Tumblr crosspost (6 June 2020)
Feb. 24th, 2022 04:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anghraineAn anon said:
So I've been having a P&P glut recently. I've loved your E/D commentary, It's especially nice to see their similarities being discussed rather than romanticising pairings with opposing characteristics (which I often find sits somewhere between being naïve & deeply unhealthy). Also when re-reading about E's visit to Pemberley it struck me that she has: 1) a inner snobby streak for good taste - like a certain somebody else & 2) a serious competence kink she didn't know she had.
I replied:
I feel you on the P&P glut, haha. And thank you!
I took an Austen seminar during my MA where my prof/advisor was super emphatic about Darcy and Elizabeth’s similarities, and while I already thought about them that way, it definitely reinforced my sense of an underlying affinity (that I think is part of the reason they overreact to each other).
That’s part of the reason that it’s so important, I feel, to avoid the natural Darcy=pride, Elizabeth=prejudice, when pride is so persistently present in both of their characters and in their relationship to each other (at all stages! one of my favourite moments is when Elizabeth’s response to discovering the extent of Darcy’s heroism is pride). I wrote a paper on it for that same class, actually—a lot of criticism traditionally aligns Elizabeth with one end of some binary and Darcy with another, and while the assignments often make no sense anyway, the whole underlying concept of a basic binary opposition is super problematic with them. They have many differences, of course, but that doesn’t make them polar opposites.
Anyway, those are good points! I think it’s interesting that they’re so overlooked in the preoccupation with whether Elizabeth marries Darcy for his money or not, a question which makes zero sense in the context of what actually impresses her at Pemberley. Those are a) his taste and b) his effective use of power.
She cares very much more about how elegant and tasteful Pemberley is than how much money it brings in (with the revelation of her and Darcy’s shared aesthetic tastes suggesting a deeper rapport). And if people are going to see Elizabeth’s interest in Darcy as self-interested rather than romantic, then it would make more sense to see Elizabeth as attracted to his power and use of it rather than, again, simple wealth. Of course, that leaves out the impact of how scrupulous his use of power is, and that she explicitly says she loves him.
So I've been having a P&P glut recently. I've loved your E/D commentary, It's especially nice to see their similarities being discussed rather than romanticising pairings with opposing characteristics (which I often find sits somewhere between being naïve & deeply unhealthy). Also when re-reading about E's visit to Pemberley it struck me that she has: 1) a inner snobby streak for good taste - like a certain somebody else & 2) a serious competence kink she didn't know she had.
I replied:
I feel you on the P&P glut, haha. And thank you!
I took an Austen seminar during my MA where my prof/advisor was super emphatic about Darcy and Elizabeth’s similarities, and while I already thought about them that way, it definitely reinforced my sense of an underlying affinity (that I think is part of the reason they overreact to each other).
That’s part of the reason that it’s so important, I feel, to avoid the natural Darcy=pride, Elizabeth=prejudice, when pride is so persistently present in both of their characters and in their relationship to each other (at all stages! one of my favourite moments is when Elizabeth’s response to discovering the extent of Darcy’s heroism is pride). I wrote a paper on it for that same class, actually—a lot of criticism traditionally aligns Elizabeth with one end of some binary and Darcy with another, and while the assignments often make no sense anyway, the whole underlying concept of a basic binary opposition is super problematic with them. They have many differences, of course, but that doesn’t make them polar opposites.
Anyway, those are good points! I think it’s interesting that they’re so overlooked in the preoccupation with whether Elizabeth marries Darcy for his money or not, a question which makes zero sense in the context of what actually impresses her at Pemberley. Those are a) his taste and b) his effective use of power.
She cares very much more about how elegant and tasteful Pemberley is than how much money it brings in (with the revelation of her and Darcy’s shared aesthetic tastes suggesting a deeper rapport). And if people are going to see Elizabeth’s interest in Darcy as self-interested rather than romantic, then it would make more sense to see Elizabeth as attracted to his power and use of it rather than, again, simple wealth. Of course, that leaves out the impact of how scrupulous his use of power is, and that she explicitly says she loves him.