Pride and Prejudice: Darcy's Proposal and Elizabeth's Rejection

Um, so yeah, I, I had read this so long ago that I had forgotten the drama of Mr. Darcy's proposal and then— oh yeah, rejection of it, um, and then the letter and so forth. So tell me what you thought about all of that.

Okay, so that was awesome. But before that, I forgot where we left off last time we spoke, but before that we know that Elizabeth declined Mr. Collins's, uh, I'm forgetting the word, invitation to proposal. Yes, proposal. Um, and then he goes right to Charlotte and they get married, and everyone's kind of hurt for a little while, but after a while it seems like it's okay. Um, and then at first I thought, um, Elizabeth went to Rosings, I think it is, or somewhere like that for like to see the wedding, but I guess it's just a visit.

Yeah, it's after they— yeah, after they married, she went to visit. They got married very quickly, remarkably.

Very quickly.

Yeah, then she went and visited her old friend Charlotte, basically.

Yes, so she goes to visit Charlotte. She still doesn't like Mr. Darcy, and she still kind of likes Mr. Wickham but says she won't marry Mr. Wickham because she's not in love, she just likes him. While all that is happening, Mr. Bingley, who Jane would like to marry, moves away to London very abruptly because— with the news that he's gonna marry Mr. Darcy's little sister, I think, Georgiana. There's a bunch of drama that is uncovered in the letter, but I will explain that later. And yeah, and Elizabeth and Jane are very mad, and Elizabeth thinks it's Darcy's fault because Mr. Darcy is a very bad human being in her eyes, and she thinks that, oh, she— everything he does is so abominable or whatever. Um, so that makes her hate him even more, but he doesn't know it. Um, we find out after him pursuing her at the other lady's house where he's staying that he did those things, but he thought he did it for a good reason. And then he ends up proposing his love, and she's like, "No one wants a woman." He gives her a letter explaining everything. The letter has two parts. The first one is explaining his role in Jane and Bingham's moving. So first he says that he did do it, but he thought it was with good reason. Um, he noticed that Mr. Bingley was like so-so in love with Jane or whatever, but he didn't think that Jane returned the feelings, so he thought it was like a waste of time for Mr. Bingley. Um, so he decided to step in and change it, but he didn't know that, um, Jane was in love with Bingley too, so he did admit that it— that was a mistake. I think. Um, but the second part of the letter is explaining his drama with Mr. Wickham and his younger sister, and explaining— because at this point Elizabeth thinks that Mr. Darcy is like bad and has done all these bad things to Mr. Wickham and his family or whatever. Um, but we, we get the information that yes, Mr. Wickham was Mr. Darcy's favorite, and he inherited like the Oh, he was to inherit like either his— I forget if it's a job or like an estate, um, but instead he asks for like the cash equivalent and goes and gambles it off, um, which is bad. Elizabeth doesn't think that he would do that, and Mr. Darcy gets mad because he comes back and asks for help and more money to like borrow or whatever, um, and Darcy says no because he's like, you just spent like my fortune, I'm not going to give you more money. And so to get back at Darcy, Wickham I forget if he like pretends to fall in love or like is actually in love, but I think it's pretense. He tries to elope with Mr. Darcy's younger sister, who's only 15, by the way. Um, uh, and then at the time— but then like the night before, Mr. Darcy finds out, and the little sister like breaks down and explains everything, and he's even more mad at Wickham, which is why they aren't friends anymore. Yeah.

Um, so thank you. Going back, were you surprised by Darcy's proposal of marriage to Elizabeth, or were you predicting that? Did you see that coming?

I knew it was going to happen, but I didn't think it was going to be there.

And you knew it was going to happen because you knew kind of that they would get married at the end, or?

Yeah, I have that spidey sense.

Got it. Did you see when, you know, there are all those situations where Darcy is visiting Elizabeth and it's awkward and they're not talking. Or did you see that as probably getting close to a proposal, or you thought it would take a lot longer?

I thought it would take longer because of the awkward silences. I thought that they would start talking and liking each other a little bit more before he proposed or whatever. But I guess proposals were a little different back then.

