Pride and Prejudice - in the view of 2026 society is Mr. Wickham simply a predator?

[mids2019]

So Lydia is 15 years old and to my (admittedly non literary mind) groomed by Mr. Wickham into eloping. Reading the book now it seems full of victim blaming with Lydia being blamed as much as Whickam for the inappropriate relationship. Is this too simplistic?

I do agree it's not perfectly logical and you could say that JA just needed to make these things happen for the sake of the plot so maybe didn't mind too much. But I would also say she was a great observer of human nature and behaviour, and there is the fact that people do constantly behave very illogically and against their own best interests, particularly when thinking, ahem, more with the 'heart' genitals than the head. Look at how often people cheat on their spouses and long term partners with people who aren't even objectively speaking more attractive than their partner or who they really even like that much, and often they don't cover their tracks particularly carefully either!

I think maybe both Crawford and Wickham are perhaps just arrogant and impulsive enough to think they can somehow get away with it, for a few weeks at least, then eventually abandon the woman and marry someone else (remember Crawford probably wasn't aware of the meddling/ blackmailing servant who shops them to the Rushworths and Wickham had the security of holing up in London with Mrs Young whose existence/address was only known to the Darcys who he had no reason to think would intervene)? You do have to remember how much easier it was to disappear in those days, no phones, no credit cards, no IDs, no CCTV, if you had some ready cash you could definitely drive off in an anonymous hired carriage to a different town or remote part of the country where you weren't known and give a false name when hiring lodgings or staying at an inn. There was no regular police force and private detectives weren't really a thing, so as long as you didn't draw a huge amount of attention to yourself or get unlucky by running into someone who knows you or get betrayed or blackmailed by a disloyal servant it wasn't that hard to hide away. Wickham would probably have come unstuck reasonably quickly through want of money, and Crawford would have eventually needed to resurface to claim his income from his estates etc but for a few weeks or months it was probably no problem, and I guess the idea is they really weren't thinking much beyond that?

He couldn't earn the kind of money he expected without help. He exchanged the promised 'living' (well paid clergy situation) for money, and he had to buy his place into the militia. Men didn't get senior positions in the army without buying their way in. There was no equal opportunity hiring process!

Mr Wickham probably doesn’t know about Darcy’s love for Lizzy as Mr Darcy is very guarded. I think Wickham just saw Lydia as a ‘fun thing’ to play with and then discard.

I think Maria is depicted as being so utterly miserable in her marriage and so desperately in love with Crawford that she's willing to throw everything away just to get out of her situation of stupid uncaring husband who she feels nothing but contempt and disgust for, horrible MIL etc. She probably kidded herself she could persuade Crawford to marry her in the end, or at least to live with her long term somewhere discrete, maybe abroad. Like a pp said it's depicted as there being this magnetic physical attraction between them, and Maria has pretty much always in the past got what she wanted in the end...

I love that line in MP about 'I cannot get out, as the starling said' - so eloquent of the golden cage situation rich young women would find themselves in - and when Maria says that she's only talking about not being able to get through a gate and that alone drives her wild with being unable to get what she wants, imagine the dreadful sexual and emotional frustration of being a beautiful passionate (selfish and spoilt!) young women trapped in a golden cage of having everything material she could ever dream of and every social success but no outlet for her emotions whatsoever!

@Turophiles I would be very happy if someone made a good multi-part adaptation

Have you watched the 1983 adaptation with Sylvestra le Touzel as Fanny? It's on I-player. It's one of the most faithful JA adaptations I've seen.

The one I always wonder about is at what point Darcy told Bingley he was in love with Lizzy. I've always vaguely assumed not until after she accepts his second proposal, but as he does come back to Netherfield with Bingley, it could be earlier...?

I thought ‘Longbourn’ was absolutely bloody awful!

I don’t think Wickham was motivated by anything other than his dick with Lydia; and Lydia has been brought up to be silly and selfish and to dangle on the coat tails of officers - she won’t have been thinking about much other than having a bit of fun and getting what she saw as one up on Kitty.

It's very good (Sylvestra Le Touzel is a neighbour of friends of mine, and is very cool!) -- I think it's just that the filming, sets, very 'static' camera angles etc now feel dated and very basic, as TV of this kind has become so much more sophisticated than in the eighties. I'd love to see someone do it again now. I agree the casting is brilliant, not just S le L and Nicholas Farrell, but Anna Massey and Samatha Bond, and Angela Pleasance as a Lady Bertram who was spaced out on laudanum (or something).

