Darcyist ranting
Aug. 21st, 2009 09:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anghraineAwhile back, somebody linked me to an Austen quiz - or I stumbled across it - or something, but anyway, I shall not post the result of it, because I am (self?)-righteously peeved.
I think all Darcyists should have a manifesto, the first line of which should be:
Darcy is NOT Heathcliff. Or Rochester. Or any other of those amoral, self-dramatising Victorian monstrosities.
To expand on that thought, the first and most obvious reasons:
(1) Darcy is a Georgian gentleman.
(2) Heathcliff is a Victorian . . . something. Gentleman somehow doesn't seem quite the right word.
Which is to say, their social backgrounds are as utterly different as two nineteenth-century Englishmen's could be.
The actual line of this quiz result was "After all, you like your blokes to be caring and gentle – perhaps because you know those brooding, temperamental types are more trouble than they’re worth! So stuff the Darcys and Heathcliffs"
You know, somehow it would never have crossed my mind to describe Darcy as temperamental or mercurial or whatever. Maybe it's because Elizabeth thinks of his "usual sedateness", or maybe because he smiles more than any other character but Elizabeth, or maybe because of how critical he is about Bingley's impulsiveness (and that's a far step from 'temperamental') -- under good regulation is probably the phrase that most describes his ideal of himself. *shudder* And I thought the comparisons of Darcy to Rochester were bad! The only similarity to Heathcliff, psychopathic creep that he is, is nationality and the fact that they were both played by Laurence Olivier.
Honestly, I'm starting to wonder what book these people are reading. It isn't mine, to be sure. I'm going to indulge in an exhaustive list of Darcyisms (from my version) just to vent:
"You know how I detest [dancing], unless I am particularly acquainted with my partner."
"Every savage can dance."
"[Dancing] is a compliment which I never pay to any place if I can avoid it." (I'm sensing a theme here.)
"A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment." (Probably his most-quoted line. I do not know why this is.)
"I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these." (All good heroes ought to be book-collectors.)
"To all this [the accomplished woman] must add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading." (A total Take That to, oh, every conduct manual in existence. Liberal!Darcy FTW! And Mama Jane, of course.)
"Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable." (Do you suppose bigamy counts?)
"Will you give me leave to defer your raptures till I write again?" (LOLZ. *hearts snide!Darcy*)
"What is there very laudable in a precipitance which must leave very necessary business undone . . .?" (... and dutiful!Darcy)
"You expect me to account for opinions which you choose to call mine, but which I have never acknowledged." (This one would fit strangely well into most Austenflame wars discussions.)
"To yield without conviction is no compliment to the understanding of either." (Remember Mrs Gardiner's announcement of his worst fault? Yeah, that.)
"Have you anything else to propose for my domestic felicity?" (heeeeeeee)
"The wisest and best of men, nay, the wisest and best of their actions, may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in life is a joke." (Not Elizabeth, thankfully. But her father, certainly.)
"I have faults enough, but not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch for.--It is, I believe, too little yielding." (Somehow that doesn't sound temperamental to me.)
"My good opinion once lost is lost forever." (Mrs G continues to win at perception.)
"Are you consulting your own feelings in the present case, or do you imagine that you are gratifying mine?" (*g*)
"What think you of books?" (And books strike again! *hearts*)
"I am not afraid of you." (Fearless!Darcy, heh)
"I am ill qualified to recommend myself to strangers."
"I certainly have not the talent which some people possess, of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I have often seen done." (These two lines inspire raging debates about once a fortnight. One side insists that it means he's a shy, gentle woobie, the other that he's an utterly selfish bastard. Personally, I think all he's trying to say is that he's an introvert.)
"We neither of us perform to strangers." (Huh?)
"Mr Collins appears very fortunate in his choice of a wife." (You don't say. But really, it's an interesting construction - I mean, the fortunate/choice thing is practically an oxymoron . . . unless you're talking about Mr Collins, because his 'choices' really are so random and nonsensical that good ones are pure luck. Making Austen, yet again, a genius. And Darcy a verbal badass. *admires*)
"In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." (Not my favourite, but it does have to be included . . . just by the way, that he repressed his feelings for Elizabeth does not mean he's repressed in general. There is a difference between repressed and reserved.)
