Pride & Prejudice, ch. 56: I See I've Surprised You With Some Of My Words

Credit to Anna and Elena Balbusso.
The witchy vibes are irresistible.

This entry’s title is a SFW lyric from one of my favorite NSFW songs—a song with the kind of language that a modern-day woman would be tempted to use when dealing with Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

With that said, I’d like to pivot to a question I often had about this chapter You see, when I first read this at age eighteen, I couldn’t quite figure out how Elizabeth Bennet had successfully won against Lady Catherine. It confused me because Lady C ends the chapter even more angry and belligerent than she is at the beginning. She isn’t swayed by any of Lizzy’s cogent counter-arguments. She leaves still convinced that she’s right, that Lizzy is beneath her in all respects, and that her authority is unmatched. 

It took me several re-reads to fully understand that Lady Catherine’s refusal to believe she lost the argument has no baring on the fact that she does, indeed, lose the argument. And in hoping to intimidate Lizzy out of a fictional engagement with Darcy, Lady Catherine will eventually find that hope very much dashed. 

Now I can read every line of Lady Catherine’s dialogue and find something to mock, starting with the crass absurdity of “That lady, I suppose, is your mother” as an opener. Every abrupt change of topic, declaration of imaginary power, and snotty remark marks this woman’s immaturity and small-mindedness. Her rash bullying tactics stand in stark contrast to everything her “noble line” would suggest of her. She uses important-sounding words to argue against the union of Mr. Darcy and Lizzy—“honour, decorum, prudence, nay, interest, forbid it”—but the only kind of punishment she can offer is to … refuse to notice Lizzy as his wife. A bully who promises to take her toy and go home is no threat; a woman who only uses words like “honor” to make herself look righteous is not worth respecting.

Lady Catherine gives herself away as she introduces the reason for her visit: “Though I know it must be a scandalous falsehood … I instantly resolved on setting off for this place.” Lizzy pokes at this line of logic: “If you believed it impossible to be true [...] I wonder you took the trouble of coming so far.” As much as Lady Catherine believes in her own authority, she fails to see that sprinting off to Meryton makes her look desperate and not in control. She’s not a stately queen, but a wealthy busybody who feels “entitled” (her word) to … well, have her share in the conversation.

Her main argument circles back to three points: a) she wants Darcy to marry her wordless daughter, b) Lizzy is inferior to her nephew in all the ways, and c) Lizzy is a doo-doo head I mean, she’s “selfish.” Lady C dwells on the fact that both she and Mrs. Darcy Lady Anne daydreamed about a wedding between the two cousins when they were babies. This point is not reasonable as an argument, though it isn’t unreasonable as an expectation (wealthy cousins married one another all the time to keep it in the family—“it” being all that sweet, sweet inheritance). Of course, just “plann[ing] the union” is not binding, and as Lizzy points out, “ If Mr. Darcy is neither by honour nor inclination confined to his cousin, why is not he to make another choice?” And even after this, Lady Catherine continues to claim that it’s Lizzy’s fault (or her “upstart pretensions”) that the fake I mean, “tacit” engagement of Darcy and Anne de Bourgh fell through. Yeah. Try to logic your way out of that.

Another fact that Lady Catherine attempts to wield as a cunning argument is that Lizzy is “a young woman without family, connections,* or fortune.” It’s true that Lizzy isn’t related to a notable judge (as Darcy is) and that her dowry is nonexistent. And it’s not unreasonable that Lady C expects Darcy to marry someone with a similar net worth as his; that’s just how it worked for a lot of people. It’s a big reason why Lizzy assumed that he wouldn’t try to court her, and is subsequently surprised when he first proposes. But Lady Catherine never quite frames it this way. Instead, when she points out the Bennets’ relative lowliness (“Who are your uncles and aunts?” and calling Lydia’s shotgun marriage “a patched-up business”**) with all the subtlety of a blunt instrument to the head. She’s trying to belittle Lizzy into giving up. Not only is she switching up her tactics, a sure sign that she realizes she’s losing, but she lets her indignation get the better of her. And even she must acknowledge that Lizzy’s father is a “gentleman,” making Lizzy an “equal” to Darcy. 

Finally, there’s the claim that Lizzy herself is objectionable. “You have no regard, then, for the honour and credit of my nephew! Unfeeling, selfish girl!” Lady Catherine scorns. Lizzy refuses to be cowed by the implication that she owes Darcy such a consideration. First, Lady Catherine has failed to present a case that Lizzy marrying Darcy would somehow destroy him. Secondly, Lizzy has always rejected the idea that she owes anyone anything. This “headstrong girl” has enough strength of character to chart her own path to happiness, even if that includes not ruling out an engagement to a man who she believes doesn’t desire a connection with her. Lizzy finally gets to make the obvious point when she observes to Lady C that “the arguments with which you have supported this extraordinary application have been as frivolous as the application was ill-judged. You have widely mistaken my character, if you think I can be worked on by such persuasions as these.”

So what does Lady Catherine gain from this? Well, she gets Lizzy to admit that the flaky gossip of her engagement to Darcy is just that (thanks, Charlotte). Then she fails to achieve her related goal of getting Lizzy to promise to never marry him. Not exactly the two-birds-one-stone situation that Lady Catherine was counting on. Intriguingly, this demand implies that Lady Catherine sees Lizzy’s “allurements” as an ongoing threat to Darcy. In any case, her declaration that she “now know[s] how to act” is probably the vaguest threat she could possibly use, which might indicate that under all her huff and puff she knows that her options are limited. 

True, Lady Catherine does get the last word in as she refuses to leave calmly (and without showing the decorum she previously upheld as a virtue). But the strongest clapback is the one Lizzy gives just before Lady C stalks off: that “the world in general would have too much sense to join in the scorn” that Lady Catherine warns would come to Lizzy in marrying Darcy. The implication is clear: Lizzy isn’t buying her argument. And faced with the one person who tells her to her face that she cannot substitute belligerence for “sense,” Lady C knows she’s cornered. Like all bullies bereft of oxygen, she flees—eventually facilitating the very union she despises and proving herself inconsequential to the man she claims to advocate for.

Guys, that was so much fun to write.

Next up: A belated warning, a forlorn conclusion, and a merry Mr. Bennet. (Weird times.)

*David Shapard notes that “family” and “connections” essentially mean the same thing—yet another potential sign of her sloppy debate skill.

**The irony fairy giggles as she waves her wand of literary devices over Lady Catherine’s bonnet …