Sadly, I think the chance of a still-faithful adaptation being made in 2026 are low.

Nowadays it seems almost impossible for adaptations to be made with the necessary detachment from 21st century values and political issues.

I'm glad to hear Sylvestra Le Touzel is cool in real life. I've seen her in other things and always liked her style.

But doesn’t Lizzie make it clear that Lydia is selfish and cruel? The suggestion seems to be that they’re both horrible and that they deserve one another - also that Lydia will give as good as she gets and probably make HIS life a misery too.

We have to be very careful not to project modern standards onto the past. Many of the things WE do will disgust future generations. I have a hunch that people in 100 years will find descriptions of meat eating disgusting. Maybe they will refuse to read Ian McEwan or Julian Barnes because their characters eat meat.

it was probably no more than "I have to do a bunk because of the debts and the fathers out to get me, I can't shake her off so I'll take her with me and dump her at some point." Both Wickham and Lydia strike me as utterly amoral and concerned only with themselves.

It's more that JA has repeatedly made it clear that Henry Crawford has no real interest in Maria, other than a spot of flirtation powerplay to get his own back on her for snubbing him after her marriage, by reminding her that he knows perfectly well that if he crooked his finger, she'd have ended her engagement to Rushworth.

Might that extend to sleeping with her once if they had the opportunity (presumably something like him staying overnight with the friends she's staying with in Twickenham, and being given a room next to Maria's)? Yes, possibly, probably in an unpleasant 'You know you want it, and your husband is such a buffoon you must be gagging for it' way.

Once he'd proven that by having her, would he have been likely to repeat it, far less enter into anything ongoing, with a woman he knows is unhappily married, impulsive and fixated on him? I seriously doubt it. He knows Maria is trouble, even leaving aside whether he's actually really in love with Fanny.

I don't agree with what Wickham did, and he's a very immature young man. But I think at the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th, there were far more Wickhams about than Darcys.

There was a story on the radio this week about university campuses in the US and universities often not really dealing with sexual assault and rape allegations, and I think there's a comparison to be made between privileged young men then and now just growing up with this as entirely normal behaviour.

I always felt that Col Fitzwilliam was meant to be the counterpoint to Wickham - younger son needing to make his own way and having a similar education to Wickham (as we are told the late Mr Darcy paid for that). Went into the army and whilst there was no doubt enough money behind him to buy his way up the ranks (whereas Wickham only had the £3k from Darcy) he comes across as an honest and hard working character who has a very frank conversation with Lizzie when he senses a mutual attraction (ie isn't someone to lead a girl on). Also, despite needing to marry money he doesn't seem to be eyeing up the heiresses around him - it would be a bit of a no no to marry Georgiana whilst she is his ward and not had a London season or two but Anne De B was probably an even better "catch" despite her ill health and the Col probably knew Darcy wasn't going to marry her.

My edition of MP says in the intrduction something like that MP is a novel that veers off track & is wrenched back by its author on to its original course, which I think sums up the Henry & Maria problem.

JA is fairly clear from the outset that Henry is irredemable:

“Henry Crawford, to whom, in all the riot of his gratifications it [the play] was yet an untasted pleasure”

so it ought to be clear to the reader that he has no chance of marrying Fanny. The problem to me is partly that Fanny & Edmund just aren’t that appealing as main characters (although I have more time for Edmund) & the reader isn’t invested in their ultimate romance. I suspect it would have worked slightly better if JA had ended the novel when they are consoling each other after the elopements as its obvious what will happen eventually happen & it would have removed the awkward resolution in the last chapter.

The problem that all this creates is that the reader becomes much more invested in the relationships with the Crawfords and Mary & Edmund’s marriage especially feels inevitable, and as JA says the natural consequence of that marriage would be the second one. I just don’t find it particularly creditable that Henry - having been fighting off women & their mothers for years - would take up with Maria again as it really isn’t in his interests.

I also think JA is very harsh on Mary who is very kind to her sister & Fanny and is clearly heading towards a marriage for love not self-interest - but all of that counts for nothing as she is deemed irredeemably spoiled by her upbringing (which was hardly Mary’s fault). Whereas Fanny, who can be ungrateful if not spiteful towards Mary, is always seen as being in the right.

I think this just shows what a great author JA is, that we are ao invested in her characters even the minor ones.

I don't think that cruelty is implied in Lydia at all. Certainly she's selfish, but in a teenage 'The world only exists insofar as it affects me' way, which hasn't been 'civilised' out of her by training in good manners. Like when the Bennet women are visiting Netherfield while Jane is ill, Lydia just sees it as an opportunity to try to inveigle Bingley into holding a ball. Literally her only occupation seems to be being man-mad, with occasional excursions into hat-trimming and card games.

