just finished my semi-annual audiobook of pride and prejudice and after this listen am truly obsessing over how much the lucas family has darcy's shit clocked. everyone in town automatically hates him, but william lucas is the only person to actively try to chat him up multiple times, keeps calling him "my guy", and is constantly throwing him at Elizabeth. you can't accuse him of trying to go after darcy's wealth because she's not his child, he just thinks they'd be great. and he must not think that ill of darcy because he genuinely likes Elizabeth, so the only conclusion is that he's the only one in town who thinks darcy's more of an idiot than an asshole, and has known Elizabeth's charm and wit enough to think if anyone can get him, it's her.
i wonder if he and charlotte gossip about it at home, or if he's just overhearing the next day debrief and learning that darcy slighted Elizabeth through his detest for dancing and thinking "shit, she's never going to accept a dance request from him now. guess i'm going to have to fix it myself."
so home renovation pilled right now that i was watching pride and prejudice (1995) and got to the scene where collins marvels at his new cupboard and i was like wow yes what a brilliant design to use up dead space, i’m excited for you pal
I sometimes wonder, just how generous was Mr Collins’s offer to marry one of the Miss Bennets?
I will give him credit to say that I do think Mr Collins goes by the book, so to speak. If he wants something, he will try to find a way to get it that is the most ‘proper’ or ‘upstanding’, once any of his personal desires are out of the way. I think if he decided he wanted to get married, and was looking for the best way to do that, it’s not impossible that he would think he should inquire in the Longbourn neighborhood first.
However, he is mostly the kind of person that finds a way to fit those best principles around his own desires (eg. pursuing Elizabeth because, of the Bennet daughters available, she is the most attractive but using the justification of her being the eldest). So I think he would have justified not marrying them somehow if there was someone else he wanted to pursue. The fact that he licked his wounds around Meryton after his rejection, rather than being excited there was someone back home he could now justify courting, also confirms to me that he didn’t really have other/better marriage options.
By this line of thinking, I am inclined to conclude that his choice to marry a Bennet daughter came about from other factors, and is certainly not as virtuous as he presents it. Which leads me to the following potential scenarios:
The first is that he wanted to get married, but he is just not a desirable person for anyone around him. In Hunsford and perhaps during his education, he was never able to capture the attention or praise or attraction of any of the women around him enough to get close to real courtship (or at least not with the women he would have wanted). The Miss Bennets, by familial connection to himself and by desiring to keep hold of the family estate, are likely more inclined in his favor. Not to mention the bonus points of being oh so generous to offer them ‘first dibs’ at keeping their estate, as it were. So if he wanted to be married, they are likely his best option for both establishing courtship and doing so without being turned down. His offer is the best option for his ego.
The second is that he didn’t really care to get married (yet) but that Lady Catherine, after learning of the Longbourn entail, was ranting about how it wasn’t right and that she would never let her estate be entailed away and how terrible a thing it is for the Miss Bennets. And that this rant was followed by her telling Mr Collins that the most proper thing to do would be to marry one of them. Mr Collins, never one to oppose her, immediately agreed to it and went on his way. He never really had anyone else in mind and figured it would be a flattering look to be so generous and condescending as to marry one of the Bennet daughters. His offer is best to score bonus points as a good clergyman.
The third, and my personal favorite, is that he accidentally wound up getting shipped off to marry a Bennet after he severely overestimated his hand with Anne de Bourgh. Considering he misinterprets Lady Catherine’s micromanaging tendencies and taste for flattery as interest in himself personally, I think it’s possible that he also misread his invitations to socialize at Rosings as more than they were. Believing himself a favorite at Rosings, and interested in Anne for her fortune/social status, he may have decided to start a conversation about marriage in order to test the waters or try to get a more established courtship started. And whether or not Lady Catherine understood his intentions for this dialogue, she hears that he is looking to get married and instead directs him to the Miss Bennets. And once she has decided on something, it will happen, so off he goes. The offer is kind of by accident.
All in all, I don’t think Mr Collins’s characterization indicates that he is actively generous, but that he will frame his personal desires to seem virtuous, and so there must be a secondary motivation to offering to marry a Bennet daughter. Is it desperation? Obligation to Lady Catherine? Something else? Who’s to say, but I’m not buying his charity act.
