Pride and Prejudice

[Blackdog19]

Just watching the awesome Colin Firth P&P adaptation. When I first watched it as a teenager, I thought Mrs Bennett was the annoying ridiculous one. It took reading something for me to realise that Mr Bennett was as bad in his own way saving no money and leaving Mrs Bennett with the possibility of 5 unmarried daughters and no home. If I had read the book in Jane Austen’s do you think we’d have more initial sympathy with Mrs Bennett?

@yetanothernamitynamechange

Its at least partly as revenge against Elizabeth for turning against him when she finds out the truth of him and Darcy - so he decides to effectively ruin his sister and the entire family

I don’t think Wickham finds out that Lizzy knows the truth about him and Darcy until after he has married Lydia?

We studied P&P at GCSE and a few people asked why Lizzy was prettier than Jane in the BBC adaptation.

Our teacher said that was because of changing beauty standards - at the time the book was set Susannah Harker's looks would have been more desirable than Jennifer Ehle's. Susannah had that classical Grecian look as a PP pointed out.

I always felt sorry for Mary who had to work so hard on being 'accomplished' to compensate for her lack of good looks and for not being able to bring substantial income to a marriage.

Duels weren’t legal, but that didn’t stop them from happening anyway. Brandon fights Willoughby in S&S - they’d have been arrested if caught, but since they weren’t wounded there weren’t any consequences.

I think part of the problem with Jane in the BBC version is that Susannah Harker was pregnant or post-partum at the time of filming. If you’d had lots of long shots of her looking tall and willowy in a slightly clingy Regency dress then her local reputation as a beauty would have been more obvious. And it would have affected her face shape as well. In Ultraviolet a year or two later Idris Elba spends the whole series mooning helplessly after her and one definitely sees his point.

I think Rosamund Pike, though undeniably beautiful, is too old for the role in the movie.

Please read the book.

@Havaiana I just went back and checked and your right i read that book so many times I can't believe I misremembered it. Maybe Im thinking of Wikham revenging himself on Darcy. hmmmm. Im old and confused though

@TeaStory

Re: Jane and Lizzy’s looks in the 1995 casting - that was period accurate. Susannah Harker had a “classically Grecian” look, which was highly favoured in the era, whereas Jennifer Ehle’s look wouldn’t have been seen as quite so attractive.

Exactly Teastory, whilst I don’t find Jane very attractive in the 1995 version (she looks a bit insipid), I can see why she would have been considered fine as she does have that classic Grecian look, especially the hairstyle.

[quote yetanothernamitynamechange]@Havaiana I just went back and checked and your right i read that book so many times I can't believe I misremembered it. Maybe Im thinking of Wikham revenging himself on Darcy. hmmmm. Im old and confused though[/quote]
Haha no worries it’s probably only because this thread made me put P&P on Netflix on my second screen whilst I WFH 😂

I always feel sorry for the actress who played Jane in 1995, people always say she isn't pretty enough. I thought she was a lovely Jane, she is gentle, soft and serene, with beautiful skin and a lovely curvy figure. Agree with pp who said she has a very classic grecian look about her.

With all its shortcomings, I think the movie adaption with Keiry Knightly does a better job in portraying Mrs. Bennet. She is desperate and loves her daughters, wants them to have a secure future. Given the realities of the time, her attitude is understandable, I think. Including her desperate wish to marry one daughter off to Mr. Collins so they won't lose their roof over their head, once Mr. Bennet has passed.

Susannah Harker is lovely looking of course, it's just that so is Jennifer Ehle! But that's always the way with TV and films: Lizzie is the lead character, so they want someone hugely attractive to play her. Whoever plays Lizzie also gets the focus from the wardrobe, makeup and hair teams too. Jennifer Ehle's outfits in the Andrew Davis version, even though they're supposed to be obviously plainer than what the richer characters have, really suited her incredibly well. A lot of effort had obviously gone into them.

And even characters who are supposed to be actively plain either aren't at all, like Charlotte Lucas in 95, or are conventionally attractive women 'uglied up'. The actress who played Mary in the 90s version also being rather striking IRL. Because when it comes down to it, it's a radical thing to cast a woman who isn't good looking/is only quite attractive for an important character, even when that character's appearance is meant to be significant.

On the Wickham motivation point, I've always been torn on that too.

On the one hand, Lizzie knowing the full truth inevitably means hers and Darcy's relationship has changed significantly. There's nowhere else she would have got it from, and that level of trust suggested a very close relationship. He might have read something into that: not necessarily revenge even, but Darcy's intentions? But it would be a big assumption.

On the other hand, running off with Lydia is such a stupid thing to do. I don't think he's meant to be infatuated with her and the text is clear that he isn't particularly interested in marrying her. If he just wants regular sexual access, prostitution was phenomenally common at the time. He could surely have paid a pittance to some poor desperate women a few times a week no more expensively than he could've housed and fed Lydia while they were on the run. Nobody would've been remotely bothered about that, whereas there was at least some faff and risk attached to going off with Lydia. He's supposed to be a looker who would like to marry money if at all possible, so a successful elopement does raise the possibility that it might be found out, and him become correspondingly more likely to be kept away from any eligible woman.

It's obviously a very important plot device but I have never 100% got why the character behaved as he did. It did work out for him well enough in the end though, being connected to such rich men through marriage.

