SOURCE: Zelicovici, Dvora. “Reversal in Pride and Prejudice.” Studies in the Humanities 12, no. 2 (December 1985): 106-14.

In the following essay, Zelicovici concentrates on the third volume of Pride and Prejudice, contending that it is vital in developing Mr. Darcy's and Elizabeth's reversals of conviction.

The third volume of Pride and Prejudice has frequently been regarded as not merely different from but also inferior to the previous two volumes. Marvin Mudrick sees it “diminish suddenly in intensity and orginality,”¹ and Reuben A. Brower argues that the perfect harmony achieved between the ironic dialogue and the movement toward the climactic scenes ceases when Elizabeth arrives at a new view of Darcy. Brower writes, “once we have reached the scenes in which the promise of the introduction is fulfilled, the literary design both ironic and dramatic is complete. Thereafter Pride and Prejudice is not quite the same sort of book.”² Such a...