Re-read review: Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
This is a very well-known and well-loved book…and rightfully so. I’m not a literary scholar, but I suspect the popularity of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ is a large factor in why there are so many romance books that A) feature a misunderstanding between the leads that sets them at odds, B) are set in the Regency era, or both. The trouble, I think, is a lot of writers don’t quite get what makes this romance work so well. (Note: there are *spoilers* below, technically. I'm not sure you CAN "spoil" a book that is this old and this talked about, but if you really want to go in blind...you've been warned).
The foreword of this edition suggests notes that, for most of the book, Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy would believe that the book they are in “should be called ‘Dignity and Perception.’ They have to learn to see that their novel is more properly called ‘Pride and Prejudice.’” When we first meet Mr. Darcy, it is at a ball where he clearly isn’t enjoying himself, hardly speaking to or dancing with anyone, and grumpy about his friend’s suggestion that he should. He later confesses that he isn’t good at conversing easily with people he doesn’t know – something any introvert can relate to! He also has a slightly rigid sense of the honor and dignity that come with his social position, which combines with his awkwardness to give Lizzie and other onlookers the sense that he is unpleasantly proud and arrogant. By contrast, Mr. Wickam, a man that the reader will by the end consider a loathsome worm of a person, gives off a very smooth and likeable first impression. It takes considerable time for even the intelligent Lizzie to realize she’s misread these two men, and the reader will likely share her prejudices…although, as in a good mystery novel, clues are sprinkled in from the beginning that all is not as it seems.
The foreword also quotes a letter by Charlotte Brontë, in which she notes: “Why do you like Miss Austen so very much?…I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses.” And, indeed, if it were not for Austen’s wit, watching all the rich people with nothing to do cycling from ball to tea-party to stroll in the park would make me want to scream. No one makes political decisions, commissions important art, or concerns themselves with the ongoing Napoleonic war (the kind of things that make historical fiction about kings and queens interesting) and being a lawyer or “in trade” is looked down upon. The ladies in particular are discouraged from doing anything useful – Mrs. Bennett quickly shuts down Mr. Collins’ suggestion that her daughters actually cook. This story is also not at all the kind of gothic, tragic, or passionate affair the Brontës chose to write about, let alone an escapist bodice-ripper in the style of modern Regency romances.
It is a tale about a young woman resolving to live and find love on her own terms (without ruining her reputation) in a very limiting society1. Her family doesn’t make it easy for her. Mr. Bennett loves Lizzie and wants her to be happy, applauding her for rejecting men who are unworthy of her, but he also neglected his duty as a father in saving up for his daughters’ doweries so that they wouldn’t be forced to accept such matches. Mrs. Bennett understands the importance of marriage for a woman, but in making this too obvious and in modeling and tolerating frivolous behavior for her youngest daughters she nearly scares off Mr. Darcy, the most eligible bachelor around! And then Lydia runs away with a man without insisting on a prompt marriage, which would have tainted all her sisters’ reputations by proxy. Of course, Lydia is just 16, so we would say the fault is on the adults who should have been teaching and looking after her and the man who let her think he might marry her…but that’s not how her society would see it.
1. Austen herself only partly managed to fulfill the first goal and the second not at all – making some money and getting some satisfaction from the positive reception of her books, but always having to live with family because she never married. The only things we know about her romantic life involve a flirtation with “Irish friend” Tom Lefroy, a young barrister who had no money, and the one marriage proposal from a financially stable but unattractive and awkward family friend which she briefly accepted before changing her mind and sticking to her principles that one should not marry without affection.
Elizabeth walks a fine line, just managing, through also having an unusual level of practical good sense by Bennett standards2, to be considered “lively” rather than dangerously “wild” despite speaking her mind much more freely than most young ladies, viewing her world with a satirical eye, hiking across muddy fields unaccompanied to visit her sick sister, and so on. It is this liveliness, the laughter in her “fine eyes”, that makes her attractive to Darcy, who could use a little of that energy in his own ordered life. Lizzie first starts to fall for Darcy, as opposed to just forgive him, when she begins to reflect on how fondly his servants speak of him, the care he shows his sister and friends - even if his mistaken protectiveness of one friend did end up hurting her own sister - and what quiet good taste is evident in his home and its grounds. When, shortly thereafter, they accidentally run into Darcy, she is struck by how unexpectedly friendly he is to her uncle (the one who is disreputably “in trade”). This is Darcy attempting to show that he has taken her critiques about his formerly off-putting behavior to heart.
2. ‘Sense and Sensibility’ is considered a satire of the “sentimental novels” popular at the time that mainly aimed to evoke feeling in the reader while also instructing women in expected female conduct. While P&P isn’t as direct a response, it certainly favors reason (sensibility) first - while not neglecting feeling - and provides subtle critiques of the position of women in 19th century society.
Film adaptations often play a little fast and loose with the dialogue – but to a certain extent they have to. There are several key moments (both of Darcy’s proposals, for instance) where Austen tells us the substance of what characters say, but not their actual words, and other places where a clever, zippy line is surrounded by (to modern ears) unnecessary elaboration. This isn’t always a flaw, though. One thing I’d forgotten is that, after Darcy does his “If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on the subject forever” line, and Lizzie accepts him…they actually talk through their misunderstanding! I know why the films tend to leave this out – we as the audience don’t need to be told what happened, because we’ve seen it – but that is exactly what a healthy couple should do.
Also, while Darcy has to learn how to receive teasing with grace, he is quite intelligent and sharp enough to shut down people like Miss Bingley or his aunt with statements that are technically polite but subtly savage. His back-and-forths with Lizzie, while not a full-on battle of wits like that of Beatrice and Benedick in ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ (probably my favorite classic-literature couple), are therefore still delightful:
[Elizabeth, at piano] “You mean to frighten me, Mr. Darcy, by coming in all this state to hear me? But I will not be alarmed though your sister does play so well…” “I will not say you are mistaken,” he replied, “because you could not really believe me to entertain any design of alarming you; and I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance long enough to know, that you find great enjoyment in occasionally professing opinions that are not your own.” Elizabeth laughed heartily at this picture of herself, and said to Colonel Fitzwilliam, “Your cousin will…teach you not to believe a word I say…it is provoking me to retaliate, and such things may come out, as will shock your relations to hear.” “I am not afraid of you,” said he, smilingly. [Lizzie relates how unsociable he was at their first ball – to the total lack of surprise of his cousin - and Darcy explains he is bad at introducing himself to people]. “My fingers,” said Elizabeth, “do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women’s do…But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault – because I would not take the trouble of practicing…” Darcy smiled and said, “You are perfectly right…We neither of us perform to strangers.”
This scene is a good example of the clue-planting I mentioned. Darcy’s proposal catches Elizabeth entirely off guard…and yet in this earlier scene we see him being so much more relaxed and happy with her than he seems with other people (some mention of him smiling is made about every other line). In addition, her reactions are so cheerful and teasing that it is no wonder that he never dreamed she would reject him!
Overall recommendation: If you haven’t read any of Jane Austen’s work, I would recommend starting here. The liveliness and humor of Lizzie and of the book in general tend to win over those who might otherwise struggle with books written in this (highly behaviorally restricted) time-period. Austen views her society with a clear eye and is satirical about those who take its rules, class and gender dynamics, etc. too far. And if you are looking for a mostly healthy “enemies”-to-lovers story – or indeed just a healthy male-female romance in a historical, patriarchal setting - it is hard to do better!