"His misfortunes! yes, his misfortunes have been great indeed." (And Darcy finally loses his temper. Turns out that angry!Darcy is quite a bit like normal snob!Darcy, only colder and more sarcastic and, um, slightly scary. Which, given that he's completely blameless in the matter under discussion, only makes him more awesome. And Elizabeth, irritating as the Wickham thing is, just for not being intimidated. Go Darcy! Go Elizabeth! *fangirls* *ships*)
"This is the estimation in which you hold me! I thank you for explaining it so fully." (snide!Darcy, yay!)
"But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence." (another one that's set off epic wars. I'd just like to say that hating something doesn't mean you don't ever do it.)
"Can you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections?" (Really, Darcy, tell us what you really feel.)
"Forgive me for having taken up so much of your time, and accept my best wishes for your health and happiness." (...Wherein bitter sarcastic resentment meets selfless devotion in a single sentence. Darcy is so badass.)
"I can only say that I am sorry . . . and farther apology would be absurd." (apologetic!Darcy, only not.)
"I will venture to say that my investigations and decisions are not usually influenced by my hopes or fears." (You know, he gets frequently lambasted for this line, but it actually seems more or less accurate. Compared to everybody else, anyway.)
"There is but one part of my conduct in the whole affair, on which I do not reflect with satisfaction; it is that I condescended to adopt the measures of art . . . perhaps this concealment, this disguise, was beneath me." (yeah, maybe it was, what with your cunning repetition of that word. not exactly ebil deceptiveness, hearing from Caroline and opting not to pass the news on, but still. badly done, Darcy.)
"The vicious propensities -- the want of principle ... could not escape the observation of a young man [Darcy] of nearly the same age with himself [Wickham]." (Um, he's refusing to take pride in being completely right. Is he ill? . . . ah, he's just trying to excuse his father. That explains it.)
"I rather wished, than believed him to be sincere." (thwartedidealist!Darcy. *sniffle*)
"Georgiana, unable to support the idea of grieving and offending a brother whom she almost looked up to as a father, acknowledged the whole to met. You may imagine what I felt and how I acted." (Darcy-Georgiana is darling. Also, yes I can imagine what he felt. INCANDESCENT RAGE. so that note he wrote was probably very cutting. and also terrifying, because Darcy is good at quiet menace when he doesn't want to rip someone limb-from-limb.)
"I will only add, God bless you." (*sob* also, coming after the Wickham accusations and explanations? IMPRESSIVE.)
"Will you allow me, or do I ask too much, to introduce my sister to your acquaintance during your stay at Lambton?" (and we see humble!Darcy. or, more likely, tryingreallyhardtobeconsiderate!Darcy.)
"She a beauty!--I should as soon call her mother a wit." (To everybody who says Darcy isn't actually sharp, just staid and honourable: yeah, this.)
"For it is many months since I have considered her as one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance." (smackdown!)
"Good God! what is the matter?" (concerned!Darcy = genteel swearing. aw.)
"That the wish of giving happiness to you, might add force to the other inducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny. But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe, I thought only of you." (This is a tough one to deconstruct. Does he mean that his feelings for Elizabeth only added force to his more primary motivations? Or are they (his feelings for her) the main one? Does he believe he respects them, or believe he thought only of her?)
"I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit. ... I was spoilt by my parents, who though good themselves (my father particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable,) allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing, to care for none beyond my own family circle, to think meanly of all the rest of the world, to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared to my own." (I always wonder about his parents. 'Left' to follow, 'my father particularly'... huh. Fanfic material!)
"I felt nothing but surprise." (I bet. Sadly, this ruins all the theories about his wild despair/lust/hope/etc at that moment. And really, when you're really shocked, that it's exactly what it's like - your mind is just blank of anything except utter surprise.)
"As I could easily perceive that his attachment to her was unabated, I felt no doubt of their happiness together." (I always wonder if they -- the Darcys -- had a hand in bringing the Bingleys north. It would be ever so much more convenient to run their lives for them from a mere thirty miles' distance!)
"For the liveliness of your mind, I did." (DARCY = WIN)
"A man who had felt less, might [have talked more]." (See Emma.)
"I was determined at once to know everything."
