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.

I'm not above a happy ending! it is intensely satisfying.

Something caught my eye - I noticed this detail when rereading that I don't recall seeing before, about Mr Collins' letter to Mr Bennet about Lizzie and Darcy.

"The rest of his letter is only about his dear Charlotte's situation, and his expectation of a young olive-branch."

To me this implies Charlotte is pregnant. That poor woman - talk about doing your duty - can you imagine?!

I'm sure Charlotte would have been relieved to have a baby instead of only Mr. Collins for company. Making a baby with him though, shudder.

Yep, I definitely noticed that Charlotte was knocked up. That poor, long-suffering woman.

Re PP's point on Mary:

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

I thoroughly agree. Mary absolutely rocks! She suffers from an acute case of middle-child syndrome and remains outside the Jane/Lizzy (sensible) clique and the Kitty/Lydia (shallow and stupid) one, going her own way and caring for nobody. She doesn't run with the herd, marches to the beat of her own drum, practices her music, 'cares nothing for such baubles' and despises the enforced jollity/coquetry of those everlasting balls (I don't blame her).

If Mary had been around today would have probably been Helena Bonham Carter. Either that or an EMO, with a clothing style and haircut reminiscent of Emily Strange, who locks herself in her room listening to My Chemical Romance instead of plinking, plonking and caterwauling downstairs.

I LOVE Mary Bennet!

@JaneJeffer I always picture David Bamber from the BBC production when I think of Mr Collins, but in the book he's only 25!!

There was an entertaining thread on the subject of the young olive branch a couple of years ago.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2618271-To-have-just-realised-that-Mr-Collins-got-Mrs-Collins-in-the-family-way

Tom Hollander played a more sympathetic and more handsome (if less entertaining) Mr Collins than David Bamer.

He was played by Malcolm Rennie in the first BBC series and looked much older as well. But I remember they added a weird scene where he fell into a pond. I think it was supposed to be funny

Well all I can say on the subject is that I would happily have traded places with Jennifer Ehle and lived that fantasy life forever.

Mary Bennett is a classic aspie. I'm a fan.

That thread is fantastic Thallo.

She knew how rich he was from the beginning and if she was motivated by money would have accepted his proposal. It was obvious her feelings had begun to change even before she visited Pemberly

Anyone who thinks Elizabeth is 'shallow' isn't considering the Charlotte Lucas subplot which Austen sets in deliberate counterpoint to Elizabeth's.

Marriage was the only career open to the Bennett girls, who have minimal education, mostly in 'accomplishments' intended to add to their marriageability, and live in a world where the only work open to impoverished women of their class is the genteel live-in slavery of governessing or acting as a paid companion, like Anne de Bourgh's companion or Miss Annesley, Georgiana Darcy's companion.

Charlotte and Elizabeth are doubles in many ways, clever single girls in large families without a lot of spare cash -- the differences are that

(1) Charlotte has brothers, which means their home and estate is safe for the next generation, so that she will at least have a home with whichever brother inherits, albeit as a spinster hanger-on and

(2) Lizzy is pretty, and 20 to Charlotte's plain 27, which means she has a far better chance on the marriage market, despite her lack of fortune and her family's drawbacks.

She has enough assets to hope to do better than Mr Collins, but for Charlotte, plain and ageing, and primarily wanting her own home, he's a fabulous opportunity. Lizzy falls hard for Wickham (something that tends to be glossed over in adaptations), but her prudent aunt points out that he's far too poor to marry, and Lizzy acknowledges the truth of this and backs off, only to see him run off after an heiress.

Marriage has been an economic decision in the novel long before Lizzy sees Permberley -- and as well as Darcy's wealth, what she falls for there. even before she sees him, is the restrained good taste of the house and grounds, the evidence of him being an excellent landlord and a kind brother, rather than the joyless, arrogant man she met at home, and whose first proposal was all about how he knew he was too good for her.

A friend and I were talking about the unsuitable boyfriends our respective daughters had taken up with at university and she said 'Oh, god, we've turned into Mrs Bennett ! But I can see her point now"

*Note, the unsuitableness was not their wealth or social status but their manipulative and self obsessed behaviour. Both daughters have since found nice partners ( though without a mansion with deer park or place at Court, between them, which we've managed to overcome)

Mary Bennet is a classic aspie

Mr Collins is more so, I'd say. He knows every detail of those cupboards and room measurements. The man was wasted as a parson.

