Prejudice The first sentence of the novel, Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austin, foreshadows the end of the book. She writes, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a good wife". At first, readers would understand this in one way. However, in the second half of the novel it takes on a whole new meaning. At first this sentence takes on an ironic meaning, because it is commonly understood that it is the woman who is in pursuit of a wealthy gentleman (and not the man pursuing the woman as stated). Austin also seems to prove this understanding of the quotation in the first half of the novel in