Analytical perspective of "The Ball" in this film

Rating: 8/10 (22 October 2006)

In Pride and Prejudiced authored by Jane Austen, we find a social event that sets the stage for the remainder of the book. Mrs. Bennet gives a party at Meryton in order to find husbands for her five daughters. One of the guests is Mr. Bingley, a rich young bachelor from Netherfield Estate. He proves to be a lively agreeable gentleman whop dances with many girls but seems to have his head turned by Jane, one of the Bennet sisters. The protagonists, Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy clash for the first time at this first ball at Meryton.
At the ball, Elizabeth is refreshingly frank to Darcy. Darcy offends her with his aloofness and elusiveness practically dubbing her ugly in public. Elizabeth rebuffs him rejecting his offer of a dance. As the wealthy and handsome Darcy is unaccustomed to effeminate remonstrance he becomes intrigued by Elizabeth's demeanor. To cover his confusion he continues to insult and banter Elizabeth He cannot help but contrast her honesty with the worshipful adoration to which he is usually subjected and which bores him tremendously.
At subsequent social events Darcy begins to notice Elizabeth's attributes- her wits, intelligence, her refreshing and impressive personality, even her attractive eyes. Elizabeth has been poisoned by Wickham. Wickham has fed Elizabeth the mendacious saga that Darcy purloined his hereditary affluence. Following the ball, Elizabeth engages Darcy in verbal bouts in which he endeavors to outwit him in cleverly expressed views always spoken with utmost courtesy. Darcy is unaccustomed to such braveness from women. In a subsequent ball, Elizabeth and Darcy dance together, but Elizabeth and Darcy consists of politely phrased put-downs.
As Darcy grows more interested in Elizabeth and as she resumes her verbal diatribes with him, her original bias towards him brought on by Wickham's fabrications, begins to disappear. When Lidya runs away with Wickham and thus exposes her family to scandal, Elizabeth's resistance to Darcy inevitably evaporates. He pays Wickham's gambling debts with as much as $10,000 pounds inducing him to elope with Lidya, thus isolating him from the ignominy of scandal. When Elizabeth realizes that it was Darcy rather than Mr. Gardner who saved her family from scandal she is deeply moved. This leads to Darcy's acknowledgment that it was he who put up the money out of love for Elizabeth.
The ball at Meryton while not an elaborate affair, occupies a level of surreptitious auspiciousness in the novel, for it is at the ball that Elizabeth and Darcy, the protagonist and the temporary antagonist, meet for the first time, setting the stage for the development of their relationship which stems throughout the novel and establishes that the relationship founded on antipathy and prejudice can eventually turn into mutual affection. It lays the grounds for the immense satirical relationships of the time. Prior to Austen, romantic novels consisted of beautiful and insipid heroines, ready to throw their lives away on men. Elizabeth Bennet's boldness sets her as an audacious apostate, so that the novel instead of degenerating into a tabloid romance becomes a classic with confrontation between the hero and heroine rather than prolonged capitulation.