Why Pride and Prejudice?

All we know that Jane Austen named her book ‘Pride and Prejudice’ because these are the main adjectives to describe the two main characters in the book, Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Benet. 

On the one hand, Darcy shows pride as he believes and states he is too good for Elizabeth, because he is richer and of a higher class than Elizabeth and her family. 

On the other hand, Elizabeth demonstrates prejudice since she holds her negative first impression of Mr. Darcy against him as she sees him as very arrogant person when they first met and is offended when he coldly states that she is “tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me”. This initial impression that Elizabeth has of Mr. Darcy builds up a negative prejudice that she holds against him. 

Nevertheless, throughout the course of the story, the two characters gradually lose their pride and prejudices and learn that they were wrong for having them.

I just believe Jane Austen wanted to get across how prejudiced people can be and how we do not have to “judge a book by its cover”.