Summary:
Essay compares and contrasts the aspects of choice versus chance in Joel Weinsheimer's article "Chance and the hierarchy of marriages in Pride and Prejudice".
Joel Weinsheimer's article "Chance and the hierarchy of marriages in Pride and Prejudice" defines chance as "ignorance of causes and consequences" and supposes it to be the driving force behind the action and ending of the novel (405). Events such as Elizabeth and the Gardiner's change of plans to Derbyshire and Darcy's business that brings him to Pemberley are given great importance as chance happenings. I suppose too, that the relationships of Charlotte-Collins, Lydia-Wickham, Jane-Bingley, and even the nonexistent ones of Miss Bingley-Darcy, and Elizabeth-Wickham serve an important role in bringing together Darcy and Elizabeth by chance. But to believe that the action of the novel is dictated by chance seems foolhardy; it is a theory that is too neat and tidy to be entirely plausible to me. Weinsheimer's article lists "Jane Austen's method of establishing.....
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