Both Elizabeth and Darcy change over the course of the novel as they experience more of one another. These positive changes allow them to become fit life companions.
Elizabeth's great flaw is her prejudice. She makes snap judgments about people based on her first impressions of them. (The novel, in fact, was originally titled First Impressions.) Her tendency to leap to judgment doesn't give her time to really get to know a person before she has decided what he is like, which leads her to false assumptions. Because Darcy makes a terrible first impression on her by saying she is not pretty enough for him to dance with, she is predisposed to hate him and believe Wickham's stories about being cheated and mistreated by him. She is likewise charmed by her first impression of Wickham's looks and personality, and this prejudices her too much in his favor.
Darcy's great flaw is his pride. After all, it's very arrogant to decide a young woman is not pretty enough for you to dance just one dance with! His pride makes him act like a jerk, a characteristic which comes into play with disastrous results when he proposes marriage to Elizabeth. He assumes that she would never, ever turn down him and manages to insult her and her family by saying he deigns, in all his greatness, to marry her despite all the deficits she brings. Not surprisingly, this approach only serves to make him the last man on the planet she would ever consider marrying.
Elizabeth has to get over her prejudices or snap judgments about people and situations, and Darcy has to get over his pride before the two can get together and marry. Luckily, both characters are able to learn and grow.
Both Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy undergo profound change throughout the novel. Initially, Lizzie is extremely hostile toward Darcy, and it's not hard to see why. He comes across as aloof, cold, arrogant, and rude. He appears to be possessed with an exaggerated sense of self-importance, an over-inflated pride based on his wealth and high social standing.
Lizzie's initially unfavorable estimation of Darcy is compounded further when he actively interferes with Mr. Bingley's courtship of Jane. His crashing snobbery simply won't allow him to accept that Bingley should be involved with someone Darcy regards as a social inferior. Darcy even lets his pride get in the way of his feelings for Lizzie. He's falling for her in a big way, but just can't get over his innate snobbery. She's of a lower social class, and that's all there is to it.
For her part, Lizzie harbors a considerable degree of prejudice toward Darcy; she's simply not prepared to see that there might be something beneath that brooding, intimidating exterior of his. Yet she comes to see a different side to Darcy when she reads his letter regarding the true nature of the superficially charming Mr. Wickham. Lizzie had trusted Wickham implicitly and, due to her prejudice, was ready to believe the false stories he told her about Darcy. But Darcy's letter sets the record straight, showing Wickham to be nothing but an ingrate and an opportunist who shamefully abused his family's care and hospitality to try and get his greedy claws on the inheritance of Darcy's sister.
The letter is important because it makes Lizzie see Darcy in a different light. She hasn't completely overcome all her prejudices toward him, however; but then that's because he hasn't completely overcome his pride, either. He still insists that he did the right thing in breaking up Bingley and Jane's relationship. But the seeds of a future reconciliation between the couple have been sown. Both Lizzie and Darcy transcend their respective faults and listen to their hearts. Love conquers all, even what seems like deeply ingrained pride and prejudice.
Both Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy change quite a bit over the course of the novel. Darcy realizes that his pride in his dealings with Mr. Wickham after Wickham tried to elope with Darcy's sister, Georgiana, actually enabled Wickham to take advantage of another girl: Lydia Bennet. Had Darcy exposed what kind of man Wickham really was, Wickham likely would not have been able to do this. Further, he realizes that he ought not to have gotten in between Bingley and Jane. He also understands how unspeakably rude he had been and that he had "been a selfish being all [his] life." By the time Elizabeth went to Pemberley, however, Darcy says that he wanted to "obtain [her] forgiveness, to lessen [her] ill opinion, by letting [her] see that [her] reproofs had been attended to." He stops seeing himself as superior to her and begins to think of how he might please her.
Elizabeth also realizes that she has judged Darcy too harshly. He virtually saved her family from ruin by forcing Wickham to marry Lydia, paying him in lieu of any dowry from the Bennets. She realizes that, instead of finding him the last man on earth that she could ever want to marry (as she had months before), she feels a great deal of "gratitude" for Darcy's generosity, propriety, and discretion.
It seems that Austen is pointing out the faults of both. We see how excessive pride and willing prejudice can prevent, or at least delay, a realization of how well-suited two people might be for one another. Elizabeth and Darcy, we might assume, will have an equal marriage based on mutual love and respect. It would be sad, indeed, if their mistakes had prevented their happiness.
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