Student Name: Chan Tsz Yan

Student Name: Chan Tsz Yan Class: 4A

The 28th Annual Book Report Competition for Secondary School Students

Title: Pride and prejudice (Black Cat series) Author: Jane Austen Publisher: Commercial Press Number of words: 1150

Pride and prejudice is a story set in the 19th century England. The Bennets family was anxious about their five daughters’ future. The future was to marry someone of a good background. The story describes how they managed to marry someone.

‘The nature of love is sweet, but the process of it is bitter.’ This sentence is found in a famous love novel. I think this sentence can vividly depict the love stories in this book. Take the love between Mr Bingley and Jane as an example. Although they loved each other, since they were shy to declare their love to each other, they almost missed such a wonderful love. Luckily, they got Mr Darcy’s help and they could finally have a perfect ending of their love. For now, I am just a little girl who just knows little about or ever cannot understand it, but reading this book, I feel that love is not a simple thing that we can understand in a short time. We cannot just keep talking about love. We need to act and show it, and to build trust on the other half. Surely, love is sweet for everyone, however, before enjoying the wonderful love, we should overcome some barriers first, just like Mr Bingley and Jane. If not, we can never understand how wonderful the love is.

However, not every love story is sweet and has a happy ending. In this book, Jane Austen describes four loving relationships, but not every story has a happy ending. For example, Mr Collins married Elizabeth’s best friend Charlotte Lucas. Although they finally got married, there was no love between them. Once Shakespeare said that ‘If love adulterate some independent calculations, it is not a real love.’ The fact is that one of them wanted to get married to get fortune, the other one just wanted a marriage. They just took what they needed from getting married, so their love was not sweet and happy. And their story makes me ponder over the real meaning of marriage. Is it a promise or a machine that gives what you want? I don’t know. I just know that if we want a perfect marriage, both sides need to shoulder a sense of responsibility and commitment to each other and they must never be selfish. True love is blind; it

1 can change affliction and trouble into sweetness. That is why many people are longing for true love.

Besides the love stories from the book, there are also some other elements that are thought-provoking - the pride of Mr Darcy. ‘ Pride is a normal performance’ cited from a classic. Actually, pride is Mr Darcy’s second nature to fit himself in a high society. It is because they have enough capital, for example, money and status to take pride of them. These are what people of lower classes do not have. However, is it worth taking pride? Their pride seems to be scorning those who are in lower classes. Such attitudes are definitely snobbish and unpleasant. Mr Darcy is a good example. He was arrogant and always kept aloof and alienated himself from common people. His attitude made Elizabeth, the woman he loved, hated him. Does that really worth it? I don’t think so.

Modesty is a virtue. No matter how beautiful you are or how rich you are, everyone should keep being modest. ‘Remember to be modest, conceitedness will make you fall.’ That is what my father always says to me. It always rings true. Perhaps it is normal to show your pride when you own some different things that other people do not have. However, we should give it a second thought. When we are conceited, we will no longer make improvement. Therefore we may easily fall. In addition, pride will cause prejudice. If we are too proud and arrogant, then we tend to alienate ourselves from other people, we may then lose our friends and people will stay away from us because we are superior.

Maybe some people being prideful just want to show their temperament and status, but in fact they can be modest and keep their temperament and status at the same time, just like Harvey who first clarified the theory of blood circulation. The result he got from the research was successful and meaningful in the history of medicine. But he was still humble and said ‘No one can reach the point of perfect. I thought I know, but in fact there are many problems I did not know. Time, space and experience will increase my knowledge, or correct my mistakes.’ He then kept researching until the sunset of his life. Although Harvey had a big achievement, he had never been conceited. Instead, he was successful and won respect by his deed. People admired him. I think he is a role model which we should look up to.

I enjoy reading this story, and my favourite character is Elizabeth. I think she had her own mind and she knew what she wanted. No matter how rich the man was or which status the man had, she just chose the one she loved. She showed the independence of

2 females. Therefore, I admire her. Moreover, she hated the pride of Mr Darcy. That showed her pursuit of equal rights. It was her belief that everyone was equal, so all of us should have the same rights, whether high society or low society, male or female. Therefore, she could not stand Mr Darcy’s pride. ‘…If I could feel thankful, I would now thank you. But I cannot. I am sorry to cause suffering to anyone. It has not been done intentionally, however, and I am sure it will not last long.’ She refused Mr Darcy’s proposal resolutely. Even though she loved him, she still chose to act on her own principles. Fortunately, Mr Darcy changed his mind and wrote a letter to her to tell the truth. If not, their story may have a sad ending.

In spite of that, Elizabeth also has some negative personality traits. She always judged a person by the first impression. In the book, ‘If we have a prejudice on a person, we are not able to judge the result of the thing fairly.’ That is right. To understand a person, we need to spend time with him or her. If we just jump to a conclusion too early, it is not accurate and not fair to this person. So understanding a person’s potential strengths thoroughly is an important thing we need to remember. Subjective feeling may easily cause misunderstanding between people and ruin our relationship. This is seen clearly in the descriptions on Mr Darcy and Elizabeth in the opening of the story.

I think this book is meaningful and I like it because it leads me to think about many things I have not thought about before.