Week 3 Thoughts: A “Pride and Prejudice” Read-Along

Week 3 Impressions: A “Pride and Prejudice” Read-Along

This chunk involved the rest of volume 2, and what a doozy it was! I started to do mini recaps of each chapter, but I found that wasn’t working this time around. I want to resist summarizing, and that’s not easy. In any case, I present a scattered collection of thoughts on this third week of reading.

This volume mostly takes place at the Hunsford parsonage (where Mr. Collins and Charlotte reside). Lizzy takes the time to enjoy the change of pace. It’s a bit of a retreat for her (until it’s not). She keeps bumping into Mr. Darcy or his cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam.

We get to meet Lady Catherine in this section. My, she’s a fussy, critical woman. But also rather funny—in a Lady Bracknell sort of way (that’s for you Oscar Wilde/Importance of Being Earnest fans). Lizzy holds her own with Lady Catherine: “Elizabeth suspected herself to be the first creature who had ever dared to trifle with so much dignified impertinence.”

My new impression is that Mr. Collins and Charlotte are seemingly happy, or at least content? Maybe this wasn’t a terrible match after all?

But that’s just it! That’s the whole point of this book (and part of the fun of reading this in segments with others). Jane Austen sets up a whole spectrum of impressions and expectations. We’re led to believe something about a character and then the reverse happens! (I suppose that’s the mark of any good storyteller.) This book appears to be, on one hand, the dangers of cementing a first impression in your mind. In fact, the original title for this was First Impressions. And that’s mighty revealing, isn’t it?

Anyway, I’m hopeful Charlotte and Mr. Collins can make it work. But who knows.

Another major theme is that folks should marry for a balance of love and security (money). It shouldn’t tip too far in any direction. And we start to realize that, despite their charm and comic affectations, Mr. and Mrs. Bennet are not the paragon of parenting or marriage. And their behavior has consequences! But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s get back to Lizzy and Darcy.

An illustration for “Pride and Prejudice” by C.E. Brock (1895)

Reader, I have to confess my jaw dropped when Darcy strolled into the house and declared his love for Lizzy. I thought there was going to be a bit more preamble. I suppose there was a flirty exchange earlier, when the two were truly alone together for the first time. It was still antagonistic, but there was a playful air about it? I dunno. Anyway, I wasn’t expecting this Event so early on!

Once Darcy proposes, things go terribly. Lizzy really goes for the jugular here. These two are stubborn, prideful and prejudicial people. (sidenote: I peeked at a blog post that says it’s easy to place Darcy as the proud one and Lizzy as prejudicial, but the post also argues that the opposite is true).

Lizzy: “Long before it had taken place [the Jane and Bingley drama], my opinion of you was decided.”

Darcry (later on): “But perhaps these offences might have been overlooked, had not your pride been hurt by my honest confession of the scruples that had long prevented my forming any serious design.”

Lizzy: “You could not have made me the offer of your hand in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it.” (and a bit later) “I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.”

Yikes!

Anyway, Darcy writes a very long letter to her, she reads it, and it sends her into quite an awakening. I won’t relay all that went down. But when Lizzy starts to think deeply about the Wickham/Darcy feud, Lizzy starts to understand that “it was impossible not to feel there was gross duplicity on one side of the other.” And this she begins to untangle all sorts of factors.

Maybe Jane and Bingley aren’t quite the match afterall?
Maybe Wickham is a dangerous cad?

Maybe the Bennets, as a whole, are an embarrassing imprudent family?

Lizzy goes into a spiral that would serve as quite an aria if this were turned into an opera:

“How descpicably have I acted! I, who have prided myself on my discernment! I, who have valued myself on my abilities! Who have often disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified my vanity, in useless or blameless distrust–How humiliating is this discovery!–Yes, how just a humiliation!–Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, 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.”

WHEW!

There is so much more to unpack here, and I guess I’m having trouble resisting the urge to recap and provide a play-by-play reaction to everything that happens in this section. So I’m going to wrap things up for now. We’re in the thick of it. Lizzy is attempting to do some damage control with her family (especially since young Lydia is off to Brighton). She also has to figure out how much Darcy news share with Jane and others. And we end the volume with a visit to Pemberley!

Before leaving with the daily schedule for Week 4, I’d like to share a small list of two-word phrases that work wonderfully together. The sound alone of these combinations gives delight. (And I know at least one of them is from Shakespeare, so you know Austen is thinking about sound and rhythm of language.)