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 notice the TV adaptations never go with a 15-16 year old or anywhere close, which probably speaks to how difficult audiences would find that story today. Julia Sawalha was brilliant, but she was 27, and however often they say she's 15 it does change the dynamic if she looks the same as the oldest sisters. And in the 05 version, Jena Malone was 20. Interestingly both of them are older than the actresses playing Elizabeth in their version.

I saw an interview on TikTok where the actor who plays Willoughby in the new adaptation of Sense & Sensibility denies that Willoughby displays any red flag behaviour. He's very protective of him apparently 🤔😂

Mrs Bennet is a very silly woman, she is right to want her daughters married, but even a stopped clock is right once a day as they say, and though she wants them married, she doesn't lift a finger to ensure that they marry well. Imo it's a point of pride to have her dds married, and a competition with Mrs Long and her nieces. She talks of a gentleman who seemed interested in Jane when she was just 16, and her disappointment when it came to nothing, and in general she seems content with officers with a few thousand a year. She seems quite happy to force Lizzy to marry a man she knows she could only ever despite. Most mothers want to see their dc happy, and Austen herself believed that marrying without at least some affection was unwise. Mr Bennet is a rubbish father, but I think the actor who played him in 1995 was so good in the role and so affectionate with Lizzy that we tend to forgive the character's shortcomings.

Did they rewrite the novel’s plot so that he didn’t seduce Brandon’s ward and abandon her when pregnant?

Isn't the point that she lifts too many fingers, and ineptly? She's not got any choice other than to try her hardest to marry them off, even if she didn't really want to it would've made no material difference. But her husband is fucking useless and she's socially out of her depth.

Agree re the 1995 adaptation. Ben Whitrows performance was brilliant in itself, but I think he actually played the role too sympathetically and it doesn't match the text in that way.

I do wonder if Newcastle had its reputation as a party city in the early 19th century, which is why JA sent them there.

I suspect Darcy made sure that they stayed in the NE so that they were a long way from the rest of the family & its social circle.

Lydia would have written lots of letters home showing off about the elegant buildings & the newfangled steam locomotives trying to persuade her mother & Kitty to visit. I can imagine her making sure she had prime seats on the famous Stockton to Darlington opening train.

I can’t imagine Whickham abstaining from anything (if he was capable of self-denial he wouldn’t have saddled himself with Lydia) so I suspect that their children were placed with various relatives like Fanny Price & the Bertrams.

I don’t often imagine what happens to characters after a book ends, but it is so easy with Lydia. She would have been making her presence felt at any exciting event, & then made sure that everyone knew that she had a front row seat.

Not her fingers - just her tongue, and that does some really heavy lifting.

When i say she doesn't lift a finger i mean she wants them well married but she doesn't put the work in. She didn't employ a governess for her daughters, she didnt teach them manners or ensure they had some accomplishments, she doesn't ensure that they have good role models to emulate, she doesn't consider keeping the younger sisters home in order to give the elder ones a better chance socially, she doesn't instruct them on the running of a household, she doesn't check the younger girls frolicking around chasing after the officers, she hasn't enough sense to try and befriend Bingleys sisters, (not that it would get her far) and she is stupid enough to be rude to the richest, most eligible man she will ever meet. (Darcy) The only thing she does is send Jane to Bingley's house on horseback when she believes it will rain, and the Bingley sisters despise her for it.

Ah but don't forget, when she connives to get Bingley in her house for dinner, she's sure to order him a good dinner, 2 full courses and the venison roasted to a point, that counts for something surely 😂

To be fair to Mrs Bennet, I don't think she knows how to marry off her daughters. Austen describes her as a woman of mean understanding. She knows that marrying well is important but she's done so by chance, not strategy, purely because Mr Bennet was impetuous and wanted to sleep with her. She assumes that it will be the same for her children and her only thought is to put them on the marriage market as soon as possible because she thinks it will maximise their chances of attracting the right partner. She has no real understanding of what would make them attractive marriage partners for rich men, otherwise I think she would be prioritising the governess, foreign languages, and accomplishments angle. She doesn't understand that her own behaviour is inappropriate, so she can't change it to stop damaging her daughters' chances. Mrs Bennet is highly motivated but has no knowledge and Mr Bennet has no motivation, despite his knowledge. They can't work together to mitigate the faults of their partner.

All posts that mention that currency are hidden.

Great read on that @KatherineParr

Yes!

