[go: up one dir, main page]
Scribd
Upload
630 views1 page

Literary Symbols in Austen's Novel

Pemberley, Darcy's estate, serves as a symbol for Darcy himself in Pride and Prejudice. When Elizabeth visits Pemberley, she finds both it and Darcy charming and beautiful as her feelings for him begin to warm. The stream flowing beside Pemberley represents Darcy's natural importance and honesty beneath his arrogance. Elizabeth encounters Darcy on Pemberley while crossing a small bridge, further symbolizing the gulf between them and the bridge their love will build.

Uploaded by

Ștefan Lefter
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
630 views1 page

Literary Symbols in Austen's Novel

Pemberley, Darcy's estate, serves as a symbol for Darcy himself in Pride and Prejudice. When Elizabeth visits Pemberley, she finds both it and Darcy charming and beautiful as her feelings for him begin to warm. The stream flowing beside Pemberley represents Darcy's natural importance and honesty beneath his arrogance. Elizabeth encounters Darcy on Pemberley while crossing a small bridge, further symbolizing the gulf between them and the bridge their love will build.

Uploaded by

Ștefan Lefter
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 1

Pride and Prejudice – Symbols

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or
concepts.

Pemberley
Pride and Prejudice is remarkably free of explicit symbolism, which perhaps has something
to do with the novel’s reliance on dialogue over description.

Nevertheless, Pemberley, Darcy’s estate, sits at the center of the novel, literally and
figuratively, as a geographic symbol of the man who owns it. Elizabeth visits it at a time
when her feelings toward Darcy are beginning to warm; she is enchanted by its beauty and
charm, and by the picturesque countryside, just as she will be charmed, increasingly, by the
gifts of its owner. Austen makes the connection explicit when she describes the stream that
flows beside the mansion. “In front,” she writes, “a stream of some natural importance was
swelled into greater, but without any artificial appearance.” Darcy possesses a “natural
importance” that is “swelled” by his arrogance, but which coexists with a genuine honesty
and lack of “artificial appearance.” Like the stream, he is neither “formal, nor falsely
adorned.”

Pemberley even offers a symbol-within-a-symbol for their budding romance: when Elizabeth
encounters Darcy on the estate, she is crossing a small bridge, suggesting the broad gulf of
misunderstanding and class prejudice that lies between them—and the bridge that their love
will build across it.

You might also like