To think Elizabeth Bennett is shallow?

[WobblyArse]

Pride and Prejudice in reality:

He is a massive twat.

She changes her mind about him only when she sees his massive house.

The end.

And when she was upset about Jane's letter he immediately asked her if he could get her some wine. The perfect man.

Come on wobbly, confess you've done what a friend of mine does. Read first chapter, read last. Book read.

No, wobbly just has a different opinion from you.

Now, if you were talking about Jane Eyre, Reader, she married the massive twat.

I just reread this last week. And actually, she admits her own character flaws mid way through where she reflects on her prior behaviour and is ashamed of how her rude 'banter' towards Darcy was misjudged, as was her bitchy gossiping with Wickham.

I cannot see how a character who reflects on their own shallowness and resolves to improve their behaviour in future, can therefore be dismissed as shallow.

She's a complex character who evolves throughout the novel and grows as a person. Darcy also grows and changes, and they only become truly compatible when they've both improved as people.

The reality of women’s lives meant that you were very likely to die in or as a result of childbirth, possibly leaving a large number of children. Do you want them to be in a prosperous family or with a poor father who probably will have to farm them off so he can earn money? No welfare. No NHS. If your husband becomes ill, will there be enough money to keep buying food? Or get in a doctor for a sick child?

Marrying is your financial future until you die. You can’t marry for love unless there’s some money behind you or him. Not without huge risks. Mrs Bennett is also right to be concerned about what will happen when Me Bennett dies and they all lose their home.

Chapter 36

"She grew absolutely ashamed of herself. Of neither Darcy nor Wickham could she think without feeling she had been blind, partial, prejudiced, absurd. "How despicably I have acted!" she cried; "I, who have prided myself on my discernment! I, who have valued myself on my abilities! who have often disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified my vanity in useless or blameable mistrust! How humiliating is this discovery! Yet, how just a humiliation! Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind! But vanity, not love, has been my folly. Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance, I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were concerned. Till this moment I never knew myself."

got an urge to find my P&P book now, and sink back into Lizzies world again

I'm sure I could find one of my copies fairly easily

I think one of the reasons P&P works on so many levels is because it examines and highlights the plight of women of modest means and the different choices they are forced to make.
Charlotte who at 27, plain and seriously on the shelf grasps at the passing lifeboat that is Mr Collins. She goes in with her eyes open to a dull marriage with an irritating man, but in her time it would have been regarded as a wise and unexceptional decision.
Jane marries for love but almost loses Mr Bingley because she is too reserved and seen by his peers as being below him. It is only because of Darcy's change of heart that Bingley comes back to her. Sadly this was probably an unlikely outcome in real life.
Lydia - a silly girl leaps at the first man to flirt with her because above all she wants the status of being a married woman.
Mary has almost accepted spinsterhood whilst still in her teens. Without looks or fortune she reckons she has no chance of marriage.
Lizzy scoops the jackpot. A wealthy, handsome and powerful man who loves her passionately. That is all part of why she loves him. Would she have loved him as much if he had been poor? It's doubtful, but the point is moot. She cannot afford to love a poor man. She loves Darcy for himself but he is only the man he is because of his wealth and social standing.

Nah, Mr Rochester is sex! I don't even mind the variegated game playing and trying to trick her into damning her immortal soul through living in sin. I would.

No Rivers, no, he's a definite LTB. But not as bad as Heathcliffe. Those Brontes would have kept mumsnet going for years.

it's probably somewhat realistic for the time.

Unusually for the time though, I imagine, her father allowed her to make her own decision.

This might be of interest. www.jasna.org/publications/persuasions-online/vol36no1/bailey/

I'm not sure how many marriages were 'arranged' as my impression is that women did have agency in accepting or rejecting a proposal. I think the point is more that as offers of marriage weren't predictable - especially if you had no fortune and were no longer young - the freedom to refuse an offer might just mean the freedom to live a rather constrained life either with one's parents or as a governess/companion.

