Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism | Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen - Gordon Hirsch (essay date winter 1992)

Gordon Hirsch (essay date winter 1992)

SOURCE: Hirsch, Gordon. “Shame, Pride, and Prejudice: Jane Austen's Psychological Sophistication.” Mosaic 25 (winter 1992): 63-78.

[In the following essay, Hirsch discusses Pride and Prejudice in the light of modern psychology, focusing on the role of shame in the novel.]

Elizabeth Bennet's great moment of psychological insight in Pride and Prejudice comes soon after she reads Darcy's letter:

She grew absolutely ashamed of herself. Of neither Darcy nor Wickham could she think without feeling that she had been blind, partial, prejudiced, absurd.

“How despicably have I acted!” she cried. “I who have prided myself on my discernment. … How humiliating is this discovery!—Yet, how just a humiliation!—Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly. Pleased with the...

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