Tumblr crosspost (12 June 2020)
Mar. 10th, 2022 06:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anghraineI see plenty of (correct) criticisms of Mr Bennet, but what I see less often is … well, to me, there’s something really depressing about Elizabeth’s relationship to him.
This is Elizabeth’s take on Mr Bennet right before the first proposal:
“Neither could anything be urged against my father, who, though with some peculiarities, has abilities which Mr Darcy himself need not disdain, and respectability which he will probably never reach.”
Later, however:
Elizabeth, however, had never been blind to the impropriety of her father’s behaviour as a husband. She had always seen it with pain; but respecting his abilities, and grateful for his affectionate treatment of herself, she endeavoured to forget what she could not overlook, and to banish from her thoughts that continual breach of conjugal obligation and decorum which, in exposing his wife to the contempt of her own children, was so highly reprehensible. But she had never felt so strongly as now the disadvantages which must attend the children of so unsuitable a marriage, nor ever been so fully aware of the evils arising from so ill-judged a direction of talents; talents which, rightly used, might at least have preserved the respectability of his daughters, even if incapable of enlarging the mind of his wife.
Still later:
“he [Wickham] might imagine, from my father’s behaviour, from his indolence and the little attention he has ever seemed to give to what was going forward in his family, that he would do as little, and think as little about it, as any father could do.”
Mr Bennet’s treatment of Mrs Bennet and the younger girls is certainly very bad, but also, Elizabeth has to actively work to not think of what a shitty husband and father he is out of gratitude that he treats her well and because she respects his intelligence (though, ultimately, his intelligence only creates a further indictment of him). That is an incredibly dubious situation! By the time he’s telling her that she needs to marry a man she’ll look up to as superior, it’s not even surprising.
In a way, it’s all the more “…” because Elizabeth herself, for all her criticisms, retains considerable respect and affection for him, and he faces no consequences beyond her eagerness to leave his house to marry someone much better than he is. I don’t think it’s #problematic—it’s just messy in a very realistic way. But pretty depressing, yes.
#the first quote is ... definitely all kinds of ironic #bc within a few chapters it is painfully apparent that darcy has always made for a vastly superior parental figure #and a more respectable pillar of the community #than mr bennet ever approaches #and part of the depressingness is that i'm not at all sure mr bennet will ever realize this or is capable of doing so! #i do think elizabeth does however #but she's too enmeshed in the relationship and her sense of propriety to act on her complicated feelings about mr bennet #so it just kind of resolves in this weird place where elizabeth is telling mr bennet not to criticize darcy lol #and he shows up at pemberley at random times
This is Elizabeth’s take on Mr Bennet right before the first proposal:
“Neither could anything be urged against my father, who, though with some peculiarities, has abilities which Mr Darcy himself need not disdain, and respectability which he will probably never reach.”
Later, however:
Elizabeth, however, had never been blind to the impropriety of her father’s behaviour as a husband. She had always seen it with pain; but respecting his abilities, and grateful for his affectionate treatment of herself, she endeavoured to forget what she could not overlook, and to banish from her thoughts that continual breach of conjugal obligation and decorum which, in exposing his wife to the contempt of her own children, was so highly reprehensible. But she had never felt so strongly as now the disadvantages which must attend the children of so unsuitable a marriage, nor ever been so fully aware of the evils arising from so ill-judged a direction of talents; talents which, rightly used, might at least have preserved the respectability of his daughters, even if incapable of enlarging the mind of his wife.
Still later:
“he [Wickham] might imagine, from my father’s behaviour, from his indolence and the little attention he has ever seemed to give to what was going forward in his family, that he would do as little, and think as little about it, as any father could do.”
Mr Bennet’s treatment of Mrs Bennet and the younger girls is certainly very bad, but also, Elizabeth has to actively work to not think of what a shitty husband and father he is out of gratitude that he treats her well and because she respects his intelligence (though, ultimately, his intelligence only creates a further indictment of him). That is an incredibly dubious situation! By the time he’s telling her that she needs to marry a man she’ll look up to as superior, it’s not even surprising.
In a way, it’s all the more “…” because Elizabeth herself, for all her criticisms, retains considerable respect and affection for him, and he faces no consequences beyond her eagerness to leave his house to marry someone much better than he is. I don’t think it’s #problematic—it’s just messy in a very realistic way. But pretty depressing, yes.
#the first quote is ... definitely all kinds of ironic #bc within a few chapters it is painfully apparent that darcy has always made for a vastly superior parental figure #and a more respectable pillar of the community #than mr bennet ever approaches #and part of the depressingness is that i'm not at all sure mr bennet will ever realize this or is capable of doing so! #i do think elizabeth does however #but she's too enmeshed in the relationship and her sense of propriety to act on her complicated feelings about mr bennet #so it just kind of resolves in this weird place where elizabeth is telling mr bennet not to criticize darcy lol #and he shows up at pemberley at random times