I think the oddity with Lydia is how different she is to all her sisters, despite the age gap between youngest and eldest being small (seven years). Jane and Lizzy are comparatively accomplished, intelligent, elegant young women, while Mary is well-read and practices hard at her music. Presumably they've all had the same educational opportunities, as described by Lizzy to Lady Catherine, Lydia (and possibly the coughing nonetity Kitty) has just not taken them.

But what is far odder is not that Lydia doesn't play or sing or have ladylike manners, it's that she doesn't seem to have got the memo about 'morals', female reputation and sexuality that her sisters got from somewhere. I mean, surely we don't imagine that Lizzy and Jane were just as boisterous, over-sexed and thoughtless at fifteen, but grew out of it? Who taught the older Bennet girls not to throw themselves at passing men, and not to elope/have sex until married? If it was their mother, why didn't Lydia get the message too?

(It always reminds me slightly of that scene in one of Antonia Forest's books (which take religion seriously) where tactless Lawrie betrays over a family teatime discussion of the school nativity play that not only does she think Jesus/Mary/God the Father etc are all imaginary, she thought literally everyone else thought so too, and when someone asks her why she thinks they go to church, she looks blank and says 'Hymns and things.'

He’s just a grifter. Georgia and Lydia were both young and impressionable.
He thought Mr Bennett had a few bob. He thought wrong.

Lizzy returns from Kent (where she recieved Darcy's letter) and has a meeting with Wickham before the regiment go to Brighton, if Wickham was switched on he might have relaised Lizzy had been turned against him then and be seeking revenge. Jane knew about Darcie's (1st) proposal might she have let something slip ?

He's certainly amoral, but normally he's also cunning. Taking Lydia with him doesn't best protect his own interests in that situation. At minimum it makes it much more likely he's going to be pursued. It's just a daft risk for what was at best going to be lots of sex with a woman he fancied and wasn't especially attached to. I can't believe there was no way he could've done a quiet flit, she wasn't with him 24/7.

The problem with modern books inspired by Austen, though have enjoyed some, is that none of the writers have been in her league.

At least with TV we can enjoy the performances, outfits, wet shirts and things!

Ruth Jones portrayed a darker Mrs Bennett in The Other Bennett Sister, and said in an interview that she thinks Mrs Bennett is good in bed!

Her wardrobe in the role was lovely.

I think he wanted Lydia as a companion on his trip to London. He knew her family had no money, and he planned to abandon Lydia in London once he knew his next move.

I agree - I think Mrs Bennett was very good in bed - think it was hinted at in earlier productions (either Keira Knightly one the BBC masterpiece).

I find Mansfield Park one of the most fascinating Austen books - I think she is exploring what makes a person of value/decent and she takes quite a risk with Henry and Maria Crawford because she makes them very attractive and also they both recognise worth when they see it - Fanny and Edmund - but just don't quite get there.

Maria Bertram had one of the worst fates of all the Austen women.

Hmm, he'd have clocked that the Gardiners have a few bob. And would also know that Mr G must have a lot of connections in London to do as well in business as he had. Wickham's essentially supposed to see the financial value of everyone he meets.

But, maybe he just decided to take the risk.

I don't think there's any reason to think Wickham thought the Bennets were wealthier than they were. JA's world is one in which literally everyone knows exactly how much everyone else is worth -- incomes and inheritances aren't confidential matters!

Mr Collins says to Lizzy, when proposing, that he's not going to ask her father for a marriage portion because he knows that £1000 invested in the 4%s is all she will be entitled to after her mother's death. John Dashwood asks Elinor in Sense and Sensibility what Colonel Brandon's income is and she knows the answer (£2000 a year, same as Mr Bennet's) and tells him. Lady Catherine says she's shocked that not all the Bennet girls play and sing because 'the Miss Webbs all do and their father has not so good an income as yours.'

Apparently sometimes newspaper announcements of marriages included information about dowries, and the Land Tax after 1799 was levied on the value of someone's estate as estimated by local commissioners -- so information about the value of Pemberley or Longbourn etc would be freely available. And prize money for navy officers from capturing enemy ships was listed in newspapers, so everyone knows Captain Wentworth has made £25k.

The only time I can think of where someone gets someone else's wealth wrong in JA is General Tilney thinking Catherine is an heiress in Northanger Abbey because John Thorpe misled him.