel. Jane Austen uses Lady Catherine to develop the theme on what is a lady. Lady Catherine is a lady of high class, with very low class manners. She is an imprudent lady and very conceited. She feels authority above all others who are not of her class. She can care less about other people, and only care about the things that can be to her advantage. In this novel we can see how her ways get her nowhere in the novel. Jane Austen uses Lady Catherine as a tool to exaggerate the ugly flaws of Darcy. Darcy, when introduced at the beginning of the novel, has really bad manners; and his rude arrogant way

One scene where Darcy"tms rude manners show is when he refuses to dance with Elizabeth at the ball; but refusing her is not enough, he makes a comment saying that she is not pretty enough. Eventually, they marry and become the ideal marriage in Jane Austen"s point of view. Darcy"tms estate shows his good taste and sense of refinement. She treats the people who have more money better than the ones of lower status, just like Darcy does at parties. Lady Catherine has a daughter whom she believes will marry Darcy. In other words, it is overdone, gaudy. She gets stronger each and every time. Their estates are also a contrast to both of these character"tms true personalities. It has so much luxurious stuff that it is not balanced. She is very imprudent with Elizabeth with the questions that she asks her and is very nosy. Pemberly feels welcoming to anyone because you can feel right at home. In one of the important scenes of the novel, the dinner party scene at Rosings, Lady Catherine helps to point out the strength and independence in Elizabeth. Elizabeth walks inside not feeling at all intimidated by Lady Catherine. The technique that is used to prove this is geographical contrast.