"I am more likely to want time than courage, Elizabeth." (One of the reasons I love Jane Austen. Just using her name is more romantic -- from him -- than mad declarations of love, somehow.)
I think all Darcyists should have a manifesto, the first line of which should be:
Darcy is NOT Heathcliff. Or Rochester. Or any other of those amoral, self-dramatising Victorian monstrosities.
To expand on that thought, the first and most obvious reasons:
(1) Darcy is a Georgian gentleman.
(2) Heathcliff is a Victorian . . . something. Gentleman somehow doesn't seem quite the right word.
Which is to say, their social backgrounds are as utterly different as two nineteenth-century Englishmen's could be.
The actual line of this quiz result was "After all, you like your blokes to be caring and gentle – perhaps because you know those brooding, temperamental types are more trouble than they’re worth! So stuff the Darcys and Heathcliffs"
You know, somehow it would never have crossed my mind to describe Darcy as temperamental or mercurial or whatever. Maybe it's because Elizabeth thinks of his "usual sedateness", or maybe because he smiles more than any other character but Elizabeth, or maybe because of how critical he is about Bingley's impulsiveness (and that's a far step from 'temperamental') -- under good regulation is probably the phrase that most describes his ideal of himself. *shudder* And I thought the comparisons of Darcy to Rochester were bad! The only similarity to Heathcliff, psychopathic creep that he is, is nationality and the fact that they were both played by Laurence Olivier.
Honestly, I'm starting to wonder what book these people are reading. It isn't mine, to be sure. I'm going to indulge in an exhaustive list of Darcyisms (from my version) just to vent:
"You know how I detest [dancing], unless I am particularly acquainted with my partner."
"Every savage can dance."
"[Dancing] is a compliment which I never pay to any place if I can avoid it." (I'm sensing a theme here.)
"A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment." (Probably his most-quoted line. I do not know why this is.)
"I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these." (All good heroes ought to be book-collectors.)
"To all this [the accomplished woman] must add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading." (A total Take That to, oh, every conduct manual in existence. Liberal!Darcy FTW! And Mama Jane, of course.)
"Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable." (Do you suppose bigamy counts?)
"Will you give me leave to defer your raptures till I write again?" (LOLZ. *hearts snide!Darcy*)
"What is there very laudable in a precipitance which must leave very necessary business undone . . .?" (... and dutiful!Darcy)
"You expect me to account for opinions which you choose to call mine, but which I have never acknowledged." (This one would fit strangely well into most Austen
"To yield without conviction is no compliment to the understanding of either." (Remember Mrs Gardiner's announcement of his worst fault? Yeah, that.)
"Have you anything else to propose for my domestic felicity?" (heeeeeeee)
"The wisest and best of men, nay, the wisest and best of their actions, may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in life is a joke." (Not Elizabeth, thankfully. But her father, certainly.)
"I have faults enough, but not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch for.--It is, I believe, too little yielding." (Somehow that doesn't sound temperamental to me.)
"My good opinion once lost is lost forever." (Mrs G continues to win at perception.)
"Are you consulting your own feelings in the present case, or do you imagine that you are gratifying mine?" (*g*)
"What think you of books?" (And books strike again! *hearts*)
"I am not afraid of you." (Fearless!Darcy, heh)
"I am ill qualified to recommend myself to strangers."
"I certainly have not the talent which some people possess, of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I have often seen done." (These two lines inspire raging debates about once a fortnight. One side insists that it means he's a shy, gentle woobie, the other that he's an utterly selfish bastard. Personally, I think all he's trying to say is that he's an introvert.)
"We neither of us perform to strangers." (Huh?)
"Mr Collins appears very fortunate in his choice of a wife." (You don't say. But really, it's an interesting construction - I mean, the fortunate/choice thing is practically an oxymoron . . . unless you're talking about Mr Collins, because his 'choices' really are so random and nonsensical that good ones are pure luck. Making Austen, yet again, a genius. And Darcy a verbal badass. *admires*)
"In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." (Not my favourite, but it does have to be included . . . just by the way, that he repressed his feelings for Elizabeth does not mean he's repressed in general. There is a difference between repressed and reserved.)
