Darcy's letter (adaptations edition)
Mar. 3rd, 2016 12:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anghraineI feel that P&P adaptations in general really don’t get the pacing of Darcy’s letter.
They keep starting with the Wickham part, where Darcy is the most blameless (i.e., completely), and with the sympathy established, get into l’affaire Bingley, by which time “okay I did it, but not (mostly) for the reasons you thought” can feel more or less acceptable. Going from ‘seduction of a fifteen-year-old girl for her inheritance’ to ‘bad relationship advice based on some legitimate reasons’ also makes the latter seem pretty damn forgivable.
Basically, the emotional reaction to him is this:
A decided improvement and an okay ending point to kick off the second half of the book.
But it’s wrongggggggg.
The pacing of the letter serves a lot of purposes, but a major one is reflecting Darcy’s state of mind while writing it, which is then reflected in Elizabeth’s response. The beginning is proud and cold, seguing into the account of his real motivations and actions with regard to Bingley and Jane. His tone gradually gentles through that part, culminating in some foreshadow-y quasi-regret that muddies the waters a little. But then with his supposed Hindley Earnshaw shenanigans with Wickham, there’s a sharp swerve. Everything we thought was wrong, and he’s completely blameless, and it’s even worse because actually Wickham has horribly wronged him. And on top of that, he’s softened far enough by that point that he goes out of his way to excuse her (/us) from blame, which makes it feel SUPER AWFUL, culminating in a gesture of remarkable trust and, for an absolute high note, the end: I will only add, God bless you.
The 1995 can’t even work the line in. The 2005 has to do it visually (it is powerful in its own way, but still diminished and jumbled). But the emotional development through the letter and the emotional reaction to it is actually paced like so:
That’s a very different sort of emotional beat, that echoes what will happen through the rest of the story. Darcy is on the way up from this point on. And the closing line, with his full name attached, is important.
AGHHHHHH
They keep starting with the Wickham part, where Darcy is the most blameless (i.e., completely), and with the sympathy established, get into l’affaire Bingley, by which time “okay I did it, but not (mostly) for the reasons you thought” can feel more or less acceptable. Going from ‘seduction of a fifteen-year-old girl for her inheritance’ to ‘bad relationship advice based on some legitimate reasons’ also makes the latter seem pretty damn forgivable.
Basically, the emotional reaction to him is this:
A decided improvement and an okay ending point to kick off the second half of the book.
But it’s wrongggggggg.
The pacing of the letter serves a lot of purposes, but a major one is reflecting Darcy’s state of mind while writing it, which is then reflected in Elizabeth’s response. The beginning is proud and cold, seguing into the account of his real motivations and actions with regard to Bingley and Jane. His tone gradually gentles through that part, culminating in some foreshadow-y quasi-regret that muddies the waters a little. But then with his supposed Hindley Earnshaw shenanigans with Wickham, there’s a sharp swerve. Everything we thought was wrong, and he’s completely blameless, and it’s even worse because actually Wickham has horribly wronged him. And on top of that, he’s softened far enough by that point that he goes out of his way to excuse her (/us) from blame, which makes it feel SUPER AWFUL, culminating in a gesture of remarkable trust and, for an absolute high note, the end: I will only add, God bless you.
The 1995 can’t even work the line in. The 2005 has to do it visually (it is powerful in its own way, but still diminished and jumbled). But the emotional development through the letter and the emotional reaction to it is actually paced like so:
That’s a very different sort of emotional beat, that echoes what will happen through the rest of the story. Darcy is on the way up from this point on. And the closing line, with his full name attached, is important.
AGHHHHHH
