Most people throughout the world have heard of Jane Austen’s most famous work: Pride and Prejudice. I’ve read it innumerable times myself the first time about 23 years ago when I was 10 and the last earlier this year. It’s a fun, easy to read book with lots of likable characters but the one thing I have noticed is that any sort of negative critique of the book and its characters is met with surprising hostility by the apparently die hard fans. I have no idea why.
The story starts off with a joke which is used to foreshadow or synopsize everything that is to follow.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
Pride and Prejudice like all of Austen’s novels are about rich women getting a man. That’s it. It’s not a feminist masterpiece, it’s a romance.
When people read the book today I think that they miss a lot of the historical facts which would have portrayed the book in a completely different light to when it was first published. Elizabeth Bennet is not a feminist heroine as I’ve oft heard claimed, she’s a gold digging, narcissistic imbecile. Elizabeth is the person who is both proud and prejudiced.
The main fact which people completely ignore is that Elizabeth is a member of the landed gentry. Her family is just one step lower than the nobility in terms of social position. At the time when the book was written a woman of her social status had very few means of earning her own income, whilst the majority of middle and working class women worked. It’s as simple as that, they worked. Pride and Prejudice takes place long before the industrial revolution when so called cottage industries and work in domestic service was available for women of the lower socio-economic classes. So Elizabeth’s position is not relatable to the vast majority of contemporary readers.
If, therefore Elizabeth was a feminist as many “readers” have claimed she would have married Mr Collins. Why? The answer is really very simple. The Longbourne estate owned by Mr Bennet could only pass down through the male line of the family. Some people might consider this sexist but historically this was the only way to ensure that property and money wasn’t gold dug away from successive generations of the same family by poor men looking to make a fortune by marrying rich women.
Elizabeth, all of the characters in the book and all the readers up until the modern era were aware that if Mr Bennet died before his wife and before his five daughters were married off that the six women would be at the mercy of whoever would inherit the property. This was stated in the book to be Mr Collins.
If you actually read the P&P you’ll see that unlike in every screen adaptation Mr Collins was actually a pretty decent man who came to try to make amends for the rift between his father and Mr Bennet and for the fact that as a male heir, he would be screwing over the Bennet women. He thought he could do this by marrying one of the Bennet sisters and thought that he should marry Elizabeth but she turned him down because she didn’t fancy him.
What if her father had died six months later? What would she and her four unmarried sisters have done? What would her mother have done? If Elizabeth was a feminist wouldn’t she have married Mr Collins to secure her own future?
The same thing happens again when Mr Darcy asks Elizabeth to marry him and she rudely refuses, muttering a lot of rubbish that even she comes to realise was stupid. Was Elizabeth thinking of anything other than her own pride? Wasn’t she prejudiced because of Mr Wickham’s lies? Yes, actually she was and she realises as much herself later in the book when the catastrophe that has been building since the beginning takes place and her sister elopes with Mr Wickham, which at the time was comparable to the very worst sex scandal you can think of today but without the forgiveness a little begging can do.
Austen foreshadows what will happen to Lydia later by having Elizabeth (who helped to create the negative image of Mr Darcy) joke that people would die if they found out the truth. She also jokes about how she and Jane will laugh at the town people's "stupidity" when they finally realise what Wickham is really like. She is much like a cyber bullying of today, she helped to spread gossip about someone and does nothing to remedy the situation.
”The general prejudice against Mr. Darcy is so violent, that it would be the death of half the good people in Meryton to attempt to place him in an amiable light. I am not equal to it. Wickham will soon be gone; and therefore it will not signify to anybody here what he really is. Some time hence it will be all found out, and then we may laugh at their stupidity in not knowing it before. At present I will say nothing about it."
I don’t know why so many “fans” of Pride and Prejudice don’t seem to realise that Elizabeth isn’t a nice person or a victim. This isn’t just my opinion by the way, Austen says it herself of Elizabeth and ultimately that’s why I like the book:
“She grew absolutely ashamed of herself. Of neither Darcy nor Wickham could she think without feeding that she had been blind, partial, prejudiced, absurd.”
