Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors
used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
Pemberley
Pride and Prejudice is remarkably free
of explicit symbolism, which perhaps has something to do with the
novel’s reliance on dialogue over description. Nevertheless, Pemberley,
Darcy’s estate, sits at the center of the novel, literally and figuratively,
as a geographic symbol of the man who owns it. Elizabeth visits
it at a time when her feelings toward Darcy are beginning to warm;
she is enchanted by its beauty and charm, and by the picturesque
countryside, just as she will be charmed, increasingly, by the gifts
of its owner. Austen makes the connection explicit when she describes
the stream that flows beside the mansion. “In front,” she writes,
“a stream of some natural importance was swelled into greater, but
without any artificial appearance.” Darcy possesses a “natural importance”
that is “swelled” by his arrogance, but which coexists with a genuine
honesty and lack of “artificial appearance.” Like the
stream, he is neither “formal, nor falsely adorned.” Pemberley even
offers a symbol-within-a-symbol for their budding romance: when
Elizabeth encounters Darcy on the estate, she is crossing a small bridge,
suggesting the broad gulf of misunderstanding and class prejudice
that lies between them—and the bridge that their love will build
across it.