Would Darcy be the attractive desirable hero if he wasn't rich (and reasonably good looking but mainly rich)?

Or in fact the vast vast majority of hero's in romantic literature since the dawn of time.

Would Anastasia have reported Christian Grey to the cops and been all 'eww, creepy" if he wasn't rich (and good looking)?

Romantic fiction is fundamentally shallow. The hero's generally only qualify as such because they're rich and relatively attractive.

I suppose I shouldn't actually be including fifty shades under 'romantic' fiction but ..

I think his wealth means that he is able to propose to Elizabeth even though she herself can't bring anything to the marriage financially.

The other attraction is that Elizabeth - despite her love for her sister and father - is not really happy at home, especially after her friend Charlotte moves to Kent.

Pemberley offers the chance of moving to a new society, a new landscape.

If the house was advertised on one of the Mumsnet property threads, everyone would be saying 'Go for it!'

@Moralitym1n1

that's life isn't it though. An unattached millionaire will find an attractive companion relatively easily.

It's not just romantic fiction.

Let me list the most common words in romantic fiction titles since the genre really took off;

Tycoon
Prince
Sheik
Millionaire
Billionaire
Duke
...

Even when it isn't made so obvious in the title, you can bet your bottom dollar the hero is wealthy and/or powerful, privileged in the vast vast majority of cases.

Mark Darcy - barrister (,not exactly low income) with (at least) upper middke class family who have a country estate.

@Gth1234

Exactly - romantic fiction is the reflection of our resource and status oriented basic nature. And it's not one bit romantic, but we persist in portraying it as such.

JA could've made Darcy much more modestly endowed with wealth and position, while still being comfortably off, but he wouldn't be so near the top of the tree then, such a desirable alpha, such a prize.

Mr Rochester is one of the sexiest men in literature: true. This is even more apparent because his sexiness is chiefly cerebral, and because he's human and capable of human suffering. He's not a two-dimensional dummy like Mr Darcy. And he's a monster. Witness his treatment of women: the first Mrs Rochester whom he marries on a whim, designates mad and shuts up in the attic when their incompatibility becomes apparent, lives with a succession of mistresses - not bad in itself by modern standards - but tires of one within a month, pays one of them off and gets 'decently rid' of a third. Then there's his ward (cf. own child) Adele whom he scorns as a little Parisian flirt, Blanche Ingram, whose affections he trifles with to make Jane jealous, and Jane herself, who suffers the very torture and misery he so desires for her.

Rochester is a sadist, coming second only to the heinous Max de Winter, whose murder of his first wife seems to be excused by his author because she was 'loose'. And the scariest thing is that the chiefly female target readership of these novels was supposed to think these men attractive, and that being locked into a relationship with them should be viewed as an object of desire. Ugh. No thanks!

@Teddybear45
He’s very either different or the same as his aunt. When you consider that the way he treats Georgiana after the scandal is similar to the way his aunt treats her daughter
This is really interesting,
Can you expand on it? I thought Darcy rescued his sister and then treated her well because he adored her.
I also didn’t realise there was any more light shed on his aunt and her daughter’s relationship, other than the aunt talking of her as long term sickly, and controlling her , as he did everyone. I’ve not read it for years , so could easily have missed something.

Ps. I'm laughing at myself for taking so seriously what started as a lighthearted thread. But it does have serious undertones. This twaddle has been held up to women for generations as a desirable way to live. OK so they're good books, but the sentiments they contain bear scrutiny. But most of the ones mentioned here are over a century old.

What excuses Jilly Cooper?

I feel uncomfortable with Jane Austen described as romantic fiction. I suspect she would too and would have something acerbic to say about it.

YABU - She changed her mind about him before she saw Pemberley - when she reads his letter about Georgiana, at Huntsford. And she doesn't fall in love with him until later, when she sees how he is with his sister, and after he's so kind over the Lydia thing.