in their conversation and the language they use in letters.
The structure of the novel is simple on the surface and more complex in the execution. Austen brings together her characters, real people with their own attitudes and foibles, and then allows them to interact over the simplest matters. How they behave determines the course of the plot, which is not involved in terms of incident or twists and turns but which evolves entirely from character and its interplay. The title of the novel indicates the underlying forces at work--the pride of characters such as Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, and the prejudice that results when they meet and fail to see past the surface presented to society. Austen uses a series of social encounters, with the several sisters each reacting in her own way to the prospect of marriage, and the essential
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