This is a story of individual accomplishment. That accomplishment takes the form of four marriages: Darcy and Elizabeth, Bingley and Jane, Wickham and Lydia, Collins and Charlotte Lucas. In addition, the story leads to some unexpected outcomes. Bingley, whom Darcy hoped to make his brother-in-law by marrying to his sister Georgiana, becomes his brother-in-law instead through their marriages to two sisters, Elizabeth and Jane. More surprising to our sense of justice, Wickham, who attempted to become Darcy’s brother-in-law by elopement with Georgiana, does become his brother-in-law by marrying Elizabeth’s sister Lydia. Most remarkable of all, Collins, whose highest aspiration in life was not marriage, but rather close association with his distinguished benefactor, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, actually becomes the lady’s distant relative through the marriage of his cousin Elizabeth to the lady’s nephew Darcy. Taken as clever story telling, we may be surprised or amused. Taken as profound reflections on truths of human life and action, we can only marvel at the conscious or subconscious knowledge of a twenty-year-old English author.
Social Evolution in Pride & Prejudice
This is also a story of the accomplishment of English society, a society that chose an evolutionary path to social progress in preference to a destructive revolutionary movement like that which wracked France at the time. The society accomplished this evolution by opening up previously inaccessible levels of higher society to those with lesser status and wealth and by a conscious descent of those higher levels to embrace the life-renewing vitality of the bourgeois class. This evolutionary process is reflected in every thought, sentiment and action in the story and is a key to understanding the forces that lead to individual accomplishment. These two movements are inextricably bound together. They are two aspects of a single movement. The thoughts, attitudes, and actions of the individual characters express and contribute to the wider movement of the society in which they occur. The process of social accomplishment and its reflections in the story are examined in Social Evolution in Pride and Prejudice.
Human Character
All great literature reveals truths of human character and human nature that exceed, both above and below, the standards and norms of social character and behavior. The quality, intensity, attitudes, valuesand motives of the individuals involved in the action, particularly the relationship of their individual characters to the specific action, are powerful determinants that very often overshadow in importance the determining characteristics of the act itself. This story brings out the crucial distinction between those whose character is simply a product of the society, the times and the class in which they live and those rare few who develop formed individual characters with the knowledge and will for psychological growth. The accomplishments of the main characters are more a result of their psychological growth than of the external initiatives they take. These individuals take a wide range of initiatives, most of which fail or lead to consequences very different than they had intended. Yet, the movement of events leads invariably toward accomplishment, propelled by a progression of apparently extraneous forces and circumstances. A true understanding of the forces leading to accomplishment requires an understanding of the psychological changes that the main characters undergo. The role of social and individual character in determining the outcome of the story is discussed in Human Character in Pride and Prejudice.
Character of Life
The results of action in the story are an expression not only of human initiative, individual and social character, but also of the character of life itself. Life is a universal field in which forces and forms act and interact with each other. Like the individual and society, it too has what may be called a character of its own. That character can be described in terms of the distinctive ways in which life events occur, repeat and reverse, and the factors that determine the results and consequences of human action. Character of Life in P&P presents a brief discussion of the character of life and illustrates many of its principles from events and consequences in the story.
Spiritual Evolution in Pride & Prejudice
An analysis of action, individual character, social character and the character of life may provide great insight into the course and outcome of the story, it leaves unexplored the far greater field of spiritual determinants that express in and through individuals, societies and life itself. While a story of this type is not the ideal medium for an exploration of this type, we have attempted to illustrate the process of spiritual evolution described by Sri Aurobindo as it is illustrated by actions and events in the story. In The Life Divine, he describes the process of creation or self-conception by which the Absolute or Divine Being manifests the universe by becoming the universe that it creates. This is the process by which the spiritual reality involves itself in material form and life and evolves to rediscover its consciousness, power and being. Spiritual Evolution in P&P examines how the process of spiritual evolution is reflected in the story.
Source: http://humanscience.wikia.com/wiki/Introduction_to_Pride_and_Prejudice
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