Jane Austen, 1813

Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen's comedy of first impressions, read closely and charted from its own words.

121,850 words in 61 chapters, about 8 h 32 min of reading.

Read it free at Project GutenbergHow we drew the plates

Pride and Prejudice in six sentences

In our own words, after reading the whole novel, and checked against the text. Spoiler-light: no ending is revealed.

  1. On the surface it is a story about five sisters who need husbands, but underneath it is about learning to see people clearly, including yourself.

  2. Austen builds it from conversations, dances, visits and more than 40 letters, while her narrator slips quietly in and out of Elizabeth Bennet's private thoughts.

  3. The plot runs on a clash between Elizabeth's quick, confident judgments and Mr Darcy's stiff pride, two flaws that stop each of them from reading the other fairly.

  4. Beneath the wit sits a hard question about money, because a woman of the Bennets' class had few ways to secure her future other than marriage.

  5. Our sentiment arc stays above zero in all 40 of its slices, a sign of Austen's steady comic tone, though it dips lowest around Chapter 46, when worrying news arrives from home.

  6. Readers keep coming back for the sparkling dialogue and a heroine who thinks for herself, and its sharp eye for vanity and snobbery has hardly dated in more than two centuries.

Three plates from the text

Every plate is computed by our scripts from the 121,850-word Project Gutenberg text. None is copied from a study guide.

Plate IThe mood of the wordingAbove the dotted line: brighter
Emotional arc of Pride and PrejudiceSmoothed sentiment of the wording across 40 equal parts of Pride and Prejudice, from the opening to the ending. Labelled points: Ch 21–23: polite letters, quiet setbacks; Ch 33–35: angry words at Hunsford; Ch 46: alarming news from home; Ch 56: Lady Catherine's furious visit.Ch 21–23Ch 33–35Ch 46Ch 56OpeningMiddleEndingEmotional arc of Pride and PrejudiceSmoothed sentiment of the wording across 40 equal parts of Pride and Prejudice, from the opening to the ending. Labelled points: Ch 21–23: polite letters, quiet setbacks; Ch 33–35: angry words at Hunsford; Ch 46: alarming news from home; Ch 56: Lady Catherine's furious visit.Brighter wordingCh 21–23Ch 33–35Ch 46Ch 56OpeningMiddleEndingEmotional arc of Pride and PrejudiceSmoothed sentiment of the wording across 40 equal parts of Pride and Prejudice, from the opening to the ending. Labelled points: Ch 21–23: polite letters, quiet setbacks; Ch 33–35: angry words at Hunsford; Ch 46: alarming news from home; Ch 56: Lady Catherine's furious visit.Brighter wordingCh 21–23Ch 33–35Ch 46Ch 56OpeningMiddleEndingEmotional arc of Pride and PrejudiceSmoothed sentiment of the wording across 40 equal parts of Pride and Prejudice, from the opening to the ending. Labelled points: Ch 21–23: polite letters, quiet setbacks; Ch 33–35: angry words at Hunsford; Ch 46: alarming news from home; Ch 56: Lady Catherine's furious visit.Brighter wordingCh 21–23Ch 33–35Ch 46Ch 56OpeningMiddleEnding
  1. Ch 21–23Polite letters, quiet setbacks
  2. Ch 33–35Angry words at Hunsford
  3. Ch 46Alarming news from home
  4. Ch 56Lady Catherine's furious visit

We split the novel into 40 equal slices of about 3,000 words and score each by the average VADER sentiment of its sentences, from −1 (most negative) to +1 (most positive); the line is a five-slice moving average, and the dotted line is neutral. Every slice scores above zero, so the dips matter more than the sign. It measures the tone of the words, not what happens.

Source: our count from the Project Gutenberg text (121,850 words), scored with VADER.

Plate IIWho is named whenNames per twentieth of the book

This chart counts how often five central characters are named in each twentieth of the book, about 6,100 words, including nicknames and titles such as Lizzy and Miss Eliza for Elizabeth. Pronouns are not counted, so these are name mentions rather than time on the page.

Source: our count from the Gutenberg text, in 20 slices of about 6,100 words.

Plate IIIWho shares a paragraphLine width: paragraphs together
Character network of Pride and PrejudiceEight most-named characters. Strongest links: Mr Darcy and Elizabeth (140 paragraphs); Elizabeth and Jane (122 paragraphs); Mr Bingley and Elizabeth (77 paragraphs); Mr Collins and Elizabeth (61 paragraphs).ElizabethMr DarcyJaneMr BingleyMr WickhamLydiaMrs BennetMr CollinsCharacter network of Pride and PrejudiceEight most-named characters. Strongest links: Mr Darcy and Elizabeth (140 paragraphs); Elizabeth and Jane (122 paragraphs); Mr Bingley and Elizabeth (77 paragraphs); Mr Collins and Elizabeth (61 paragraphs).ElizabethMr DarcyJaneMr BingleyMr WickhamLydiaMrs BennetMr Collins

Lines join the eight most-named characters, and a thicker line means more paragraphs that name both of them; only the 15 strongest pairs are shown. Elizabeth sits at the center because the story follows her almost everywhere.

Source: our count of paragraph co-occurrence in the Gutenberg text.

Dramatis personae

The eight most-named characters we counted, with how often each is named in the text (names and titles, not pronouns).

  • Elizabeth Bennetnamed 752 timesSecond Bennet daughter, witty and quick to judge.
  • Mr Darcynamed 370 timesRich, reserved gentleman whose pride offends the neighborhood.
  • Jane Bennetnamed 293 timesEldest Bennet sister, gentle and inclined to think well of everyone.
  • Mr Bingleynamed 217 timesDarcy's cheerful friend and the new tenant of Netherfield.
  • Mr Wickhamnamed 189 timesCharming militia officer with a grievance against Darcy.
  • Lydia Bennetnamed 173 timesYoungest Bennet sister, flirtatious and reckless.
  • Mrs Bennetnamed 154 timesAnxious mother determined to see her daughters married.
  • Mr Collinsnamed 149 timesPompous clergyman cousin who stands to inherit the Bennet home.

Key terms

Entail
A legal arrangement that tied an estate to a fixed line of heirs, so it could not simply pass to a man's daughters.
Free indirect style
Narration that blends the narrator's voice with a character's private thoughts, without quotation marks.
Novel of manners
Fiction that studies the customs, behavior and unspoken rules of a particular social class.
Accomplishments
The polite skills, such as music, drawing and languages, that well-off young women were expected to display.
Militia
A home-defense regiment; its officers were stationed in country towns and livened up local society.

What we read to write this

  1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane AustenProject Gutenberg
  2. How 'First Impressions' became 'Pride and Prejudice'Jane Austen's House
  3. Pride and PrejudiceJane Austen Society of North America
  4. Pride and PrejudiceEncyclopaedia Britannica

Our own explanation and plates, written with AI assistance (Claude, by Anthropic) after reading the sources above and checked against the novel’s text. No text or images were copied. Published October 18, 2026.

Pride and Prejudice is free to read.

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