This is the second in a series of posts on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
PLOT/THEME/RHETORIC
Plot: Volume 1 ended with Elizabeth declining a proposal and Jane’s hopes for one dissolving. Volume 2 has at its center Elizabeth declining another proposal, this one from Mr. Darcy, while discovering why Jane’s proposal never happened.
Theme: While Volume 1, focused on pride (a person’s incorrect self-interpretation), Volume 2 focused on prejudice (the incorrect interpretation of others). Specifically, Elizabeth realizes she judge Wickham as amiable because he was handsome and judged Darcy as insufferable because of his initial reaction to her.
Rhetoric: The narrative still revolves around dialogue and commentary from the narrator, but this volume introduces a convention of older novels: the letter. At the center of this volume is Darcy’s letter to Elizabeth. We’re told that Elizabeth reads every sentence multiple times, and in the sentence’s words, she confronts a vision of the letter’s writer she had never seen before. We do too.
INTERPRETATION: The Covenant
Transcendence: What you answer here says a lot about what you think is most important in the story. The symbol of transcendence in this story is land. Do you own it? How much of it do you own? This means that authority is either natural (it’s less about your house than your grounds) or cultural (because land is wrapped up with money and socio-economic status). Elizabeth is about to enter Darcy’s Pemberley estate when Volume 2 ends. What she finds there will tell us a lot.
Hierarchy: Characters either capitulate to social hierarchy (e.g. Mr. Collins) or question them (e.g. Elizabeth). Another way of saying this is that some characters are proud of their social class and some are prejudiced against those who exhibit such pride, no matter what their rank. Volume 2 gives us people as symbols of this dilemma. Catherine de Bourgh is the pompous, prideful top-of-the-food chain aristocrat that Mr. Darcy could only hope to be. The truth is that she’s vain as well prideful, concerned that others see her exalted position as she is certain of her own exaltedness. Then there’s Mr. Wickham, the man who plays prejudiced when he’s with Elizabeth but whose disregard for social decorum is actually disgraceful. Elizabeth assesses whether someone has earned their status. She doesn’t crave that status for herself. Wickham is a go-getter and social-climber who doesn’t care who he has to take in order to get some money.
Ethics: Here’s the rub. Do your judgements match your actions? Mr. Bennet is an excellent case in point: an intelligent man who married unwisely. He thus gets criticized for his poor parenting job. He is responsible for not curbing his wife’s and daughters’ worse impulses, and as a result, he’s responsible for Jane’s failure to win Bingley. This rule applies to Catherine de Bourgh too. Her judgments belie her own attitude. Look at her daughter: rich with no health! Darcy on the other hand is vital.
Sanctions: The price for a mismatch between judgments and actions is steep. We’ll see this played out in the book’s third volume.
Succession: Elizabeth and Darcy are unique in that we see their intergenerational relationships. Darcy has lost his exemplary father but now acts as one in his stead to his younger sister. Elizabeth is the favorite of her father, and that’s her temptation: to be the witty one whose judgments fail to translate into the appropriate actions. We already see a split between the two. She admits her father hasn’t done his job. While she repents of her incorrect interpretations, her father refuses to accept correction.
One more volume. Next week, I’ll finish up the book and survey Peter Leithart’s assessment of Austen’s work in his book Miniatures and Morals.
Experiments in Criticism 