Illustration of Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy with neutral expressions on their faces

Pride and Prejudice

by Jane Austen

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Before Elizabeth realizes Mr. Darcy's real character, she demonstrates through word and deed on numerous occasions that she holds only disdain for Mr. Darcy.

1. After Elizabeth overhears a conversation in Chapter 3 between Darcy and Bingley which illustrates Darcy's snobbishness and ambivalent feelings for Elizabeth and her class, she remains "with no very cordial feelings towards him" and repeats his comments to her friends, not just to be funny but also to get a form of revenge.

2.  In a conversation with Mrs. Bennet, Jane, and Charlotte, Mrs. Bennet tries to assuage Elizabeth regarding Mr. Darcy's comments about her being "tolerable" by saying that she would not dance with Mr. Darcy if asked.  Elizabeth replies,

"I may safely promise you never to dance with him" (end of Chapter 5).

3.  While there are, of course, many more examples of Lizzy's disdain for Darcy, her refusal of his first proposal is the best example of her having no desire for his company.  She tells him at the end of Chapter 34:

"From the very beginning--from the first moment, I may almost say--of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form that groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry."

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