Pride & Prejudice, ch. 48: The Prodigal Father

From yorknotes.com

There’s a lot of blame to go around for Lydia’s frightening disappearing act, and not all of it is directed at the right people. In this chapter, there are three male characters who feel free to place blame on the shoulders of female characters, though to varying degrees: Mr. Collins, Mr. Bennet, and surprisingly, Uncle Gardiner. 

But heywaitaminute, you say, when does everyone’s favorite clear-sided uncle point fingers at people? Well, let’s get to that first, because it’s a real read-between-the-lines situation.

First, Uncle Gardiner leaves for London to help look for Lydia, send Mr. Bennet home, and generally be a better correspondent than the crotchety Pa Bennet. The Meryton denizens, meanwhile, are all we weren’t going to say anything, but this Wickham guy left a bunch of debts behind and he flirted with, like, everyone’s daughter, so he’s obviously a bad guy now. Aunt Pittypat is doing her best to keep the Bennets abreast of these new (?) developments, which is so nice and helpful of her and doesn’t at all leave Mrs. Bennet in a more agitated state than before. 

Then Uncle Gardiner updates everyone on Pa Bennet’s last-ditch effort to track down the couple in London. It doesn’t sound like it’s going to work. Gardiner has a plan to ask Col. Forster if Wickham has any friends in town who might be inclined to H.A.B.O.* and adds, “perhaps Lizzy could tell us what relations he has now living better than any other person.” I checked with Shapard, who confirms that this is really out of line for the otherwise gentlemanly Gardiner to suggest. But I have an explanation to offer: I think Gardiner is genuinely frustrated, not just with Lydia and Wickham, but with Lizzy to some degree. For the past week or so, he’s been hearing bad stuff about this Wickham fella, which goes against what he previously thought about him. Last time he visited Meryton, his niece seemed to be in love with him (to the point that the coolest aunt in the world felt the need to talk her out of it). And just lately Lizzy has been telling him some bad stuff about the guy without naming her source. So while Gardiner’s passive-aggressive dig at Lizzy (I doubt that he meant it as a sincere suggestion) is not excusable, his frustration with the slippery Wickham is. Furthermore, this out-of-character moment illustrates that even Austen’s most well-behaved characters have the capacity to lash out under pressure.

Next, we get the stupidest letter. And I mean the stupidest. And I know you’re thinking, she’s talking about that dumb Mr. Collins letter where he manages to insult the Bennets’ parenting skills and Lydia’s personality defect, somehow blaming nature and nurture. Oh, and adds that Lydia’s death would have been “a blessing” compared to this. And that Lady Catherine knows about it, and they all got together to gossip about how “this false step in one daughter will be injurious to the fortunes of all the others” (not to mention that Charlotte told them about Lydia’s wild child upbringing). That letter.

It’s so much worse than that, you guys. Because there is one person who Mr. Collins doesn’t condemn. He doesn’t even mention the man’s name. 

That’s right: Mr. Collins says nothing about Wickham.

Now, I’m not saying he’s doing this to be malicious. In fact, I like the interpretation that Mr. Collins is so caught up in scolding Lydia/the Bennet parents and patting himself on the back for getting rejected by Lizzy (not only incredibly crass of him to bring that up, but also another example of a man giving her crap for no reason) that he simply forgets to acknowledge that Wickham is culpable or even involved. But that forgetfulness is telling. Whether it’s an example of sexism or of Mr. Collins’ skewed priorities, the fact that he completely refuses to extend any guilt to Wickham really shows the severe limit of his critical thinking skills. And his lack of sensitivity. And his pettiness. 

This guy’s parish, man. I feel for them.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bennet returns home, reluctantly joining his daughters for tea. Lizzy tries to make him feel better. But Pa Bennet, at his lowest, has to acknowledge his part in it, albeit in an unhelpfully self-effacing way: “[L]et me once in my life feel how much I have been to blame. I am not afraid of being overpowered by the impression. It will pass away soon enough.” Yikes yikes yikes. So he’s counting on his burden of guilt fading away and that he’ll be back to his regular, snarky, uncaring self. Indeed, a few lines later, he’s already back to mocking Mrs. Bennet for putting on a “parade” of superficial grief—as if that makes her any worse than a man who won’t let his culpability spur him into changing for the better. Then he picks on Kitty after she brags that she’d “behave better” than her little sister, taking the joke of threatening to ground her for life too far. We know he doesn’t mean it because this old dog doesn’t want to learn any new parenting tricks, but Kitty (who must have inherited her mother’s frayed nerves) takes him at his word. Wow. When even Mr. Collins makes a cogent point about your parenting skills … 

But before I conclude with a condemnation of Mr. Bennet, let’s address one other thing he says here. Reaching out to Lizzy, he tells her, “I bear you no ill-will for being justified in your advice to me last May, which, considering the event, shews some greatness of mind.” Funnily, and this wouldn’t have occurred to me otherwise, Shapard interprets this as Mr. Bennet commenting on his own “greatness of mind” (for not being unhappy with his favorite daughter) rather than Lizzy’s (for her prescient “advice” to him). So … thoughts? I find both interpretations compelling: one emphasizes Mr. Bennet’s ironic detachment, while the other underlines a bittersweet father-daughter bond. Which “which” you go with would align with your feelings about Mr. Bennet. Yet I’m not quite sold on the idea that he’s using this moment to pat himself on the back. I like to think that in some way, he’s acknowledging that Lizzy’s parenting instincts are better than his, and the best that he can do as a father is to simply admit it.

Next chapter: A letter from Uncle Gardiner changes everything.

*Help A Bitch Out