Judge Them By Their Words

“I believe that the most important aspect of Pride and Prejudice is the dialogue. The first chapters are mostly dialogue, and there’s little description to each character. Therefore, we as readers perceive the character’s attitudes and personalities through their expressions rather than the narrator’s description,” said Jose Maria.

“I agree,” I said, “my first impressions of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet are caused by their dialogue. Towards the end of chapter 1, the narrator describes Mr. Bennet as being ‘so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic, humour, reserve, and caprice’ (Austen 3) and Mrs. Bennet as “a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper” (Austen 3). Those words, in fact, are just confirmations of my inferring.”

“Yes, for example, just as Darcy says ‘she is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me’(Austen 7) I can picture an entire image of his personality,” Jose Maria said. “You can smell his superficial personality from those words. It’s not just a passing comment. It reflects his ‘prejudice’ towards women from lower social classes, and the rudeness present in his personality. Don’t you think so?”

“Indeed, thank you for that idea. I’m sure Mr. Tangen will like my blogs next week when he reads them,” and as I said that, we shook hands and I went back to writing my next blog entry.