ABSTRACT
I begin exploring the disciplines of description in Jane Austen by examining the most egregious error Elizabeth Bennet makes in Pride and Prejudice. I demonstrate, in this chapter, how she reads and then rereads Darcy’s letter through a process of redescription that acts as a check on her prejudices and transforms how she understands and sees Darcy. Her mode of rereading is a means of rational description by which she discovers her own errors of judgment and perception. Elizabeth demonstrates how we can think ourselves out of our own prejudices, and in so doing she reveals the underlying structure of how we reason by description.
