Pride and Prejudice offers an intensely personal story in which the drawing rooms of upper-middle-class society are the setting for the extended courtship of Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy. In a society in whish women scramble to find husbands amid the stumbling blocks of financial snobbery and class prejudice. Austin’s novel celebrates the ultimate triumph of romantic love over all impediments. The most noticeable ruling passion is evident in the novel's title. The passion …showed first 75 words of 1204 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1204 total…by Alexander Pope and the societal hierarchy of the neoclassical philosophers. Many of her characters are controlled and governed by a ruling passion, and some such as Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy are ruled rather strongly by the passion of pride. Although Darcy and Elizabeth are ruled strongly by their passions, they are able to complete Neoclassical thinking in using their reason to control and overcome their passions, allowing them to eventually fall in love.