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

All Jane Austen novels are romances (alongside other things). When they are dramatised, they are dramatised almost entirely as romances.

Fifty shades is romantic/erotic fiction - bug the only reason I mentioned it was the wealth and social status of the hero, and how standard that is in novels.

As for what happened to Mary Bennet, in later years Jane Austen apparently revealed to her family that Kitty made a good marriage to a clergyman near Pemberly, and after a few years Mary settled for one of her Uncle Philips's clerks.

Spot on PoorRichard, although I don't agree re Wickham. Elizabeth was very attracted to him, but I don't see any evidence that she really fell for him.
I don't understand the Mary love, she is dull, pedantic, opinionated, snobbish and unforgiving. She also has a high opinion of herself and shows off her meagre talents every chance she gets. She seems to have quite a lot of fans, but she has no redeeming qualities at all in my eyes.

Elizabeth Bennet is a women of her time. You can't judge her by today's standards! You have to remember that at that time, most genteel women only had 2 choices - marriage or suffering as a
poor relation'. And marriage had to be to someone who could afford to support a wife and famliy. There was no welfare state or pensions (as Jane knew only too well). Eliabeth would have been predisposed towards marriage. That she holds out for a man she loves says a lot about her. How is that shallow?

I think the jokey comment that she started to love him 'from the moment she saw Pemberley' is a tongue in cheek remark about that having been the moment she saw the real and likeable Darcy on his home turf. When she hears about what he did for Lydia, she also realises that he is a loving, generous and honourable man too, she realised how much she really loves him. We already know that she attracted to him by the cheeky banter. That he is rich is a bonus.

I do wonder if those who are criticising Lizzy have actually read the book, or are relying on the flawed (sometimes very flawed) screen versions.

I feel the same about Wickham. She only met him a couple of times before he goes after Miss King with her £10k. She says she is attracted to him, but does not love him, which she says to Jane, to her father and writes to he aunt.

"But my feelings are not only cordial towards him; they are even impartial towards Miss King. I cannot find out that I hate her at all, or that I am in the least unwilling to think her a very good sort of girl. There can be no love in all this."

I also think Mrs Bennett is unfairly criticised. She may be a very silly woman, but she also knows that she and her daughters will be out on the street once Mr Bennett dies. So she has dedicated her life to getting them into 'advantagous' marriages i.e. marriages where they will have a reasonable roof over their heads. She isn't very good at this, but clearly does her best.

Which is more than Mr Bennett does.

I'm guessing that this a veiled criticism of Jane's father who also did very little to secure the long term safety and comfort of his wife and daughters. Fortunately for Jane, she had many brothers who chipped in to pay their rent. But if they hadn't helped, she also would have been on the street. As it was, they were passed from pillar to post after her father died, which must have been pretty unpleasant.

@jaxhog JA is far more critical of Mr Bennet than any of the film or TV adaptations suggest. She describes him wasting his talents and abilities and burying his head in the sand about future finances. She implies he could have done much more for his family had he set his mind to it.

I agree with @Jaxhog, she may have not been very discrete or well educated but she knows what the future held for her children without a safe marriage.

I always felt for Mrs Bennett. She might be a bit dramatic and possibly not very effective but she had a clear idea of the life her daughters would lead if they did not make advantageous marriages.

All that snobbery from Elizabeth and Jane towards her left a sour taste for me. She might be a 'silly woman' but she at least seemed to care about all of her daughters, unlike Mr Bennet

I thought D'Arcy was supposed to be as much shy as proud.

His "unsociable" behaviour comes from being very uncomfortable in large social gatherings as much as seeing them as a bit beneath him. He is very different at home where he is more comfortable. His feelings towards Elizabeth make him act like a bit of a knob, and clearly she fancies him from the off, then writes him off before realising he's not the person she thought.

Mr Bennett is annoying, the BBC version presented him as far more affabt than think he comes across in the book.

That said I lurve the BBC version.

And I still think Lizzie would've been far better off with Colonel Forster.