The Journal
Book club discussion questions for Pride and Prejudice
These discussion questions for Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice are designed to move the conversation beyond plot summary toward the questions the novel is actually asking. The best discussions of Austen happen when readers disagree about whether she is being ironic -- and she almost always is, but about different things than readers initially assume.
Pride and Prejudice is free to read on Foxing. For the chapter-by-chapter reading format that works well with Austen, how to run a book club chapter-by-chapter covers the method.
Questions about Elizabeth and Darcy#
1. Elizabeth prides herself on her ability to read character. How many times does she get it significantly wrong? What does this pattern say about Austen's argument about the relationship between intelligence and judgment?
2. Darcy's first proposal to Elizabeth is, by his own later admission, badly done. What exactly is wrong with it? Is his pride about his own status, about his condescension in proposing to someone beneath him, or something more specific?
3. Elizabeth changes her opinion of Darcy after visiting Pemberley. Is this a shallow motivation or is Austen making a more subtle argument about the relationship between a person's physical environment and their character?
4. The novel's famous opening -- "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife" -- is ironic. Who is the irony directed at? Mrs Bennet? The neighbourhood? The social system? All three?
Questions about money and marriage#
5. Charlotte Lucas accepts Mr Collins's proposal and builds a comfortable, rational life on it. Is Austen judging her for this choice? Is Charlotte's pragmatism presented as a failure of integrity or an honest assessment of her situation?
6. The economic vulnerability of the Bennet daughters is a constant background pressure in the novel. If the entail did not exist -- if the Bennets could leave their estate to their daughters -- how much of the novel's plot dissolves?
7. Wickham's charm is a social asset that almost destroys Lydia and significantly damages the whole family. What does the novel argue about the relationship between charm and character?
Questions about the novel's form#
8. The novel is told in close third person -- we stay near Elizabeth's perspective throughout. What do we miss by not having access to Darcy's point of view during the first half?
9. The ending is very quick. Darcy's second proposal, Elizabeth's acceptance, and the resolutions of the other storylines all happen in the last few chapters. Does this feel rushed, or is it precisely calibrated?
Questions about the novel's world#
10. Austen was writing about a world she lived in, and she was a woman with limited economic independence in that world. How much of Elizabeth's situation is Austen's own? For the full biographical context, who Jane Austen was and why people still read her covers her life.
11. The novel was published in 1813. What has changed about the social situation it describes -- and what has not?
12. If you had to identify the novel's central argument -- not its plot, but what it is arguing -- what would it be?
Further reading#
For what to read after finishing Pride and Prejudice, what to read after Pride and Prejudice covers every direction.
For other discussion questions in the same format, Frankenstein questions and Great Gatsby questions follow the same structure.