"His misfortunes! yes, his misfortunes have been great indeed." (And Darcy finally loses his temper. Turns out that angry!Darcy is quite a bit like normal snob!Darcy, only colder and more sarcastic and, um, slightly scary. Which, given that he's completely blameless in the matter under discussion, only makes him more awesome. And Elizabeth, irritating as the Wickham thing is, just for not being intimidated. Go Darcy! Go Elizabeth! *fangirls* *ships*)
"This is the estimation in which you hold me! I thank you for explaining it so fully." (snide!Darcy, yay!)
"But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence." (another one that's set off epic wars. I'd just like to say that hating something doesn't mean you don't ever do it.)
"Can you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections?" (Really, Darcy, tell us what you really feel.)
"Forgive me for having taken up so much of your time, and accept my best wishes for your health and happiness." (...Wherein bitter sarcastic resentment meets selfless devotion in a single sentence. Darcy is so badass.)
"I can only say that I am sorry . . . and farther apology would be absurd." (apologetic!Darcy, only not.)
"I will venture to say that my investigations and decisions are not usually influenced by my hopes or fears." (You know, he gets frequently lambasted for this line, but it actually seems more or less accurate. Compared to everybody else, anyway.)
"There is but one part of my conduct in the whole affair, on which I do not reflect with satisfaction; it is that I condescended to adopt the measures of art . . . perhaps this concealment, this disguise, was beneath me." (yeah, maybe it was, what with your cunning repetition of that word. not exactly ebil deceptiveness, hearing from Caroline and opting not to pass the news on, but still. badly done, Darcy.)
"The vicious propensities -- the want of principle ... could not escape the observation of a young man [Darcy] of nearly the same age with himself [Wickham]." (Um, he's refusing to take pride in being completely right. Is he ill? . . . ah, he's just trying to excuse his father. That explains it.)
"I rather wished, than believed him to be sincere." (thwartedidealist!Darcy. *sniffle*)
"Georgiana, unable to support the idea of grieving and offending a brother whom she almost looked up to as a father, acknowledged the whole to met. You may imagine what I felt and how I acted." (Darcy-Georgiana is darling. Also, yes I can imagine what he felt. INCANDESCENT RAGE. so that note he wrote was probably very cutting. and also terrifying, because Darcy is good at quiet menace when he doesn't want to rip someone limb-from-limb.)
"I will only add, God bless you." (*sob* also, coming after the Wickham accusations and explanations? IMPRESSIVE.)
"Will you allow me, or do I ask too much, to introduce my sister to your acquaintance during your stay at Lambton?" (and we see humble!Darcy. or, more likely, tryingreallyhardtobeconsiderate!Darcy.)
"She a beauty!--I should as soon call her mother a wit." (To everybody who says Darcy isn't actually sharp, just staid and honourable: yeah, this.)
"For it is many months since I have considered her as one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance." (smackdown!)
"Good God! what is the matter?" (concerned!Darcy = genteel swearing. aw.)
"That the wish of giving happiness to you, might add force to the other inducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny. But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe, I thought only of you." (This is a tough one to deconstruct. Does he mean that his feelings for Elizabeth only added force to his more primary motivations? Or are they (his feelings for her) the main one? Does he believe he respects them, or believe he thought only of her?)
"I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit. ... I was spoilt by my parents, who though good themselves (my father particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable,) allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing, to care for none beyond my own family circle, to think meanly of all the rest of the world, to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared to my own." (I always wonder about his parents. 'Left' to follow, 'my father particularly'... huh. Fanfic material!)
"I felt nothing but surprise." (I bet. Sadly, this ruins all the theories about his wild despair/lust/hope/etc at that moment. And really, when you're really shocked, that it's exactly what it's like - your mind is just blank of anything except utter surprise.)
"As I could easily perceive that his attachment to her was unabated, I felt no doubt of their happiness together." (I always wonder if they -- the Darcys -- had a hand in bringing the Bingleys north. It would be ever so much more convenient to run their lives for them from a mere thirty miles' distance!)
"For the liveliness of your mind, I did." (DARCY = WIN)
"A man who had felt less, might [have talked more]." (See Emma.)
"I was determined at once to know everything."
"I am more likely to want time than courage, Elizabeth." (One of the reasons I love Jane Austen. Just using her name is more romantic -- from him -- than mad declarations of love, somehow.)