Volume 1: Chapter 1 Summary

Based on the inevitable conclusion that a single man must necessarily be in the pursuit of a wife, when Netherfield Park is rented to an eligible young bachelor of large fortune, Mrs. Bennet, who has five eligible young daughters, applies to her husband to go immediately to Netherfield to make a formal introduction of the family. When Mr. Bennet denies that he has any inclination to do so, Mrs. Bennet, as per her usual reaction to stress, disappointment, or emotion of any kind, begins to complain of her nerves.

Volume 1: Chapter 1 Analysis

Chapter 1 introduces us to two key themes in the novel. Mr. Bennet is "so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve and caprice," that in twenty-three years of marriage Mrs. Bennet has still not learned to decipher his humor through his sarcasm, his love through his nonchalance...