I had a thought last night (a rare occurrence). Jane and Lizzie are the most well-adjusted of the Bennett girls, and I think it shows that in their formative years, their mother wasn’t such a mess as she was by the events of the novel. We know that she was always silly, but it’s unlikely that Mr. Bennett would have married her if she’d been overwrought and anxious to the degree that she is by the start of the novel (imo, of course.)
So Jane and Lizzie benefited the most from their mother being mostly alright, still having the hope of having a son, and turned out more reasonable for it.
By the time Mary is born, she’s a little more anxious and flighty, but that ramps up during Mary’s formative years when she has yet another daughter. Mary obviously felt it and had the invisible middle child syndrome where she resorted to being taken more seriously.
Kitty and Lydia got the anxious, flighty mess of Mrs. Bennett in their formative years, along with extra indulgence from less structure.
And they all got the semi-detached, unserious version of Mr. Bennett.
Ok yes and this also tracks with something I’ve thought about which is that it’s likely that Mr Bennet hates town for, amongst many reasons, the fact that it exposes a wider/more elite circle to the oddities of Mrs Bennet and as such remains in the country so as to avoid their judgement. And if Mrs Bennet was not so eccentric when Elizabeth and Jane were younger, they would have gotten more opportunity to be exposed to higher society when they were younger and perhaps have more access to educational resources, etc, whereas these were harder to come by when Kitty and Lydia stuck in the country
I saw a post recently about Pride and Prejudice chapter 3, the Merryton assembly, and more precisely the moment where Darcy refuses to dance with Lizzie. And while I don't quite agree with the take of the original poster, it made me think about the scene a little more and gave me something of an epiphany.
We he rejects Lizzie, it's with a "She is tolerable: but not handsome enough to tempt me; and I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men."
The obvious, face-value reading here is that Darcy is being a jerk. He's calling Lizzie mid and saying that if no-one else is going to dance with her, he's not going to bother. But I think there's another layer here. You have to go through the rest of the chapter, and know a bit about Regency rules of decorum, and we'll get into that, but I'm going to start you off with a key word from the quote above, which unlocks the secret layer I'm building this whole essay around: "slighted".
But before I start, I need to go over some of the vocabulary that I'm going to use here because I get confused by this part of the text. So: a dance is a dance, two dances is a turn, two turns is a declaration (three turns is a scandal, but that doesn't happen here). OK, back to the essay.
"Slighted", in this context, means insulted, and it's a bit of a stretch to use here. Like, maybe if Elizabeth had been playing the wallflower and not dancing at all, that could have been an insult. But that's not what's happening: Lizzie is taking one turn sitting down because there are too few men for the number of women in the room (and in Regency assemblies, girls don't dance with other girls). The implication being that she was dancing during the previous turns, and Darcy, who prides himself on his sense of observation (along with everything else) would have noticed even if he didn't care. Sitting down for one turn is not an insult, so why is Darcy calling Lizzie "slighted"?
We know that this discussion between Darcy and Bingley takes place while Bingley is dancing with Jane Bennet, because the text says so directly: "“You are dancing with the only handsome girl in the room,” said Mr. Darcy, looking at the eldest Miss Bennet." We also have Bingley's schedule, the order of his partners, from the end of the chapters, courtesy of Mrs. Bennet recounting the evening to her husband (paraphrasing so that I can use my terminology and cut on the chatter): he danced a turn with Charlotte Lucas, then a turn with Jane Bennet, then a turn with Miss King (probably Mary King, future 10k heiress), then a turn with Maria Lucas, then a second turn with Jane (making a declaration), then a turn with Lizzie, and Mr. Bennet interrupts before we can learn who was Bingley partner during the Boulanger (unclear if the Boulanger is a dance or a turn, or if it signaled the end of the assembly).
Meaning that the conversation between Bingley and Darcy had to take place either during the second turn or during the fifth one. It wasn't during the second turn though, because Darcy was dancing during that turn. According to the text: "Mr. Darcy danced only once with Mrs. Hurst and once with Miss Bingley [...]" and from what we know of the character it is a very safe extrapolation to guess that he danced his two dances of obligation as early as possible and then spend the rest of the evening mentally begging the Bingley siblings to stop dancing so they can all go home already!
