PRIDE & PREJUDICE: A SPEECH ABOUT THE SUMMARY

Greetings, everyone!

With your gracious permission, I would be so honoured and glad to be able to talk to all of you about the perfectly admirable film called “Pride and Prejudice” which is the adaptation of the book written by the splendid British author, Jane Austen. Events generally take place in “Hertfordshire” which is an imaginary county, and Derbyshire.

The film begins with a young man, Charles Bingley who makes 5000 pounds a year, purchasing land for himself at Netherfield Park, located in Hertfordshire. Mr and Mrs Bennet from Longbourn, being aware of this, also wish to marry their oldest daughter, Jane, to him.

These five sisters who are Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Catherine, and Lydia attend a ball with their mother. The girls wear fancy dresses so Mr Bingley might consider a marriage with them. In particular, Jane's dress is splendid. At the end of the day, they dance together and fall in love. Mr Darcy, who is his best friend is also at the ball. He comes across with Elizabeth, he rejects her wish to dance. After their short talk, she hears him saying she is not enough to tempt him and thinks how arrogant and rude he is. Everyone thinks the same.

After exhausting days spent with preparation, the girls learn that some military officers are coming to the town. The younger girls try various different tricks to meet the young and handsome soldiers. Finally, they meet one of them in Meryton: Mr Wickham.

During Lieutenant Wickham and Elizabeth's talk by the river, they see Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy going to the girls’ home. When Elizabeth realises that Mr Darcy is reacting too angrily and also anxious to see Lieutenant Wickham, she asks him what happened. Wickham says that they grew up together and Mr Darcy’s father loved and took care of him like his son but after his demise, everything changed.

At the same time, an unexpected guest, Mr Collins, who is a priest and the real owner of Bennets’s home, decides to visit the family and his cousins. While they’re having dinner together, he says that he talked to his patroness, and he needs to get married to one of those girls, who are his cousins! Firstly, he asks Mrs Bennet if he can marry their oldest one, Jane, but after learning that she is about to marry Mr Bingley already, he makes a proposal to Elizabeth and she directly rejects it. Even though her mother tried to convince her with all her best because they live in his property, Elizabeth and her father never think the same. Regarding Mr Collins, he finally gets married to Charlotte Lucas, who is Elizabeth’s best friend.

As time flows, Mr Darcy confesses to Elizabeth that he is in love with her but has problems explaining himself, so Elizabeth rejects this rude and sudden proposal. As her reason, she asks what happened with Mr Wickham and says that she wouldn’t marry a man who separated his own best friend from his girlfriend. Yes, the people we are talking about are Jane and Mr Bingley! That’s why Jane was visiting London at that time.

Here is an author’s note: This scene might be the first one that we see Mr Darcy upset! He immediately writes a letter to Elizabeth and it turns out that he separated this couple for his best friend’s sake because when he looked at Jane, he did not see the same attention as Mr Bingley. And talking of Mr Wickham, he has an unfortunate reason: They indeed grew up together but when his sister, Georgiana was just 15 years old, he tried to run away with her to get married and demanded a large amount of money.

One day, Lydia goes to Brighton to spend her days with Mr and Mrs Forster for a while and Elizabeth visits her aunt. During her visit, they go on a picnic to Pemberley which is owned by Mr Darcy. They also visit his house as well as his town because Mr Darcy is considered out of the city however he is not! She sees him hugging his sister who played her piano just a few minutes ago. She runs away when they make eye contact with each other.

Elizabeth receives a letter from Jane while she’s still there and finds out that Lydia has run away with Mr Wickham! As Mr Darcy also learns this tragic event, he tries to help the family and by getting paid 100 pounds a year, Wickham accepts to marry Lydia.

Elizabeth returns to her hometown. While they are doing some shopping in the marketplace, they hear gossips which say that Mr. Bingley is back without his sister, Caroline.

Simultaneously, one day Lady Catherine -the patroness of Mr Collins and the aunt of Mr Darcy- knocks on Bennets’ door at night, just to say if Elizabeth is going to marry Mr Darcy, he is currently engaged to her daughter, Anne.

  Mr Bingley proposes to Jane, as expected. Just after a few days passed, Mr Darcy comes to Elizabeth and asks if her emotions about him are still the same, like a proposal. This time, Elizabeth does not reject him. She talks to her father to obtain his consent about this marriage.

In the end, they get married. Elizabeth Bennet becomes Mrs Darcy and they live happily ever after. 

As I bring my speech to a close, I appreciate your attentive presence and engagement throughout. Thank you.