Within Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen places a heavy emphasis on each character’s class, and how their class informs their conduct as they interact with others of the same or different breeding. There are pairs of characters like Elizabeth and Charlotte, whose similar worldly position admits them to provide different views of marriage and happiness, and those like Elizabeth and Darcy, who’s vastly different positions serve as a baseline for their conflict in the novel. Every character has a background that changes how others, and readers, see them, especially those most prosperous. The system of wealth Austen describes implies a certain distance between the rich and the rest of society, and while she approves of bending the rules in some scenarios, through the conduct of her characters she belies that the underlying system should be kept intact. The two characters who grant the most insight into this aspect of society are Darcy and Lady Catherine.

When Darcy is first introduced at the Netherfield ball, he is described to be tall, handsome, noble and rich. “[He] soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien; and the report which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year” (Austen 46). Not only are the people of Hertfordshire aware of his wealth “within five minutes,” the reader is aware within two sentences. Darcy is defined by his wealth from the start, a fact made even more true after it is discovered, in the same paragraph, that his manners do not match his appearance. Rather than call him arrogant or rude, Austen chooses the phrases “proud” “above his company” and “above being pleased” (Austen 46). When he is asked about Elizabeth’s agreeability, she is not merely unagreeable, but is “not handsome enough to tempt me” (Austen 47). The crime being committed is not merely a lack of demeanor, but a lack of demeanor fitting one’s position.

Nowhere in the novel is Darcy’s pride more front-and-center than in his first proposal to Elizabeth. After his initial confession, on which he spends several minutes standing in silence in her presence deciding to speak, Elizabeth narrates the following passage:

…He spoke well, but there were feelings besides those of the heart to be detailed, and he was not more eloquent on the subject of tenderness than of pride. His sense of her inferiority- of its being a degradation- of the family obstacles which judgement has always opposed to inclination, were dwelt on with a warmth which seemed due to the consequence he was wounding, but was very unlikely to recommend his suit (Austen 185-186).

This section, related via Elizabeth’s perspective as to draw attention to Darcy’s intention rather than his words, is indicative of the same selfishness which caused his foul impression at Netherfield. There, he was above the concerns of the rest of society in that he had no need to please people he believed to be beneath him. In his proposal, on the other hand, he was concerned with the “degradation” that was Lizzy’s family to the point of essentially saying that if they were to be married, her parents and sisters would become his problem but that he, the poor loverboy, would deal with it. In his head he is rejecting the social norms he so detests by elevating Lizzy to his status through marriage, but he is not seeing past his own perspective. This is further implicated by him being so confident in her answer, as Elizabeth relates that “he spoke of apprehension and anxiety, but his countenance expressed real security” (Austen 186). Darcy is acting out a part, saying rehearsed lines in a conversation that, to him, is only a formality. Many readers might speculate how the events of the book would have progressed if Elizabeth had accepted Darcy’s advances here, but this isn’t sensible in that the person who would’ve accepted this proposal would have already been engaged to Mr. Collins fifty pages prior.

Similar to Darcy in that scene, Lady Catherine’s conduct is not befitting of her wealth, but unlike him she is not given a redemption arc, as the scene most likely to provide a lesson is her final onscreen appearance in the novel, her visit to the Longbourn estate. Here, in attempting to convince Elizabeth to break off her relationship with Darcy she uses a similar rhetoric to him during his first proposal. For one, she speaks only in assumed truths: she “knows [their relationship] must be a scandalous falsehood” (Austen 309), Darcy and Catherine’s daughter have been “from their infancy, intended for each other” (Austen 310), and Elizabeth herself “would not wish to quit the sphere, in which you have been brought up” (Austen 311). In the same way that Darcy believed his proposal was breaking social norms, Lady Catherine thought that a personal visit would be enough to scare Lizzy via breaking the same norms. It certainly scared Mrs. Bennet, who after hearing that the visit was for Elizabeth cried, near the bottom of page 308, for her daughter to show her around the gardens. The daughter was undeterred, however, and in her look of unaffected astonishment and ironic referral of Catherine as “her ladyship” (309) Austen foreshadows to the reader that Lizzy won’t back down, especially after seeing how Darcy is capable of change.

In fact, after his first failed proposal, through his love Darcy learns to overcome his pride and uses his influence to assist Jane and Lydia and regain Elizabeth’s favor, eventually proposing to her again and getting his happy ending, while Lady Catherine is bitter to the final page. Their relationship breaks class norms, but is the message Austen wants the reader to take away that this is okay because love triumphs all? Certainly not, as Charlotte’s marriage to Mr. Collins says that it is perfectly fine to place one’s happiness in security rather than love, and Wickham has more love for the money he received from Darcy than for Lydia. Is the message, then, that money’s influence on human relations is evil, that if Lady Catherine had practiced better conduct the outcome would’ve changed? Once again likely not, because Darcy wins Elizabeth back, ultimately, by throwing his money at her problems, and Elizabeth is continually aware of the worldly position being Darcy’s wife gives her; the first thing she says in her response to his proposal is that she cannot help despite her rage to be swayed by power of his influence, and upon seeing his estate she thinks “And of this place… I might have been mistress!” (Austen 228). In addition, while Lady Catherine is not happy with her nephew’s marriage her position in society does not change, not by her lack of conduct that Elizabeth calls her out for and not by the marriage itself. The largest difference between her and Darcy, the one that makes them foils of each other, is that Darcy has the stakes of his love for Elizabeth, while Lady Catherine has no stakes. They both act poorly for their rank, but Darcy has something to lose, and will learn a lesson for it.

By the conclusion of the novel, the quality that sets Elizabeth apart from her contemporaries is her ability of observation, to see the world around her in a nuanced light and balance her temperance and her scrutiny of others to what each situation calls for. She will banter with Darcy in way that causes Georgiana to “listen with an astonishment bordering on alarm, at her lively, sportive manner” (Austen 335), but doesn’t seek to combat Lady Catherine’s authority in the same way until she breaks conduct first. In understanding the rules surrounding conduct so well, she flourishes, as do those who support and learn from her. Through Elizabeth, Austen teaches that wealth is an important form of power, but that inhabiting your and other’s wealth respectfully is what leads to happiness, whether that be through security or love.