Upon Mr Bennet's death, Longbourn will therefore be inherited by his cousin and nearest male relation, Mr. William Collins, a clergyman for the Rosings Estate in Kent owned by Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

Her mother tends to contrast her negatively with her sisters Jane and Lydia, whom she considers superior in beauty and disposition, respectively, and fails to understand her husband's preference.

Darcy is later attracted more particularly to her "light and pleasing" figure, the "easy playfulness" of her manners, her personality and the liveliness of her mind, and eventually considers her "one of the handsomest women" in his acquaintance.

[5] The modern exegetes are torn between admiration for the vitality of the character and the disappointment of seeing Elizabeth intentionally suppress her verve[6] and submit, at least outwardly, to male authority.

[10] Gard noted that the novel hardly glorifies patriarchy since it is strongly implied that it was the financial irresponsibility of Mr Bennet that has placed his family in a precarious social position.

[13] Irvine argued that a central concern in Britain in the 1790s, when Austen wrote the first draft of Pride and Prejudice under the title First Impressions was the need for British elites, both national and regional to rally around the flag in face of the challenge from revolutionary France.

[18] In this regard, Irvine argued that the marriage of Elizabeth and Darcy stands for the union of local and national elites in Britain implicitly against the challenge to the status quo represented by the French Republic.

After Elizabeth rejects Darcy and then realises she loves him, she comments "no such happy marriage could now teach the admiring multitude what connubial felicity really was" as if she herself is aware that she is a character in a romance novel.

[21] Later, she tells Darcy in thanking him for paying off Wickham's debts and ensuring Lydia's marriage that they might be in the wrong, "for what become of the moral, if our comfort springs from a breach of promise, for I ought not to have mentioned the subject?".

[22] Likewise, Elizabeth does not defer to the traditional elite, saying of Lady Catherine's opposition to her marrying Darcy: "Neither duty nor honor nor gratitude have any possible claim on me, in the present instance.

"[24] In the same way Austen avoids the issue of filial obedience – questioning of which would have marked her out as a "radical" – by having Mrs Bennet tell her daughter she must marry Collins where her father says she must not.

[30] After hearing Wickham's account disparaging Darcy's character, and being advised by her sister Jane not to jump to conclusions, Elizabeth confidently tells her "I beg your pardon – one knows exactly what to think".

[32] Gary Kelly argued that Austen as the daughter of a Church of England minister would have been very familiar with the Anglican view of life as a "romantic journey" in which God watches over stories of human pride, folly, fall and redemption by free will and the ability to learn from one's mistakes.

[40] Notably, Elizabeth is not guided by financial considerations, and refuses to seek favour with the wealthy aristocrat Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

[44] Poovey argued that in this context, Elizabeth's wit is merely her way of defending herself from the rules of "propriety" set out by the conduct books as opposed to being a subversive force.

[49] Many of the remarks made by Elizabeth to Darcy such as "Despise me if you dare" or his "I am not afraid of you" resound with sexual tension, which reflected "Austen's implicit approval of erotic love".

[50] In her letter to Cassandra dated 29 January 1813, Jane Austen wrote: "I must confess that I think her as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print, and how I shall be able to tolerate those who do not like her at least I do not know".

[54] Elizabeth Bowen, however, found her charmless, whilst to Edmund Crispin's fictional detective Gervase Fen she and her sisters were "intolerable...those husband-hunting minxes in Pride and Prejudice".

[57] Helen Fielding's novel Bridget Jones's Diary, as well as the film series of the same name, is a modern adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, with Elizabeth as Renée Zellweger's title character.

In the 2008 television film Lost in Austen, actress Gemma Arterton plays a version of Lizzy who switches places with a modern-day young woman.

Lily James starred as the zombie-slaying Elizabeth Bennet in the film version of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a popular novel by Seth Grahame-Smith.