Pride

Chapters 1-4 The news that a wealthy young gentleman named Charles Bingley has rented the manor known as Netherfield Park causes a great stir in the neighboring village of Longbourn, especially in the Bennet household. The Bennets have five unmarried daughters, and their mother, a foolish and fussy gossip, recognizes that "it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." She …showed first 75 words of 2704 total…

…showed last 75 words of 2704 total…of spirit, and suggests that these, not the laundry list of accomplishments he gives, are the qualities that Darcy really desires in a woman. His rejection of Miss Bingley's advances, then, serves to improve the reader's opinion of Darcy. Miss Bingley's desperately obvious flirtation make her a figure of amusement for the reader. She is a parody of the man-hungry, snobbish, upper-class woman. Pride and Prejudice is filled with such targets for the author's wit.