It could also be revenge on Darcy. If he sensed Darcy liked Lizzie then ruining her family and therefore tainting her as well would be a good way of "punishing" him for his perceived wrongs. Pretty psychopathic though.

@OpenlyGayExOlympicFencer I don’t think he ever intended to marry her. But when given the opportunity to have all debts settled and a regular albeit small income, and after having failed to snaffle both Georgiana and Mary King (and God knows who else), he probably thought he could do a lot worse.

Darcy was very wise keeping his feelings for Lizzy secret, if Wickham knew his true feelings he would have held out for A LOT more from Darcy I’m sure.

And I’m not sure what happens when you don’t pay your debts in that era? Poorhouse? Jail?

There were definitely debtors prison type places. It's in Sense and Sensibility.

I don't think Wickham's meant to have any idea about either Lizzie knowing about his past or her relationship with Darcy. She gives hints when they meet after her return from Hunsford, but nothing substantial (only that her opinion of Darcy was improved by knowing him better and that 'in essentials' he was the same man he ever had been). That's a level of change in the relationship which could easily be explained by her friendship with Col Fitzwilliam, for example. It's only when they meet again after his marriage that they have the conversation where she hints more directly - showing him that she knows at least a bit about the circumstances surrounding old mr Darcy's will. She never gives away at all that she's heard anything about the history with Georgiana, which it's true would have shown her to be properly in Darcy's confidence. The only thing it later says, after her marriage, is that Wickham is resigned to her finding out anything she didn't already know about his infamy.

As pp said upthread, the novel makes clear that he had to skip town and lie low because he couldn't pay his debts, and it was Lydia who threw herself at him and demanded to come with him. She thought it was for marriage, he never intended that until bought off by Darcy. Darcy's hints about his previous behaviour, the subsequent rumours about his liaisons with tradesmen's daughters in Meryton, and the friendship with Mrs Younge all show that he could easily get sex elsewhere. The only reason he brought Lydia along was that she insisted and he thought he might as well have fun with her. Lizzie is explicit in saying that he would probably have counted on Mr Bennet not making too much of an effort to find Lydia.

They're both to blame. I guess at least mrs Bennett tried to rectify the situation!

Fink, yes I agree.

I do get very vexed that at the end the Wickhams stay so much with the Bingleys and Wickham still thinks he can prevail on Darcy to make his fortune

@Havaiana

And I’m not sure what happens when you don’t pay your debts in that era? Poorhouse? Jail?

The majority of Wickham's debts appear to have been gambling and 'debts of honour', which would be harder to enforce legally. It wasn't licensed gambling. It's more the ostracisation that would come from not paying up, and of course the threat that the people he owed would take the matter into their own hands.

@deepwatersolo

With all its shortcomings, I think the movie adaption with Keiry Knightly does a better job in portraying Mrs. Bennet. She is desperate and loves her daughters, wants them to have a secure future. Given the realities of the time, her attitude is understandable, I think. Including her desperate wish to marry one daughter off to Mr. Collins so they won't lose their roof over their head, once Mr. Bennet has passed.

Yes the Mrs Bennet in the Keira version does have a couple of lines that humanise her, which the ‘95 didn’t have I don’t think:

‘When you have five daughters, Lizzie, tell me what else will occupy your thoughts, and then perhaps you will understand.’

`I often think that there is nothing so bad as parting with one's children. One seems so forlorn without them.'

Quotes not exact!

@Havaiana

Fink, yes I agree.

I do get very vexed that at the end the Wickhams stay so much with the Bingleys and Wickham still thinks he can prevail on Darcy to make his fortune

Lizzie says something after seeing him at Longbourn after his marriage that she would no longer put any limits on the impudence of an impudent man. She's realised, in Mumsnet parlance, that he's a CF and he will continue to take the piss as much as he can get away with.

Fink, ha glad to hear it! Although Lizzie does say she gives Lydia money sometimes out of her housekeeping money (although it may not be much and hopefully Lydia spends it on herself / dc not Wickham)

I’m guessing at some point Darcy or Bingley would relent and give Wickham a parsonage or something

@Havaiana

Fink, ha glad to hear it! Although Lizzie does say she gives Lydia money sometimes out of her housekeeping money (although it may not be much and hopefully Lydia spends it on herself / dc not Wickham)

I’m guessing at some point Darcy or Bingley would relent and give Wickham a parsonage or something

I don't think so. Darcy says in the letter after the first proposal that he knew Wickham wasn't suitable for the church and so was glad that he took the money instead of the first living. And Bingley wouldn't have any parishes to give unless they were included in the estate he eventually bought. It does say that Darcy continued to assist him in his career (in the army) and that both Lizzie and Jane paid off their debts every time they moved house, which they had to do frequently because of money worries. It was fairly normal to owe tradespeople money for long periods, everything being sold on credit and the class system ensuring that the better bred can take advantage of the shopkeepers, but when they move everything would have to be paid off. Austen blames it on Lydia as well as Wickham though, so she doesn't seem to be worried about a gambling addiction, just general overspending.

Does Wikham stay in the army at the end of the novel? Otherwise part of the "debt" could have been buying his way out of service early. Its was only a few years before the Napoleonic wars and I cant imagine him wanting to get involved in that.