Yeah. Although I think even Elizabeth would say it was unusual.

Yeah, that's true.

And were you surprised at Elizabeth's response, or given her perspective, her response totally made sense?

Given her perspective, I think, yeah, it made sense. Um, but then I didn't read after she read the note, so— but I think after she reads the note, she's probably going to have another talk with Darcy, and we'll see where it goes. I'm not sure.

So you've not read Darcy's letter yet?

Oh no, I have read Darcy's letter. Um, all of that information was from his letter, but I didn't read past it.

Got it. So yeah, tell me what you think about Darcy's letter.

Um, I thought it was pretty honest and straightforward. I think he's telling the truth. Um, he apologizes a bunch of times, so he's sincere, I think. Um, but yeah, I thought it gave all the necessary information that Elizabeth needs to like calm down a little bit, you know.

Do you think Elizabeth will change her mind rapidly or slowly or—

Slowly. Not rapidly.

And why slowly?

Even though she knows that most of the things she thought about, like Wickham and, uh, Bingley or whatever, are wrong, she's still gonna— since she's like thought those things for such a long time, I think, um, she's gonna take a little while to get used to those ideas.

Do you think Elizabeth has been fair to Darcy up to this point, or not fair?

I'd say pretty fair for a girl with a grudge. Um, because, um, maybe like, oh, she could have been nicer because he was being nice, but also she has like that initial perspective of him and that's not good. And she finds out all this information that she thinks is true about him, like lying to her friends or like trying to break up her sister's marriage or relationship or whatever, and she's like, no, this guy's bad. Um, so you can't really blame her. So I mean, it might not all be true, but you can't blame her.

So when you say for a girl with a grudge, it sounds as if you're sort of saying that maybe her grudge is legitimate, and given her grudge, then her perception of Darcy is fair. Is that kind of what you're saying?

Well, in some ways her grudge is legitimate, but also some of the information that she was given was wrong about Darcy. So there's like some truth and some— or some yes, some no to that.

You think the original insult at the dance is sort of legitimate grounds for an ongoing grudge?

For me, yes, but I don't know precisely how much time has passed, and it seems like Darcy has kind of made up for it, so I probably would have forgiven him by now, but she hasn't, so not yet.

And how— what has he done to justify being forgiven for that original insult?

Um, well, I'm not sure if it justifies being forgiven in like a direct sense, but he hasn't been off um, too standoffish or like rude since then. He's tried to talk to her. He hasn't exactly apologized for what he's done, which is why she probably still holds a grudge. I would hold it, but he's better.

He has been interested. I would say the one thing is, you're right, he hasn't apologized. Um, do you think he will apologize or never?

Only if it comes up, or only if it's brought up by Elizabeth, because I don't think he remembers or knows, or maybe he remembers, he just doesn't want to admit it.

Yeah, I'm thinking, um, you know, of course it's hard to imagine oneself in a different place 200 years ago, but I guess I would, I would think that if, you know, I had said that to somebody, I would remember it. It's so insulting.

That's true, but to be fair, he didn't say it to her directly. She just overheard him talking to someone else. That's true. So it's not like—

That's true. Although if he likes her, he should be cringing. Oh my gosh, what if she heard that? That's true.

Yeah.

Yeah. But he has been attentive. So yes, he has not apologized. And you're right, maybe he doesn't know that she overheard that, but he has been attentive. And so do you think based on his attention, she should be taking him more seriously?

Taking him seriously is maybe not the right phrase, because yes, he's been like more talkative and like nice and trying to be friends with her. Maybe she doesn't want to take him seriously because of the fact that he offended her at the first point, and none of this is enough to make up for it. But maybe she should be trying to see him in another light. But from her perspective, she could be going, oh, he's definitely just like acting nice so he can get something. Because of her perspective on him. So I guess it's just all, um, relative, or it depends.

Got it. And, and what about in his proposal when— I'm gonna kind of mangle it, but, uh, he kind of says something like, you should be grateful I'm such a wealthy person who's willing to propose marriage to you.

