Pride and Prejudice is not a tragic novel, as it ends with the protagonist's wedding to a man she loves. Instead, Austen uses satire, a kind of humor in which people's flaws are exaggerated, to point out the tragic flaws of the characters. Tragic flaws are qualities that can bring about a character's downfall.

In Austen's novel, Darcy has overwhelming pride that almost makes his marriage to Elizabeth impossible. He believes that her family is so much lower than his and is so embarrassing that he has to overlook them to marry her. Elizabeth, for her part, is full of prejudice towards Darcy. She is blind to his good qualities and instead for a time believes the evil Wickham, who denounces Darcy. These faults almost blind the two main characters and prevent their union until they manage to see beyond them. Austen's novel is not tragic, but characters still possess flaws that stand in their way.

All people, whether in fiction or real life, are imperfect. For novelists, rather than this being a problem, human imperfection is essential to the creation of dynamic characters. A character who begins a novel as perfect and continues as such through an entire novel would be completely static with no character arc or development. The most interesting characters in Pride and Prejudice hold readers' attention not by being unrealistically perfect, but by being flawed and overcoming their flaws to make good choices.

As the title implies, both characters' flaws are forms of pride and prejudice. Darcy is proud of his family lineage and position and displays class prejudice. Elizabeth takes pride in her own intellect and is easily prejudiced by her first impressions. Over the course of the novel, both characters learn to judge more fairly and be more open minded.

In a tragedy, characters' flaws lead to their downfall. In a sense, the first part of the book follows a tragic arc, with pride and prejudice serving as impediments to lovers being united in marriage, but Austen's book departs from tragedy in allowing Darcy and Elizabeth to remedy their flaws and have a happy ending.