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affection was an insult to Elizabeth, something to be disgusted with. Now, the old scorn and
pride which marked Elizabeth’s interactions with Mr. Darcy is gone, and instead it seems as if
Elizabeth feels uncomfortably flattered and just a little bit hopeful that she hasn’t ruined a
potential relationship with him.

It is worth noting that despite the immense turmoil Elizabeth undergoes in this chapter,
there is a part of her which remains unchanged. Despite her own shame and depression, she is
determined not to allow those feelings to show to her companions. “She entered the house with
the wish of appearing cheerful as usual, and the resolution of repressing such reflections as must
make her unfit for conversation” (183). Elizabeth is not simply private, although that must be
part of her silence on her feelings. Ultimately, the happiness of those around her matters more to
her than receiving sympathy for her pain.

The strength of Elizabeth’s revelations shows in her thoughts, which also serve to
summarize the importance of this chapter in the novel: “‘I, who have prided myself on my
discernment!...who have often disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified my
vanity…I could not have been more wretchedly blind’” (182). Elizabeth knows now that she was
not seeing as clearly as she had thought she was. Additionally, Elizabeth realizes that Jane was
closer to the truth more often than Elizabeth was, and feels shame for how she scorned Jane’s
balanced opinions and asserted her own. The whole time, Elizabeth has been pleasing her own
vanity—her own pride. “Vanity, not love, has been my folly. —Pleased with the preference of
one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance, I have
courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away” (182). Elizabeth’s world falls
from beneath her feet. Everything she was sure of—her discernment, Mr. Darcy’s villainy, and
Mr. Wickham’s angelic victimhood—was only self-deception. Ordinarily, Elizabeth might have

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