Pride & Prejudice, ch. 35: The Opposite Of A Subtweet (1/2)

Fun fact: this is the image of Mr. Darcy that I had
until I saw the A&E miniseries.

We all talk about how much we love Mr. Darcy. He’s arguably half the reason why Jane Austen remains such a phenomenon to this day. (Sorry, Captain Wentworth and Mr. Knightley, you two have done your best.) A lot of the Darcy worship centers on his archetype: tall, brooding, enigmatic, but not without romantic appeal. The Mr. Rochester type, right? An offshoot of Lord Bryon, some would suggest. 

I’m not here to rain on your parade, Darcy fans. But I think it’s worth exploring the reasons why Mr. Darcy is likable, rather than swoon-worthy. Let’s not forget that so far in Pride & Prejudice, Darcy has said and done very little, at least directly, to make the reader like him. Arguably, he’s done more to make the reader relate to him, but that would require readers (particularly first-time readers) to look past Lizzy’s stubborn declarations and prejudice against him. Part of this is because he tries to be unlikable to dissuade Lizzy; the relatability factor comes when the narrator shows his struggle to resist her despite her demonstrative lovableness. We like Lizzy, so anybody else who likes Lizzy can’t be all bad.

But there are plenty of things about Darcy that make him likable. Take, for example, his decision to write Lizzy a letter explaining his conduct with regards to Bingley and Jane and the past he had with Wickham. He doesn’t owe her an explanation. He himself implied, almost right after her rejection, that Lizzy was shallow. And yet, in the letter, he implores her to “pardon the freedom with which I demand your attention” because “I demand it of your justice.” He knows that Lizzy has enough of a sense of justice to give him a chance now that he’s put himself out there. This is not the typical behavior of an arrogant rich man used to getting his own way. And if you want to argue that he has selfish as well as noble intentions in defending himself, well, he is still trusting her with some very personal information about his family. This is an act of sheer humility.

That’s not to say he’s completely humble in the letter, though. He outright states that Wickham’s accusations against him are far more upsetting than separating Jane and Bingley (their “affection could be the growth of only a few weeks”*). Darcy reveals that he started to pay attention to Bingley’s serious feelings toward Jane at the Netherfield ball (thanks to Sir William) and observes that “though she received his attentions with pleasure, she did not invite them by any participation of sentiment.” This assessment seems rather harsh, given that we have been reading about Jane’s growing crush on Bingley since chapter 4, and Darcy only started to notice it several weeks after that. Darcy acknowledges that he doesn’t know Jane like Lizzy does and that he mistook Jane’s proper, ladylike manners for cool indifference,** adding with his own coolness that he “was desirous of believing her indifferent,” “but … my investigations and decisions are not usually influenced by my hopes or fears.” He claims that the real reason why he advised Bingley to break it off is because of the Bennets’ public behavior, rather than their social position. The Bennet parents as well as middle sister (sigh) Mary and the tweebs are so uncouth, loud, and just generally disruptive that their behavior reflects worse on them than the lower class beginnings of Mrs. Bennet. 

Darcy reminds Lizzy that this behavior by itself wasn’t enough to persuade Bingley; his certainty of Jane’s “indifference” took care of that. The only not-awesome thing that Darcy did, by his account, was that he didn’t mention to Bingley that Jane had been in London. (At this point, you have to wonder if Darcy knew that the Bingley sisters’ motivation for helping him talk Bingley out of pursuing Jane was less than noble.) It seems that he’s uncomfortable because of the principle guiding his action (a willingness to deceive) rather than the implication that Jane, by visiting the Bingley sisters, displayed a sincerity that goes against his previous assertion of her. He offers a sincere apology and explains that “though the motives which governed me may to you very naturally appear insufficient, I have not yet learnt to condemn them.”

This is a weird way to end his account of the Jingley disaster. Doesn’t his use of “yet” imply that he’s still thinking about his actions and their ramifications? And he’s doing his best to understand Lizzy’s wounded feelings, as he considers it “very [natural]” that she might not be on board with his explanation. I believe that not one word of this letter is written with sarcasm. Darcy is struggling with his own prejudices and arrogance in the power of his critical thinking and observation skills, but he chooses to struggle with them. Man, I kind of like this guy.

Part 2 continues here.

*Never mind that Darcy knew Lizzy for roughly the same amount of time and it ended in a proposal despite not resembling a typical courtship … 

**Sooooo remember when I got all growly and frustrated with Sir Thomas when he assumed that Fanny’s proper, ladylike manners in the face of Henry Crawford’s brand of courtship meant that she liked him, and not that she was only being nice to him because she had to be? Remember when I railed against these male characters projecting their, you know, hopes and desires onto young, unmarried, lower-ranking women, women who had to walk on eggshells during courtships even when they liked the guy because it was what was expected of them in the first place? Yeah. At least Mr. Knightley didn’t ship Mr. Martin with Harriet until one of them said something to him about it.