Read Aloud the Text Content

This audio was created by Woord's Text to Speech service by content creators from all around the world.

Text Content or SSML code:

Quote 4. Darcy had at first scarcely allowed her to be pretty ... But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she hardly had a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes ... he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and pleasing; and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those of the fashionable world, he was caught by their easy playfulness. Explanation and Analysis. Elizabeth has walked three miles to Netherfield in order to look after Jane, who has fallen ill, and Darcy - who is at Netherfield as well - is impressed both by her insistence on running after her sister (something that other characters find unladylike) and by how pretty she looks as she arrives, anxious and eyes shining. Darcy too had leapt to conclusions the first time he had seen Elizabeth, affected by the assumptions of his class and social environment that found her wanting in several aspects. Now, however, when he considers her more closely, he finds that she is pleasing both physically and in terms of her spirit and intelligence. While this passage is an example of Darcy's slow maturation, as he opens his mind to the possibility of liking Elizabeth, it also underlines the way men saw and judged women at the time, frankly and even like property that they might be interested in.