Elizabeth admitted to herself that she was prejudiced.
"How despicably have I acted!" she cried; "I who have prided myself on my discernment! I, who have valued myself on my abilities! who have often disdained the generous candor of my sister, and gratified my vanity in useless or blamable distrust. How humiliating is this discovery! yet, how just a humiliation! Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly. Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance, I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were concerned. Till this moment I never knew myself."
Elizabeth also admits to herself in no uncertain terms that she is vain and conceited.
The compliment to herself and her sister was not unfelt. It soothed, but it could not console her for the contempt, which had thus been self-attracted by the rest of her family; and as she considered that Jane's disappointment had in fact been the work of her nearest relations, and reflected how materially the credit of both must be hurt by such impropriety of conduct, she felt depressed beyond anything she had ever known [before].
She finally realises that her family are a bunch of uncouth prats.
Mr. Darcy's letter she was in a fair way of soon knowing by heart. She studied every sentence; and her feelings towards its writer were at times widely different. When she remembered the style of his address, she was still full of indignation; but when she considered how unjustly she had condemned and upbraided him, her anger was turned against herself; and his disappointed feelings became the object of compassion
She starts to feel sorry for her behaviour towards Mr Darcy.
In her own past behavior, there was a constant source of vexation and regret; and in the unhappy defects of her family, a subject of yet heavier chagrin. They were hopeless of remedy.
Elizabeth eventually grows as a person but unfortunately only through shaming.
_”And yet I meant to be uncommonly clever in taking so decided a dislike to him, without any reason. It is such a spur to one's genius, such an opening for wit, to have a dislike of that kind. One may be continually abusive without saying anything just; but one cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty."
Elizabeth makes jokes about her motives for behaving the way she did to Mr Darcy but even Jane expresses regret about Elizabeth’s bitchy behaviour and Elizabeth outright admitted that she was prejudiced.
“How unfortunate that you should have used such very strong expressions in speaking of Wickham to Mr. Darcy, for now they do appear wholly undeserved."
_”Certainly. But the misfortune of speaking with bitterness is a most natural consequence of the prejudices I had been encouraging.”
Elizabeth uses Jane as a sort of confessional to put her own mind at ease in regard to her behaviour and the stupidity of refusing Mr Darcy but she purposely decides not to tell Jane just how much Mr Bingley had really cared about her. Leaving her sister to believe that he didn't really like her at all.
“The tumult of Elizabeth's mind was allayed by this conversation. She had got rid of two of the secrets which had weighed on her for a fortnight, and was certain of a willing listener in Jane, whenever she might wish to talk again of either. But there was still something lurking behind, of which prudence forbade the disclosure. She dared not relate the other half of Mr. Darcy's letter, nor explain to her sister how sincerely she had been valued by his friend.”
But ultimately a leopard can’t change it’s spots and Elizabeth is still quite spoiled and conceited, knew that her dad was psychologically abusive towards her mother she tried to ignore his behaviour because she was thankful that he particularly liked her:
To his wife he was very little otherwise indebted, than as her ignorance and folly had contributed to his amusement. To Elizabeth, however, had never been blind to the impropriety of her father's behavior as a husband. She had always seen it with pain; but respecting his abilities, and grateful for his affectionate treatment of herself, she endeavored to forget what she could not overlook, and to banish from her thoughts that continual breach of conjugal obligation and decorum which, in exposing his wife to the contempt of her own children, was so highly reprehensible
Also when she finally starts to fancy Mr Darcy she says:
”I shall know how to understand it. I shall then give over every expectation, every wish of his constancy. If he is satisfied with only regretting me, when he might have obtained my affections and hand, I shall soon cease to regret him at all."
If you doubt the true nature of Elizabeth Bennet and the real point of Pride and Prejudice, read the book. You can do so for free online: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1342/1342-h/1342-h.htm or download the ebook free on most devices from most stores.
Randomly places images from Pride and Prejudice sourced from https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/