Tumblr crosspost (3 April 2020)
Jan. 10th, 2022 12:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anghraineThere’s a fairly famous article about Whig allusions in Austen, and specifically in P&P (where the plausible deniability gets very shaky). The article is interesting and all, but then it’s like … this isn’t about specific politics as such, but about (implicitly Tory) rural middling gentry making (all but explicitly Whig) great landowners take them seriously, as mediated through Elizabeth and Darcy’s relationship. And that’s how it squares with Austen’s presumed Tory politics.
aghhh
That would be one thing, if it didn’t ignore a significant portion of what happens in the book. I mean, Darcy says he comes to respect Elizabeth’s family in general, but then Austen goes out of her way to show how intensely uncomfortable he still is at Longbourn and the world around it, a discomfort that Elizabeth comes to share—and within the year, so do Bingley and Jane! You could make a pretty easy argument that Darcy never does substantially change his mind about most of the Bennets’ characters, just about how he should behave towards them.
The people he really changes his mind about are the Gardiners. He dismisses them out of hand for the entire first half of the book, then immediately takes to them when they actually meet. During the Lydia fiasco, Darcy waits for Mr Bennet to go away so he can just deal with Mr Gardiner instead; he is explicitly more comfortable around them in London than he is around the higher-class Bennets at Longbourn; and literally the last line of the book is about how welcome the Gardiners are at Pemberley and how Darcy as well as Elizabeth loves them.
If we’re going to talk about the people who are initially scorned but ultimately taken seriously and valued … that’s much more the Gardiners. And the Gardiners are Londoners in trade who get that initial scorn because they’re Londoners in trade. If you’re going to look at the resolution in terms of class, then a happily ever after that concludes with a tradesman’s family being affectionately welcomed at a place like Pemberley has a very different political undercurrent.
#an interesting political undercurrent—but REALLY different than the usual #a lot of people are pretty insistent on seeing the relationship between the bennet-gardiners and darcy-fitzwilliams as intra-gentry #but in terms of their experience of the world + what gets emphasized i would argue that it's much more mercantile-aristocracy #and if you're going with stereotypes of class politics that's not 'and everyone took the tories seriously HAPPILY EVER AFTER' #like ... i wouldn't say the significance of the gardiners is overlooked but even when it's framed politically it's just #very different than i see it #a lot like the treatment of mrs reynolds actually #honestly i think darcy's relationship with the gardiners is a) where he actually /does/ undergo substantial change #(by comparison to the ~magical transformation~ stuff that's frequently undercut imo) #(but which looms in the popular consciousness) #and b) one of the most charming developments in the whole book #darcy and mr gardiner just wander off to check out a plant at pemberley and it's the cutest thing
aghhh
That would be one thing, if it didn’t ignore a significant portion of what happens in the book. I mean, Darcy says he comes to respect Elizabeth’s family in general, but then Austen goes out of her way to show how intensely uncomfortable he still is at Longbourn and the world around it, a discomfort that Elizabeth comes to share—and within the year, so do Bingley and Jane! You could make a pretty easy argument that Darcy never does substantially change his mind about most of the Bennets’ characters, just about how he should behave towards them.
The people he really changes his mind about are the Gardiners. He dismisses them out of hand for the entire first half of the book, then immediately takes to them when they actually meet. During the Lydia fiasco, Darcy waits for Mr Bennet to go away so he can just deal with Mr Gardiner instead; he is explicitly more comfortable around them in London than he is around the higher-class Bennets at Longbourn; and literally the last line of the book is about how welcome the Gardiners are at Pemberley and how Darcy as well as Elizabeth loves them.
If we’re going to talk about the people who are initially scorned but ultimately taken seriously and valued … that’s much more the Gardiners. And the Gardiners are Londoners in trade who get that initial scorn because they’re Londoners in trade. If you’re going to look at the resolution in terms of class, then a happily ever after that concludes with a tradesman’s family being affectionately welcomed at a place like Pemberley has a very different political undercurrent.
#an interesting political undercurrent—but REALLY different than the usual #a lot of people are pretty insistent on seeing the relationship between the bennet-gardiners and darcy-fitzwilliams as intra-gentry #but in terms of their experience of the world + what gets emphasized i would argue that it's much more mercantile-aristocracy #and if you're going with stereotypes of class politics that's not 'and everyone took the tories seriously HAPPILY EVER AFTER' #like ... i wouldn't say the significance of the gardiners is overlooked but even when it's framed politically it's just #very different than i see it #a lot like the treatment of mrs reynolds actually #honestly i think darcy's relationship with the gardiners is a) where he actually /does/ undergo substantial change #(by comparison to the ~magical transformation~ stuff that's frequently undercut imo) #(but which looms in the popular consciousness) #and b) one of the most charming developments in the whole book #darcy and mr gardiner just wander off to check out a plant at pemberley and it's the cutest thing