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William Collins

In the comments section on a recent YouTube video about Pride and Prejudice, I accidentally got into a small debate with someone about just why Elizabeth is so upset by Charlotte's choice to marry Mr. Collins.

I made some remarks based on this post, about how marriage for a woman in that era wasn't just about choosing a partner, but about choosing the master of your life, both legally and spiritually, whom you would be expected to obey. So choosing a man whom you didn't respect, and who obviously wasn't worthy of respect, was a much bigger deal than just "He'll never make you happy."

But another commentator disagreed with me, pointing out that mercenary marriages with no thought of love or respect took place all the time in the Regency era. In their point of view, Elizabeth is just upset that her best friend doesn't find Mr. Collins as repulsive as she does herself.

That made me think of how @bethanydelleman has complained that the adaptations almost always portray Mr. Collins as older and more physically off-putting than the character in the book, who is a young man (younger than Charlotte, in fact) and who is only ridiculous in personality, not in looks. This creates the sense that Elizabeth's objection to marrying him, and to Charlotte marrying him, is more visceral and less objective than Austen meant it to be.

I wonder if that other commentator on YouTube was thinking mainly of the adaptations, because "Elizabeth is upset that Charlotte doesn't find Mr. Collins as repulsive as she does" sounds like a very visceral interpretation of her feelings.

But either way, I still don't think I agree. To me, it seems that what upsets Elizabeth is that Charlotte does find Mr. Collins just as obnoxious, stupid, and unworthy of respect as Elizabeth does, but chooses to marry him anyway.

#pride and prejudice #charlotte lucas #william collins #elizabeth bennet #youtube #character interpretation

Another quick comment about Pride and Prejudice and Charlotte Lucas, this time about the book, not the 2005 film.

I was just looking over the TV Tropes page for The Other Bennet Sister. When it talks about Charlotte's "Adaptational Villainy" in maneuvering Mr. Collins away from Mary and toward herself, it says that in Pride and Prejudice, "she just talks to Mr. Collins to help keep him away from Elizabeth." As if she never imagined he would propose to her, but was only trying to help her friend and got an unexpected result.

I'm sorry, but Austen didn't write Charlotte as that innocent.

Her description of Charlotte's "kindness" in distracting Mr. Collins from Elizabeth is dripping with sarcasm:

"...but Charlotte’s kindness extended farther than Elizabeth had any conception of:—its object was nothing less than to secure her from any return of Mr. Collins’s addresses, by engaging them towards herself."

Charlotte may not steal him from Mary, but she absolutely does hone in on him and purposefully gets his attention with hopes of marriage. She needs a husband, she sees he wants a wife, and so she plays the game.

#pride and prejudice #jane austen #charlotte lucas #william collins