Pride & Prejudice, ch. 36: The Interpreter

When we last left—part 1 here, part 2 there—Lizzy had been gifted a hand-delivered letter from Darcy in the hopes that she would understand (though not necessarily forgive) him for his arrogant behavior. 

To reiterate the point that I brought up last time, Darcy making the effort to clear his name and defend his actions to an audience of one is very … unorthodox. I mean that in the sense of a) what is expected in this society, b) what is expected of the characters in this novel, and c) what he owes specifically to Lizzy. Though part of the reason can be attributed to Darcy’s strict sense of justice, this action also represents an unconscious desire on his part to broaden her horizons.

So how does Lizzy return the favor, so to speak? Well, at first, she doesn’t budge an inch—despite reading the whole thing “with an eagerness which hardly left her power of comprehension.” Everything he says relating to Jingley makes her seethe with anger, and “his style was not penitent, but haughty,” reinforcing her negative impression of him and making her less likely to believe him. If he’s so arrogant that he’s convinced himself that he’s right, why trust him to be neutral or objective? It’s a compelling, if inelegant, argument.

But then we get to the Wickham stuff, and Lizzy has an altogether different reaction. At first she finds Darcy’s account hard to believe as well—but this is because of her shock rather than a bruised ego. It actually makes her put the letter away for a hot minute. But of course Lizzy’s analytic streak kicks in and she decides to give Darcy a fair shake, even if it means blowing up her perception of Wickham. Because the thing is, there is some overlap between Wickham’s oral autobiography and Darcy’s perspective, which is one argument for giving some credence to Darcy. Lizzy “weigh[s] every circumstance with what she meant to be impartiality,” struggles some more, and then realizes that “she could bring no proof of [the] injustice [of the accusation that Wickham is careless with money].” You can practically feel the synapses going off in her brain at this point. She has no idea who or what Wickham was before he popped into the regiment at Meryton … except for what he chose to share with her and others. Though “[h]is countenance, voice, and manner had established him at once in the possession of every virtue,” she admits that “she could remember no more substantial good than the general approbation of the neighborhood.” In other words, Wickham’s surface-level niceness is the only thing he has going for him. Then she turns it on herself, recalling how she’d indulged him in listening to his tale of woe, and is “now struck with the impropriety of such communications to a stranger, and wondered it had escaped her before.”* (Psst, it’s called animal magnetism, Liz. It makes everyone look like idiots). 

Most damning, to my mind, is her realization that Wickham’s accusations against Darcy were widespread in Meryton … after the Netherfield group left for London. And why would he say anything against Darcy Jr. if he loved Darcy Sr. as he himself claimed to? After trying to recall any specific action Wickham performed that would demonstrate a “substantial” virtue, Lizzy must now look to his inaction. Avoiding Darcy by not going to the Netherfield ball, even after “boast[ing] of having no fear of seeing Mr. Darcy,” really speaks volumes about the guy. Redirecting his charm to the suddenly semi-wealthy Mary King now seems “hatefully mercenary” to Lizzy, as it now appears to be fueled by desperation and greed rather than practicality. (Methinks someone owes an apology to Mrs. Collins.) 

After examining Wickham’s behavior this way, Lizzy further exercises her critical-thinking skills by using a similar metric for Darcy. Having known Darcy for longer, and more intimately (no, not like that), she decides that she has not “seen any thing that betrayed him to be unprincipled or unjust.” Bingley claimed that Darcy was blameless in the Wickham stuff. Wickham himself described Darcy as a good big brother.** And of course, the final and most obvious clue is the fact that Darcy’s and Bingley’s friendship exists in the first place. Why would Nice Guy®️ (and smart cookie) Bingley maintain a friendship with the greedy, amoral, scheming Darcy that Wickham described? Quick count: the word “justice” pops up in several forms no less than 7 times in this chapter, and all but one mention pertain to Darcy’s conduct and opinions.

Understanding Darcy’s sense of integrity also lets Lizzy admit that he’s right when it comes to her family’s rude behavior. They do demonstrate bad manners that would scare off a respectable potential suitor. Combined with the evidence of Charlotte having mentioned that Jane was a bit too reticent to show her feelings, Lizzy finally has to admit that Darcy was justified to feel and act the way he did. Unfortunately, this drives her again to depression as she “reflect[s] how materially the credit of [herself and Jane] must be hurt by such impropriety of conduct.”

Then again, Lizzy is able to clarify the underlying issue:

“[V]anity, 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.”

And a nice little footnote here is that she acknowledges that she should’ve listened to Jane more, as she often “disdained the generous candor of [her] sister” in favor of her own powers of “discernment.” After all the times I pointed out how Jane’s cautious approach to gossip made more practical sense, it’s nice to see Lizzy, in the middle of her big revelation about her real motivations and flaws, recognize her older sister’s wisdom. 

On a different note, how refreshing is it that a main character in a love story (that’s mainly satire, but bear with me) isn’t misled by love, but their own self-worth? There is no shortage of characters who are misguidedly confident, whether due to financial position or their perceived victimhood or an inner quality they value. But Lizzy is able to rise above them and find something deeper inside, to break open her biggest flaw and see how it has held sway over her. Now, she’s free. 

Only not entirely, since she has to go back to the Parsonage and put on a smile for the sake of appearances. Once there, she learns that Darcy and the colonel were there to see her and she missed them both. Ten-to-one that Col. Fitzwilliam waited there longer because Darcy asked him to answer any questions about Wickham and Miss Darcy that Lizzy might have put to him. But this doesn’t appear to cross her mind; the only thing on her mind is “her letter.”

Interesting choice of pronoun, that.

Next chapter: We say goodbye to Lady Catherine (for now, cue ominous thunder), Lizzy politely refuses a worthless favor, and more of Lizzy’s thoughts on Darcy’s thoughts on her family.

*This is something to remember the next time you crack open Sense & Sensibility, as this is Marianne’s most incessant character flaw in a nutshell.

**Which is an interesting trick that liars use all the time: including some truthful details in the broader lie that they construct. Here, of course, that backfires on Wickham, partly because he’s kind of a sloppy liar in the first place.