That's right, I forgot. Uh, that seems a little rich and pompous and spoiled. And if someone said that to me, I would be like, no, no. Like, whatever they had done, if someone said that to me, I would like be like, get away from me.

So do you think you're not the right person for me? Exactly. So do you think that Elizabeth should forgive that? Or if so, how could he get around that? Or should she just accept that? I mean, given that it does seem like— so this is like the second insult. The dance thing was a huge insult. But you're right, maybe you know, he didn't think she heard that. This is kind of a big insult to her face. So how is he going to get around this? Or how, or how do you think this, this is going to play out?

I don't know. I feel like Elizabeth is going to take, like, great offense to that. Um, but I don't know, after the letter, she'll probably not forget about it, but, like, focus on other things.

Mhm.

Um, But, but, but also that was, that, that was pretty stupid of him to say.

Um, I don't know. Yeah. Uh, it, it was a very jerky thing for him to say. Do you, do you feel as if it's realistic? Do you feel like the dynamic between Darcy and Elizabeth is realistic or is it kind of exaggerated and unreal?

I think it's pretty realistic, especially if you're talking about like now. I feel like there are men who'd say that. Mm-hmm. I just haven't met any of them yet.

Um, yeah, and earlier I described this as sort of like a rom-com. Given how— what a jerk Darcy has been, does it still kind of qualify as a rom-com, or is this kind of too jerky behavior to be legitimate rom-com territory?

Okay, so again, I haven't watched too many rom-coms, but— and then they're all different, but I think, I think it could qualify just because of all the dynamics between all the characters.

Got it.

Um, and their love relationships and things like that.

Got it. I mean, to be fair, part of what makes something into a drama in general, I think long time ago we talked about, um, the Freytag triangle and kind of, uh, that's right.

I remember that.

And, and so part of drama is tension and, you know, conflict. And so, you know, in, uh, you know, like a hero's journey, part of the tension is you have to fight the dragon and, you know, you almost lose to the dragon and all of that, or you have the long walk through the desert before you get to the dragon. So, uh, the one way to think of kind of the Freytag's Pyramid in a romantic we'll forget rom-com for the time being, but for romantic is there has to be a tension before they can get together. Because if they just saw each other at the first dance, fell in love, and married, it's like 2 pages. Okay, where's the drama? So does that make sense that this tension, including what seems like, I would say, almost irreconcilable conflict?

Yeah, just because of what he said.

So now, right, Jane Austen has to find a way given what a jerk Darcy's been for somehow. And I guess there's— well, I can think of two general possibilities. And by the way, it's been so long since I've read this, I don't remember how this plays out myself. I'm honestly in the dark myself. But I could imagine on the one hand, um, Darcy winning her heart just by being so unambiguously devoted to her. On the other hand, I could imagine Elizabeth just forgiving him for whatever reason, you know, is unfair and so forth, or somehow it's neither a matter of kind of him. So it's a matter of does he kind of compensate or does she kind of compensate or a third alternative? What's your thought?

Um, given Elizabeth's stubbornness, I feel like it's more likely to be Darcy compensating. Um, but some— on the other hand, something could happen and Elizabeth could be like, oh my gosh, you're totally wrong about him. But you know, that's probably not going to happen. I don't know.

Got it. And at this point, would you say part of— I mean, back when we were reading Homer's Odysseus, you were kind of cheering on his slaughter of the suitors.

Oh yeah.

Are you cheering on Darcy and Elizabeth getting together in your heart, or not really?

Yes, because I know that's going to be the final outcome. Um, so I'd like it to happen.

Uh-huh. Got it. Oh, well, cool. Um, Yeah, I thought, you know, do you want to— how many chapters you want to read for next time? Is it— you want to read 10 or all the way to the end? What feels right for you?

Uh, 10 to 15. I think I'm either on 40 or 43 or something like that.

So yeah, I think you said there's 60 totals. Maybe let's do 10 and then we'll do 10 the following time. So 2 more chunks of 10. How's that sound?

All right, sounds good.

Okay, which case, good time with your tournament this afternoon, and I can't wait to see how all this unfolds.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye.