Pride & Prejudice, ch. 55: Jingley All The Way

Credit to flominowa on DeviantArt

So you know what we haven’t talked about throughout this whole thing? 

Bingley and Jane as a couple.

There’s an obvious reason for this: P&P is about the misadventures (and eventual union) of Lizzy and Darcy. We know they’re perfect for each other. We’ve spent decades writing and reading about their courtship and imagining their married life (and our imagines have taken us to some pretty extreme places). Jane and Bingley are usually seen through their function as foils for the main protagonists. Theirs is the courtship that is interrupted only by severely misplaced judgment. They are the happy version of Romeo and Juliet, you know, from that version in my head where the friar just marches up to the Caps and the Mons and gives them a figurative smack upside the head.

Er. Sorry. Got off track. (Gosh, a set of bad parents who deserve a talking-to—I wonder where that idea came from?)

To be sure, Jane and Bingley are far more conventional in terms of courtship norms, e.g. Jane’s consistent resistance to her mother’s crass scheming. She knows that she’s in a precarious position, and not just because of Ma Bennet’s obvious matchmaking: Jane wants to be sure of her own feelings as well as Bingley’s before going further. I think it’s possible that Jane, who recently claimed that she just wants them to be friends, has been following Bingley’s lead. He does all the requisite stuff, like come around to dinner several times in a row, treat Mrs. Bennet kindly, and shoot birds with Mr. Bennet (who’s finally like, oh, this guy isn’t that bad). It’s only once he shows this attention to her parents that the two take advantage of whatever contrivance Mrs. Bennet hatched to give them some alone time. Once Bingley dedicates time and energy on her and her family, Jane finally feels secure enough to let her guard down.

(It helps that the Bingley sisters and Darcy aren’t hovering around him. Not only does this indicate that Bingley isn’t in town to play host, giving him more time to focus on Jane, but he also is metaphorically free of the burdens they have all attempted to place on him.)

I’ve always found the scene of the proposal somewhat jarring, as seeing “[Jane] and Bingley standing together over the hearth, as if engaged in earnest conversation” seems out of character for them both. But I realize that this moment appears somber because it so deftly contrasts the reader’s trivial impression of their courtship. If Jane has been taking Bingley’s cue up until now, then Bingley is surely allowing himself to be as serious and steady as Jane can be. His enthusiasm shows up when he “whispers[] a few words to [Jane]” and then “[runs] out of the room” to go get Mr. Bennet’s permission, and again when he “claim[s] the good wishes and affection of a sister” from Lizzy. And that’s not even to mention the profusion of happiness from Jane: “Oh! why is not every body as happy [as me]?” It’s the most excited we’ve seen her in the whole dame book!

Lizzy recognizes the contrast between the unnecessary angst and the inevitability of it all: “... [T]his the end of all his friend’s anxious circumspection, of all his sister’s falsehood and contrivance—the happiest, wisest, most reasonable end!” Bingley’s happiness and Jane’s wisdom guided the love story to its obvious conclusion.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Bennet’s cry of “I was sure you could not be so beautiful for nothing!” comes off as calculated, while Mr. Bennet takes the opportunity to crack a joke about his daughter’s easy-going temper: “You are each of you so complying, that nothing will ever be resolved on.” Hmm, joking about finding happiness and mutual respect in marriage? I wonder what inspired that, Mr. B.

But Mr. Bennet is also wrong here. Jane later confesses to Lizzy that she won’t seek to renew her previous friendship with Caroline Bingley, a resolution that demonstrates some backbone. This bodes well for Jane as she prepares for a future as wife to Bingley, who she notes “might have chosen so much more advantageously in many respects.” Lizzy notes as well that Bingley seems not to have mentioned Darcy’s role in the debacle, concluding that “though Jane had the most generous and forgiving heart in the world … it was a circumstance which must prejudice [Jane] against him.” Man, when even Jane Bennet has a bone to pick with you … you done bad, my friend.

Lizzy decides that “it is to the credit of his modesty” that Bingley was temporarily convinced of Jane’s “indifference,” though this might strike readers as a sour note in their courtship. We and Lizzy know that it wasn’t just a lack of communication and follow-through that waylaid them, but also an issue of Bingley “choosing so much more advantageously.” I’ll be remarking in-depth on this subject later, as it adds more context to all of the couplings and matchmaking.

I don’t know if Austen intended for Jane and Bingley to be anything more than a conventional pairing meant to propel the main characters into action, and I feel like this ambiguity allows readers to sideline them. But think about it: P&P would be a different beast were it not for the go-getting Bingley stumbling on his path to love and the softhearted Jane getting her happy ending on her terms. “Elizabeth really believed all [Bingley’s] expectations of felicity to be rationally founded, because they had for basis the excellent understanding, and super-excellent disposition of Jane, and a general similarity of feeling and taste between her and himself.” They are, like Lizzy and Darcy, an example of opposites attracting; also, like Lizzy and Darcy, they both possess a fundamental goodness that makes them stand out. The latter ensures that they will always get along and the former suggests that they will never lose interest in one another. And I can’t think of a better reward for these two smiley-faced goobers.

Chapter the next: A blast from Lizzy’s recent past shows up on her doorstep and demands to have her share in the conversation.