We mentioned that Pride
and Prejudice feels like an easier read than Northanger Abbey or Sense and
Sensibility, and I believe it is so for multiple reasons, but one in
particular is that it is much more humorous because of its characters. We laugh at characters like Mr. Collins and
Mrs. Bennet, but why do we laugh at them? To me, these characters are like the self-deprecating
comedian, except that they’re not aware they’re deprecating or embarrassing themselves. These characters are shameless, and they
become a source of comic relief because they are different from the norm and don’t stay inside society’s acceptable standards of propriety. These characters are very different from
those who do “stay within the bounds,” like Lizzy Bennet. Lizzy, and others like her, are aware of their
own actions and of the way they are perceived by others. Lizzy is very aware of impropriety and the
shame that comes with it when, for example, she becomes embarrassed of her mother’s
brazen and defensive response to Mr. Darcy's remark on the "country neighbourhood" in chapter
9. Mr. Collins, too, is highly unaware
of the awkwardness of his social manners.
Indeed, his physical presence at the Bennet home itself presents an uncomfortable
situation, as everyone clearly knows his only reason for being there is to select a wife from one of
the daughters. He thinks he is doing the
family a favor by marrying into the family to save the entail, but the women of
the family think him “an oddity,” and this does not help his cause. We could also make the claim that Miss Caroline Bingley is
one of these shameless characters when we see her in her attempts to reel Mr. Darcy
into a current social activity or conversation. True, she may be proud (according to Mary’s definition
in chapter 5), but she is not vain enough to see that her single-sided
flirtations with Mr. Darcy are not as veiled as she thinks them to be, and we all laugh at her futile attempts to, for lack of a better word, seduce
him.
Mr. Collins, Mrs. Bennet, and Miss Bingley are very
proud people, and I believe Mary Bennet would say that
they hold a very high opinion of themselves.
But I suppose we can conclude that they are not vain, as they do not
seem to care about others’ opinions about themselves.
This flaw in their character makes them blunt, and as a result, quite
funny, but is this necessarily a bad thing?
Logically, we understand this much: one must know the codes of society
to know what is considered acceptable and what is considered a breach. But if vanity is defined as an awareness of others’
opinions of a person, and society determines one’s social acceptance or rejection,
does this not make Lizzy vain, as she is very aware of others and their perceptions? Maybe she is only aware when someone besides
herself is caught in the spotlight of shame and impropriety, since she seems to
have no problem getting her petticoat “six inches deep in mud.” So if we can call Lizzy vain, does this make everyone
subject to vanity? Going back to the matter of book titles, as we mentioned in
class, what implications do the words "pride and prejudice" have on humanity? Will there ever be an unbiased,
unprejudiced utopia where we can live? This brings me back to one of the last
points of our discussion today: Do we live in a post-judgmental era? It seems
that according to Jane Austen’s title, we will never, for where there is pride
of oneself, there will always be prejudice against another.
Some random thought: I think it is interesting how, towards the end, the novel redeems a certain kind of pride. Elizabeth is proud of Darcy, for his modified manners--and being proud of another person has none of the negativity we associate with pride in oneself. (Though again, as Darcy discusses earlier, being proud of oneself isn't necessarily bad, either.) Pride seems negative when it stands in the way of perception: see, for example, Darcy's discussion of his early upbringing and how he was taught to "think meanly of all the rest of the world, to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own" (Ch. 58). But pride based on accurate observation--Lizzie's pride in Darcy's reformed manners or generous actions toward her family--seems ok. Pride is both the result of perception and that which precedes perception, and influences it.
ReplyDeleteThe tension you note between vanity and pride gets at this relationship between pride and perception. Your discussion of Elizabeth interests me because, as you say, sometimes she seems like the character least interested in what others will think--critical of the societal conventions that would make it inappropriate for her to walk across a field in pursuit of a sick sister, critical of the customs for "accomplishment" that mark a civilized lady of the time, critical of the forms of politeness that should, perhaps, govern her interactions with Lady Catherine. In other ways, she is the most perceptive character--aware of how Lydia and her mother violate the same types of social customs that she herself may at times disregard (see above). How do we resolve this (potential) inconsistency?
The tension between vanity and pride may also have to do with who performs the embarrassing action and how much control Elizabeth has over it. So, for example, Elizabeth can own up to the dirty petticoat and defend herself against snobs who may find her unladylike because she knowingly did this and is fully responsible for it. Perhaps she's not embarrassed because she saw it as inconsequential and can instead laugh at those who laugh at her than be embarrassed by it. On the other hand, she can see people laugh at her mother and sisters and doesn't know how to defend their actions against any criticism. She has no control over their behaviour and becomes embarrassed as her family quickly becomes the greatest source of her insecurities. It's no accident that she matures most as she disassociates herself from her family and in the end her home itself. It's almost as if Elizabeth is most comfortable with herself when she's asked to be on her own- in Netherfield, with Lady Catherine, with Darcy- when she is fully aware of who she is and has complete control over how she can be perceived because it's just her actions and her words. Her family disrupts this self-confidence as they create a different image of Elizabeth to the outsider and one that Elizabeth is very uncomfortable with.
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