So the ball went something like this: Turn 1 = Bingley with Charlotte Lucas, Darcy with Louisa Hurst. Turn 2 = Bingley with Jane Bennet, Darcy with Caroline Bingley. Turn 3 = Bingley with Mary King, Darcy taps out. Turn 4 = Bingley with Maria Lucas, Darcy taps out again. Turn 5 = Bingley with Jane Bennet, Darcy taps out again. Turn 6 = Bingley with Elizabeth Bennett, Darcy is still tapping out. Boulanger = ?
As established, the only time where this conversation was taking place, when Bingley is dancing with Jane Bennet and Darcy isn't dancing at all, is the fifth turn. "OK, great, where's the insult", I hear you say, and I'm almost there. I have one final bit of exposition/slight extrapolation to do first.
So, there's a lot of importance in regency-adjacent media on The First Dance. Like, if you like someone you ask them to dance the first dance with you, it's the peak of romance, yada-yada. No. The first dance is a dance of obligation.
(I can back this up, and I will if I'm asked to do so, but it requires digging in author Austen texts, and this essay is already long enough, so for now please just take my word for it.)
Bingley inviting Charlotte Lucas for that first dance, or rather the first turn, was very likely out of obligation: it is implied in the text (and implied more strongly in the 1995 adaptation, but that could have been embellishment so grain of salt here) that Sir William - one of if not the very first to visit Bingley at Netherfield - told Bingley about the assembly and "invited" him. (Those were public gathering with an admission cost, not invitations-only affairs, ergo the quotation marks.)
Inviting Jane was more to his personal taste, but could still be justified because Mr. Bennet was also among his first visitors, and he might not be there to see it happen but that doesn't mean he can get away with neglecting his eldest daughter.
Mary King, on the third turn, is the only young lady of Meryton with enough money and/or connection to play in the same field as the Bingleys (both she and the Miss Bingleys inhering 10k, though at different points in the story) so it makes sense that she's invited next.
By the fourth turn, there's no more eldest daughters of families of his station to ask for a turn, but the Lucases and the Bennets brought more than one girl each, and it would be rude to ignore the younger, so he asks Maria Lucas. (One could argue that he should have asked her for the second turn, but there is plausible deniability here.)
Now it's the fifth turn, and by the previously established pattern he should be asking Lizzie to dance with him. But lo! Jane Bennet is heading towards the chairs lining the wall. She doesn't have a partner for this turn. He can make a declaration! It's his chance! He jumps and asks her for another turn, which she accepts. Great! He's so happy, and if he thinks about Lizzie, it's not enough to be concerned. From what he's been able to see and overhear, she's pretty and lively and popular. She's had partners for all the other turns, she probably has one for this one too. It's fine. She's... sitting against the wall. She doesn't have a partner. Balls. Now Bingley feels bad. What should he do? He didn't mean to leave her out to dry like that. There must be a way to fix this.
There! Darcy isn't dancing. Surely his best buddy will do him a solid. During a break in the turn (probably the one between the two dances), we have the conversation, where instead of doing him a solid, Darcy tells him: "I'm not going out of my way to make her feel better after you insulted her. That was your choice, pal, and now you deal." (while also calling Lizzie mid.)
And this is how Lizzie was actually insulted twice at the Meryton assembly. The first one was such an insignificant blow (such a slight slight, you might say) that it didn't even register to Lizzie. It could have, though; if Lizzie had wanted Bingley for herself, or if the Meryton society was more regimented, this could have been a devastating blow to her ego. But as things stand, she cares more about Jane's crush making a declaration with her than about having to wait one extra turn to dance with him. (Darcy calling her mid, though, prejudices her against him for the next 32 chapters. Amazing. Peak resentful behavior here, we love it.)
Tbh it fundamentally does not really matter whether Mrs Bennet would have saved for her daughters’ dowries or brought them up to be better educated or was less gossipy because the point was always that her primary characteristic was that she was more anxious about her daughters being married than being well married. And the main part of this problem is that she clearly does not have enough understanding of other people to be able to facilitate the latter.
Take Mr Collins for instance. He is expressly requesting to marry one of her daughters despite lack of fortune, seems not at all bothered by their poor education nor Mrs Bennet’s manners, and practically offers himself up on a silver platter. Mrs Bennet fumbles this entire opportunity because instead of being in tune with the people around her by taking the time to check in with Elizabeth and maybe trying to guide him toward Mary instead, she steams right ahead into his preference for Elizabeth and makes it a rough time for everyone. This mismatch was not a circumstance affected by any of Mrs Bennet’s shortcomings in raising children, rather her inability to comprehend and respond to the differences in personalities, opinions, and tastes of those around her.
