Indoor/Outdoor Settings

Outdoor settings, compared to indoor settings, in Pride and Prejudice are symbolic of openness and understanding, a place where one can reflect without interruption or the constraints of societal expectations that characterise indoor settings. Whenever Mr Darcy and Elizabeth meet indoors, such as at Netherfield, in Kent, and especially Pemberley, their interactions tend to end in misunderstanding while, in most cases, when they are able to meet outdoors, their communication becomes easier and they move closer to one another emotionally. The pattern is repeated throughout the novel when, following a long period of time during which Elizabeth is unable to question Mr Darcy as to his presence at Lydia’s marriage, Mr Darcy and Elizabeth are unable to communicate freely at Longbourn until they take a walk outside. Even Lady Catherine, who rarely refrains from dictating and interfering in the lives of people while in indoor settings, chooses to meet with Elizabeth outdoors when she demands that Elizabeth refuse an offer of marriage from Mr Darcy.

Indoor/Outdoor Settings Quotes

‘What are young men to rocks and mountains? Oh! what hours of transport we shall spend! And when we do return … We will know where we have gone— we will recollect what we have seen. Lakes, mountains, and rivers shall not be jumbled together in our imaginations; nor when we attempt to describe any particular scene, will we begin quarreling about its relative situation.’ (Elizabeth to Mrs Gardiner) Chapter 27

Her favourite walk, and where she frequently went while the others were calling on Lady Catherine, was along the open grove which edged that side of the park, where there was a nice sheltered path, which no one seemed to value but herself, and where she felt beyond the reach of Lady Catherine’s curiosity. (Elizabeth) Chapter 30

More than once did Elizabeth, in her ramble within the park, unexpectedly meet Mr Darcy. Chapter 33

Reflection must be reserved for solitary hours; whenever she was alone, she gave way to it as the greatest relief; and not a day went by without a solitary walk, in which she might indulge in all the delight of unpleasant recollections. (Elizabeth) Chapter 37

Pemberley

The vast estate of Mr Darcy, Pemberley, stands apart from any geographical location in the novel both in the level of detail ascribed to its description when Elizabeth visits and in what this exhaustive description represents. Literally and figuratively, Pemberley estate symbolises its owner. When Elizabeth visits Pemberley with the Gardiners she has already started to warm up to Mr Darcy, and as her literal experience of the estate unfolds and the reader is invited into her thoughtful critiques of Pemberley, the reader is receiving her critique of Mr Darcy. Elizabeth is delighted by the natural beauty of the landscape and the ‘handsome’ building and, particularly, that the ‘stream of some natural importance’ is ‘without any artificial appearance … neither formal nor falsely adorned’.

Elizabeth’s contrasting of the internal design and furnishings of Pemberley with Rosings, signifies her contrasting of Mr Darcy and Lady Catherine’s characters, and shows she is coming to realise that social rank does not define character. While the quality of the internal fittings of both Pemberley and Rosings are an external reflection of the upper-class status of both Mr Darcy and Lady Catherine, Elizabeth points out that they are fundamentally different on the inside, their characters, with Mr Darcy described as having ‘real elegance’ compared to the ‘gaudy’ and ‘uselessly fine’ Lady Catherine.

Pemberley Quotes

It was a large, handsome stone building, standing well on rising ground, and backed by a ridge of high woody hills; and in front, a stream of some natural importance was swelled into greater, but without any artificial appearance. Its banks were neither formal nor falsely adorned. Elizabeth was delighted. (about Pemberley) Chapter 43

The rooms were lofty and handsome, and their furniture suitable to the fortune of its proprietor; but Elizabeth saw, with admiration of his taste, that it was neither gaudy nor uselessly fine; with less of splendour, and more real elegance, than the furniture of Rosings. (about Pemberley) Chapter 43