Lady Catherine, Mrs. Bennet, and Mr. Collins (especially the last) are the strongest examples of this in Pride and Prejudice, characters who are memorable in part because they border on caricature.

Similarly, the language and dialogue of the early novels tends to be more pointed and emphatic. Pride and Prejudice in particular is distinguished by the lapidary polish of its prose. Jane Austen spoke in a letter of having “lopt & cropt” the novel, and it does seem to be the most carefully edited and reworked of her novels. She also wrote of the “playfulness and Epigrammatism of its general stile [sic]” a feature seen in its many clever epigrams and specimens of wit that come from both the narrators and the characters, especially the main character of Elizabeth. This gives the novel tremendous stylistic force, but at the cost of a little artificiality, for it is hard to imagine that the type of ordinary people who populate the novel would ever be so quick with so many ingenious and pithily phrased rejoinders to one another. This may be a reason why Jane Austen, just before mentioning this “Epigrammatism,” wonders if the novel is “too light & bright & sparkling.”

None of this means, however, that the novel should be judged negatively. Any work of literature has to choose between different imperatives, not all of which can be satisfied. Pride and Prejudice may lack some of the subtlety and profundity of her later novels, but it has a brilliancy that in many respects surpasses those works. Its dialogue is not as consistently close to that of real life as the dialogue of her later novels, but that also means it avoids the tendency of these later novels to present speeches and exchanges that are sometimes as long-winded, or even occasionally as tedious, as those found in real life. Mr. Collins is a more exaggerated character than any of those in the later novels; but those exaggerated features make him probably the funniest character in all Jane Austen's novels.

As for Pride and Prejudice's plot, while it may occasionally border on the improbable in its coincidences, it achieves, in part through those coincidences, a distinctive harmony and symmetry in its structure. Both the early and later parts of the novel contain important and dramatic developments, ensuring that reader interest never flags and that the overall story is well-balanced; such balance is emphasized by having both the critical marriage proposal, and the heroine's realization of her errors, occur at the exact center point of the novel. The story also proceeds by a careful alternation of sections focusing on Elizabeth and Darcy's relationship with intervals when they are not together, which means that the main plot is never too long absent, but that it also never absorbs so much attention that other elements in the story are forgotten. Moreover, the intervals prepare the ground for the next development in the main plot. The final lengthy one, the affair of Wickham and Lydia, has a particularly resonant relationship to the main plot, for it both appears, while it is happening, to rule out a happy resolution of Darcy and Elizabeth's romance, while in fact it gives Darcy his best opportunity to prove his love for her and overcome any doubts she may still harbor. The last section of the book exhibits a similar aptness, for in it the major romantic tangles are resolved in ascending order of both their importance for the plot and the worth of the participants —i.e., Lydia and Wickham, then Jane and Bingley, and finally Elizabeth and Darcy.

Pride and Prejudice also achieves a particular deftness and sparkle in the person of its heroine, Elizabeth Bennet. Jane Austen called her, “as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print,” and legions of readers have felt similarly. Her psychology is not explored with the depth and intensity of the heroines of the next two novels, Mansfield Park and Emma, but the charm and humor of her character make her equally memorable, and an ideal embodiment of the general wit and buoyancy of the novel. Her character in fact represents a departure from the usual pattern of novels —seen consistently in such predecessors as Samuel Richardson and Fanny Burney and more often than not in Jane Austen —whereby the romantic principals are presented mostly in a serious mode, and supporting figures are relied upon for any comedy that exists. In fact, Elizabeth's strongest literary affinity is probably with a character who is a mostly humorous supporting figure: Charlotte Grandison, the sister of the hero in Richardson's Sir Charles Grandison, and in many ways the most interesting and vital figure in that novel. The interest she held for Jane Austen is signaled by a short dramatic adaptation she did of Richardson's novel, in which she gives Charlotte more than twice the lines of any other character. Charlotte is a character who combines a brilliant wit, high intelligence, and fundamental decency with a refusal to take anything seriously, which in turn causes her, even with her many charms, to antagonize those around her and nearly to destroy her marriage before she finally accepts the need to check some of her constant teasing and ridicule of others.

Elizabeth's exhibition of similar qualities, though in a less extreme form, allows Jane Austen to develop a similar lesson, and, because of Elizabeth's central role, to give it even greater prominence. More generally, the presence of a humorous heroine means that the book can unite in one character two of the author's most cherished purposes: amusing the reader and imparting serious moral points. The danger is that attempting such a dual purpose may cause the comedy to undermine or distract from the moral seriousness; Jane Austen's worries about the novel's being too “light & bright & sparkling” may stem partly from that concern. Several elements of the story, however, keep this danger from being realized, at least to any significant degree. One is that Elizabeth is never the almost purely comic figure that some of the secondary characters are; her actions and difficulties are treated seriously, and Elizabeth herself usually knows (unlike her father) what matters are not fit subjects for laughter. Another element helping to maintain an equilibrium between humor and seriousness is the mutual capacity for error of the hero and heroine and their mutual responsibility for the difficulties they suffer: were the heroine a person who does not make any significant errors, she would serve almost inevitably as the exemplar of the novel's moral principles or ideals; were the heroine someone whose flaws or mistakes formed the main determinant of the plot, she would stand as the representative of what the novel warns against; in either case, too much humor in her characterization would threaten to dilute the seriousness of the positive or negative example she is designed to present. Finally, the balance of the novel is greatly assisted by the person of the hero, whose gravity forms an ideal contrast to the playfulness of the heroine.

This contrast and juxtaposition of hero and heroine appears in other ways, and forms another aspect of the novel's symmetry.