IMO, if Mrs Bennet had been the type of person to understand the ‘proper’ way of getting a husband, she would have been just as much in her own way as she is in the novel, just in a different way. Instead of trying to force the Jane/Bingley situation along by pushing them together as much as possible, I think she would have tried to control Jane’s actions to be the exact textbook courting behavior (eg. “Don’t seem too overeager, only dance with him twice” or whatever nonsense is the 19th century equivalent of never texting directly after a date), which would just similarly obfuscate Jane’s feelings and still jeopardize her relationship with Bingley. She probably would have been more brown-nosey to Darcy than standoffish and combative, which we know he would not be any more receptive to and would likely still create the appearance of the Bennets as opportunistic social climbers. And she would still be just as snobby, gossipy, vain, and elitist to those around her in general.
I don’t even think you can claim Mrs Bennet forcing more propriety would save Lydia, because the only thing more likely than indulgence to drive a teenager to spontaneous ill-thought action is rebellion against control. Lydia would have still been boisterous, vain, and vapid, and would likely have been pushed to do something extreme by feeling confined, just as much as she was giddy to do something extreme when she was free. In order for Lydia to make it through teenagerdom relatively unscathed, it wouldn’t work for her guardians to try to control her, but rather find ways to allow her to let off steam and divert her attention. But that takes a nuance and flexibility to parenting that Mr Bennet is uninterested in and Mrs Bennet does not have the capacity for.
Fundamentally, Mrs Bennet is incapable of comprehending that the people around her have their own desires, tastes, and priorities, and that she should interact with them accordingly. All that matters is her priority for her daughters to be married as soon as possible, and I think she’s just as likely to fuck it up if she went entirely by the book because the problem is not that she doesn’t understand what the textbook strategy is, but that she doesn’t understand how to apply it individually to unique scenarios. In short, Mrs Bennet is incapable of being practical, which means she’d be unable to properly implement any strategy regardless of what it is.
Would love to know weird types of media others formed a weird Stockholm-syndrome-style relationship to as children. My grandma had one movie (Wallace and Gromit, A Grand Day Out) and one board game (Stratego), so both of those got a lot of play, particularly over the winter holidays when we were stuck indoors. For my sixth Christmas I got a cd player and only a single cd (Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits), but I wasn’t going to not use my new cd player, so I listened to it for a few months while being angry about listening to it until I got a second cd. My opinions on all of these pieces of media are at best indifferent but I cannot deny that they are core pillars of my childhood.
I have a weird disease where I am extremely distrustful and discounting of anyone trying to sell me product even when I am specifically trying to look for said product. Like even if I am in the market for Product, and I specifically ask a salesperson about their version of Product, the moment they start pitching me, I automatically think “hmm you clearly want me to buy this, I cannot trust your information and I do not trust your character.” As if it’s a sin to promote your wares. The ones I am specifically asking about.
Ok but if you’re anyone in the family other than Jane, you’ve just asked Elizabeth to go on a walk with this guy you know she hates and then she just comes back engaged???? And gets married and leaves forever?? No explanation, no understanding. Like getting caught up in a Bugs Bunny tornado where one second you’re fine and the next your hair is rustled, your clothes are ragged, and your ice cream is gone.
Charlotte Lucas is for sure going to have a better marriage than Mr Bennet because even though she also chose someone ridiculous, she is managing it! She has established her own parlor for peace and quiet, sends her husband off to garden, and can amuse herself with hobbies like cooking and reading and sewing. This is a stark contrast to Mr Bennet, who avoids his marriage by holing up in his library, letting his wife go off on social calls, and fills his hours with hunting and reading and- oh wait- uh oh- oh no-
I think these might be the meatiest lizards in the canyon, never seen one in person and this trip i got to see TWO in the same little subcanyon. They're in the iguana family and hide in cracks while puffing up their bodies so they can't be yanked out (which is how I was able to get a nice photo of this guy)
It’s gotta be such a shock when the dust settles and they move into pemberley and there’s absolutely nothing going on in that house. Darcy may not be disliked but with his snobbery he definitely hasn’t kept up local acquaintanceships. Elizabeth is used to dining in company multiple times a week but this man has No Friends.
when you’ve been deathly ill for a week and can’t eat and can barely maintain coherent thoughts, how are you producing three times your body weight in snot?
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