Thursday, March 26, 2020
Secondary Characters in Pride and Prejudice
I read the annotated version of Pride and Prejudice as well as watched the film from 2005. One of the main things I noticed about the story was the difference in the treatment and endings between the main and secondary characters. The Bennett household was not particularly wealthy or of a high status in comparison to the Bingley or Darcy households. Mrs. Bennett pushes Jane and Elizabeth to get married so the family can be taken care of if something were to happen to Mr. Bennett. Despite their lower social class, Jane and Elizabeth manage to win the hearts of Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy. They have the opportunity to marry for love rather then circumstance. Charlotte Lucas represents the more realistic situation for young women in the period. She does not choose to marry Mr. Collins because of love, but as a way to live her life honorable. On her engagement to Mr. Collins she says to Elizabeth: “‘I am not romantic, you know. I never was. I ask only a comfortable home; and considering Mr. Collins’s character, connections, and situation in life, I am convinced that my chance of happiness with him is as fair as most people can boast on entering the marriage state.'”(PP Ch.22) Looking at the character of Anne De Bourgh, we do not learn that much about her except that she is sickly and has not been presented to society. She was also betrothed to Darcy. What can be made about her character? Was it her destiny to live out her life as a spinster? The freedom that the Bennett sisters have is much greater then most of the secondary female characters in the novel, they are able to break social norms. Why did Austen create this juxtaposition between those sets of characters?
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Yes, you're right that both Elizabeth and Jane manage to marry the men they love, but it also so happens that their fellas have a good bit of dough. In that way, I wonder if this text actually subverts anything - how rebellious is Elizabeth for marrying Darcy (after seeing his lovely estate)? I don't know if you saw the new movie version of Little Women, but it reminds me of what the publisher tells Jo in that movie - the women in stories need to end up married or dead. Despite that Elizabeth has more "freedom" (in that she declines Mr. Collins' proposal), she still ends up doing exactly what she was expected to do. Maybe that's the fantasy - that someone can have it all (love AND money).
ReplyDeleteYes, I think Charlotte is a really important character because she is the most plausible as well as the "best" role model for Austen's original audience from a practical perspective. I really love the way that scene between Charlotte and Lizzy plays out in the 2005 movie (which has a LOT of flaws) because it feels like real emotion and a real expression of the limited choices that most women, even wealthy ones, had at the time.
ReplyDeleteAlso: poor ol' Anne deBourgh. Can you imagine her life? She may have all the material comforts in the world, but ugh. I think few of us would choose to live her life.
I wonder if part of the discrepancy between Charlotte's perspective on matrimony compared to the Bennet sisters originates in Mrs. Bennet's attitude. Not without reason, she's anxious for her daughters to transition into stable marriages, but that obsession often lends itself to silliness. For Lydia and Kitty, that makes husband-seeking like a game. They enjoy the flirting and dancing and endless hoping and gossiping that their mother encourages, not because they see the benefit of it, but because it's fun. Mary is the exact opposite. I imagine that she's grown up seeing her mother's behavior and decidedly determined everything that had anything to do with it to be ridiculous and thus refused to have anything to do with it. Lizzy and Jane, then, fall into the middle: interested in suitors, but not willing to suffer any degradation in the pursuit.
ReplyDeleteThrough that lens, maybe it makes sense why Lizzy wouldn't see a benefit in marrying Mr. Collins the way Charlotte does. When it comes to love, Charlotte sees the worst consequence as never marrying and being a burden on her family, whereas Elizabeth believes the worst consequence is anything that resembles and oddness and silliness of her mother's obsession.
You bring up a good point about the girls being affected by Mrs. Bennet's attitude. One can assume that her interest in her daughters' marriage isn't a new habit for Mrs. Bennet. Charlotte seems to seek a more practical form of happiness. Maybe since the Lucas family isn't as high on the social ladder, her priorities are centered around living a comfortable life.
DeleteI do think it's rather interesting that Austen decided to create such drastically different female characters, and I think one of the things we also have to consider about Charlotte is the fact that she's not particularly beautiful or has really anything outstanding going for her. So yes, while she is in a similar situation as Elizabeth and Jane, I think we have to consider that she kind of drew the short stick.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree in that the Bennet sisters were lucky enough to love the men they married, I also want to keep in mind what Kate mentioned earlier - the men they chose were also loaded. So, of course, it doesn't hurt that they ended up settling down with men that could financially support them, as Mrs. Bennet hoped and fought for.
I think the tenacity of Mrs. Bennet definitely also helped the girls succeed in finding suitable husbands. The Bennet girls, while relatively poor, did not have as many difficulties to overcome as Charlotte (or Anne deBourgh, for that matter) who was not beautiful and didn't have a mother who fought tooth and nail to get her a big diamond ring.
I think the juxtaposition of Charlotte, Anne, and the Bennet sisters is incredibly interesting, but I don't think we should lose sight of the fact that they didn't really JUST marry for love, and it wasn't pure luck that brought it to fruition.
I also think that the character of Charlotte exists to simply give the reader a sense of normalcy, a safe place to return to when everything else and everyone else is pushing boundaries. With Charlotte what you get is what you see, and no doubt the standard by which most women lived their lives. She does nothing wrong and she settles for her best option at the time. So in many ways she becomes the standard by which all of the other girls are measured.
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