crosspost: on the shy Darcy theory

[anghraine]

The idea of Darcy as shy did not originate with the 2005 P&P.

Nor the 1995 P&P.

Nor the 1980 P&P.

It goes back to at least 1962, when Howard S. Babb published Jane Austen’s Novels: The Fabric of Dialogue. The section on P&P is quite explicitly an extended Darcy apologia, against critics who tended to dismiss his characterization in what Babb considered simplistically negative terms. Among other things, Babb argues that Darcy is shy and that this forms a major aspect of his characterization.

It’s been a long time, but iirc, he does not argue that Darcy is only shy—rather than proud, that is—but that his earlier scenes are framed in a way where either/both can be at play, depending on the reader’s perspective. Also iirc, Babb himself is influenced by similar ideas in Reuben Brower’s The Fields of Light (1951).

Whatever you or I or anyone thinks about the shy!Darcy theory, it’s a widespread, long-standing reading in both popular and professional circles. That doesn’t mean (at all) that it shouldn’t be criticized—only that people tend to blame/wring their hands over a very predictable subset of fans who subscribe to it, while giving a pass to the men wider group who share their views.

It’s not something solely perpetuated by Fans Doing It Wrong. It’s just an interpretation you don’t agree with.

---

(I get really intensely hating a specific adaptation and specific readings spawned by it (*cough*), but this one has been constantly debated since LONG before the 2005 provided an easy scapegoat—or the 1995 in its day. And wow are some people insistent that it's all about women making excuses for men they're infatuated with. Nonexistent men invented in 1796. Never mind the straight male critics who absolutely did and do subscribe to this; it's just women being uncritical and sentimental.)

Comments

[stultiloquentia]

I'm amused to learn how long this particular debate has been raging, and am so very on board with checking the endless parade of assumptions about women and their sentimental readings. But you know I've gotta ask -- what *is* your take?

I'm a "nope." I think he has moments of uncertainty and embarrassment just like anybody, and I'll even buy him as a shy child who grew out of it (buyable because that was *me*), but my preferred reading of mature Darcy is that he's exactly what he says he is: hard to impress, and hilariously dismal at performing affability, ease and interest he doesn't feel. He's taught himself to use his own evident superiority as reason not to try harder, and tends to view social interaction as transactional: if he neither enjoys nor needs a person, why bestir himself? Until Elizabeth points out that this is called Being a Bad Citizen.

When most people pass him off as shy, it comes too close to acquittal, which unbalances the story, not to mention misses what Austen was trying to say about the conservative masculine ideal and how to wrangle it into submission, as per Claudia Johnson.