Most of the centre of Newcastle was rebuilt in the 1830s so later than when Lydia and Wickham were dispatched there. More relevant, there had been lots of soldiers in the area since the middle of the 18th century at Tynemouth and in 1806 the Fenham barracks were built in Newcastle itself. The supply of coal to the rest of the country made it strategically important in the war with Napoleon and before trains (Darlington to Stockton railway was 1825) most of it was transported by ship. I do love the idea of Lydia on that first trip from Darlington to Stockton.

WTF?

I haven't watched the film but I watched a YouTube video. I gathered that Brandon's first love isn't dead and didn't have a baby, and Willoughby ran off with her, not her daughter :/

She does mention sewing. When she and Kitty collects Lizzie and Maria Lucas following them having visited The Collins. Lydia has bought a "frightful" bonnet and she comments "I shall pull it to pieces as soon as I get home, and see if I can make it up any better"
However I agree with your overall sentiment she is not a studious or inclined to occupy herself in anyway that is not for entertainment and her amusement.

This is what I mean. It's not for any lack of effort or desire, she really is trying her best, it's just not good enough. And she doesn't know any of that stuff because she's not really from the gentry herself, she's a married-in. She thinks because they're all good looking that's the card she has to play.

It depends when you think the novel is set. If you go for around publication date rarher than the earlier date that it was written (which I do admittedly for the very trivial reason that I prefer the fashions & hairstyles of the later date), then she would have been in her 20s for the opening of the S&D & there were lots of earlier colliery engines in the area like Puffing Billy - it just seems inevitable that she would go to see them (the engines are also loud & noisy & there’s nothing like them in Hertfordshire) & probably persuaded the engineers to let her ride on them. Early locos also feature in the later Poldark & in one of Georgette Heyer’s Regency books & I probably know far too much about them as ny DC loved railway museums when very young.

With the main rebuilding, she would have been in her 30s for that, but there were buildings going up earlier than that - Lydia would have been at every opening & touring the building sites etc & writing home that the town was becoming as elegant as Bath. You can imagine her being a complete nuisance to the engineers & foremen, but they would have to be polite to her due to her family connections.

You are right about the barracks probably being the main motivation, but JA exiling her to a town undergoing such major industrial & urban change just seems so perfect for her. It’s easy to imagine an older Lydia as she would be much like her mother, but without the concern to get her children married & settled (as she would just expect her older sisters to sort that out for her).

And she doesn't know any of that stuff because she's not really from the gentry herself, she's a married-in. She thinks because they're all good looking that's the card she has to play.

Isn't she from 'trade,' or a lower middle class background? so she wouldn't get the nuances of how the gentry behave.

She's the one character who never changes or has to change in the book. Her behaviour throughout is utterly consistent with JA's description of her - her business was to get her daughters married.

Yes, absolutely. The fact the story opens with Mrs Bennet trying to persuade her husband to call on Mr Bingley, taking her point of view from the novel's famous opening line, sets the tone for her motivation and behaviour throughout.

Think so, hence the brothers occupation. Mrs B married 'up' because she was good looking, although I always got the impression Austen was trying to portray her family as not being any financially worse off than the Bennets at the time of the book. Mr G must have been doing well in his business to plan for a whole summer travelling.

He must also have been pretty smart and savvy to do so well in business, so I guess it's obvious who was the brains in the family were. But Mrs B perhaps would've been happier if she'd married another well off merchant!

Love this thread - only lately occurred to me that Darcy by financing Lydia’s marriage and clearing blocks for Bingley wasn’t only demonstrating his love for Lizzy but was also self serving by sanitising her family to make it a more acceptable match for him.

i won’t be able to get the idea of Lydia as a Love Island contender today. Guess she could have resorted to OF when it went t*ts up with Wickham.

Her father was an attorney (solicitor) in Meryton— not then a respected profession with much status, like medicine. Her sister, the equally vulgar Mrs Phillips, married their father’s clerk (who took over the business), so one assumes that’s the kind of marriage Mrs B might have been expected to make, had she not been unusually pretty and caught Mr B’s eye.

I think Mr Gardiner struck out for himself in trade in London, rather than following his father into the law. He’s clearly clever and doing well, as well as generous and ‘gentlemanlike’ so you’d imagine he’ll possibly continue to amass a considerable fortune in trade, like the Bingleys’ father and grandfather, and that his children/grandchildren may find themselves in Mr Bingley’s position of buying a family seat in the country, safely distanced from the ‘trade’ that made their money.