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.

Imagine calling Pride and Prejudice 'romantic fiction' and comparing it the 50 Shades of Grey.

What very strange times we're living through.

I can only assume the op is joking. or insane

There are no excuses for Jilly Cooper, particularly during the threesome when the lady is crying inside “what was he doing? He was supposed to be her friend”.... or similar. Can’t remember which book it was.

RhubarbIsEvil - it was Riders. And I agree it was a sickening scene which shocked me even as a teenager.

I sometimes wonder whether people who talk about Pride and Prejudice have read the book.

Novels include large amounts of interior monologue - we can be show character's thoughts. The whole point about Elizabeth is that she is a moral being. Sometimes she is mistaken, but she keeps trying to work out who people really are. In this she's contrasted with her mother and with Lydia. (Also with Jane who is too inclined to think the best of everyone and with Mary who is cerebral but not sensible.)

I suspect if P&P had been written in Charlotte Lucas' voice people would have thought 'oh isn't Charlotte Lucas a caustic and conniving so and so' because she was so shrewd and pragmatic.

I am at the pp who claimed Jane could be seen as hysterical like her mother. Everyone, including Darcy, remarks on how cool and composed she is. Charlotte Lucas told her she would lose Bingley if she didn't demonstrate some affection, and indeed Bingley only leaves Hertfordshire because Darcy is so easily able to persuade him she has no.strong feelings.

Charlotte did well by herself. Bear in mind she'll be lady of Longbourne when Mr Bennett dies, so the only interaction she would have with Mr Collins is the odd family dinner and conjugal obligation (vom)

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

Not in the book but I have seen one adaptation that managed to give that exact impression.

Re. Charlotte: to me she's the real 'protagonist'. Jane's story and Lizzy's - two sisters of modest means and the product of extremely flawed parenting, both marrying extremely rich men, not least both marrying for love - is so implausible as to be almost ridiculous. (Likewise Jane Eyre; the likelihood of all those familial relations somehow finding each other and sharing their inherited fortune requires a willing suspension of disbelief).

Lydia's situation borders on farce also. By comparison Charlotte's is very pedestrian, not particularly interesting, but how much more typical of her time. Mrs Bennet's of a similar ilk.

To me Charlotte is the big unsung tragic heroine of the novel. But I'm also a big fan of Mary Bennet!

I always thought Charlotte did well for herself -- she was perfectly capable of managing Mr Collins and the prospects looked even better for her children inheriting the entailed house.

I don't think Mrs Bennet and Mary would have enjoyed each other's company at home once Kitty had flown the nest so I do hope that Mary Bennet found herself a husband. An older gentleman, of the cloth, someone equally as serious and pompous and who would be charmed by her singing voice and pianoforte playing!

She started to change her mind as early as reading his letter. She knew he wasn’t the one who wronged Wickham and then months went by she met him on his home turf and saw the real man.

How kind he was to his staff, his easy nature being around his sister and his home comforts. She saw the man he was. Like she said to her father “he has no improper pride. He is perfectly amiable, he is truly the best man I have ever known”

She fell in love with him, when she saw who he was. A reserved but good man.

He gave a man who tried to defile his sister 10.0000 pounds to marry her sister to save her from ruin. That’s what she fell in love with. Not sure what book you were reading lol

I can't imagine how stressful it must have been to have been in Charlotte's shoes. Approaching 30, no looks or wealth to speak of, just a long and dreary spinsterhood in your parent's home awaits. And when they died a slip into genteel poverty most likely. It must have been such a relief for her to marry Mr Collins. Could have been a lot worse. He's not violent or unkind, she secures her future and she has her own sitting room from which she manages to avoid him for most of the day. Well played, Charlotte.

The unlikeliness of the fortuitous love matches for Jane and Lizzie is in itself a satire on the plight of women at the time, whose only chance at social mobility was marriage. The fairytale ending is itself a metaphor - Austen is an early feminist. She is shining a light on women's lack of agency in their own lives. She is all too aware that it's an unrealistic dream for most women of her era - that's the whole point, and is why she's a great, intensely studied author, not just a run-of-the-mill romantic novelist.

MNners will punish me for this but nothing excuses Jilly Cooper. Nor whoever wrote the 50 shades thing.

I suspect Charlotte was Gay. She says “I’m not romantic, I never was” I suspect she married Mr Colin’s because she knew he was stupid enough to leave to her to business.

@PinkieTuscadero the end of the book says that Mary is forced into society a bit more to accompany her mother once her sisters are gone, and that it's good for her. No mention of her marrying.

Oh I know there's no mention of a husband for Mary but I like to think that somewhere down the line she's living her best life in a parish far from her mother's company! Plinking and plonking away on her piano and caterwauling to her heart's content while an adoring husband listens contentedly

Oh heck you've done it now - I'm going to have to watch the whole thing AGAIN

Worth it just for that sentence which still burns off the page: "the manner of your declaration merely spared me any concern I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentleman-like manner"

Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth. Rocked that box 6 parter

She is shining a light on women's lack of agency in their own lives. She is all too aware that it's an unrealistic dream for most women of her era

I know that but still enjoy the fairytale happy ending bit.

I do think she looks down on Charlotte in the book for doing what she decided not to do in her life and accept the first man who offered - well she did then slept on it and rethought it.

She made a self deprecating joke about how seeing Pemberley started to change her mind. But it wasn’t that. Although i’m sure it didn’t do any harm.

I think in the times the book is set being 'shallow' was just a sensible move. Life could be terrible with certain men if a woman wasn't practical about things (as Lydia discovers).

I find them all irksome due to their condescending and judgemental nature. Every single person. There's fair warning mind - clue's in the name!!

It wasn't just the money for Darcy, he was promoting a marriage that would join the man he despised most in the world to the family of the woman he loved. Imagine his distaste at having to call Wickham brother. He put his own feelings aside to help a girl he had no reason to think well of, for her sister's sake. A true gentleman.