Turning the Tables in Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen uses Lizzy and Darcy to upend established notions about the Regency world and its values

Hello dear friends,

Back in the days of our long winter, during the long weekends after weeks of remote radio work, not to mention freezing temperatures, I did a re-reading of Pride and Prejudice. (And yes, I did also re-watch the classic 1995 BBC series featuring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth in his long wet-shirted walk from the lake at Pemberley.)

And, friends, as I finish this novel I have some thoughts, some of them a little unconventional, about the stories of our dear Jane.

And here goes:

In Pride and Prejudice, her second published novel, Jane Austen creates an upside down world that forces us, her readers, to rethink the established value systems that provided the foundation of her Regency-era British world. 

Even if you’ve read it - and especially if you haven’t - you may well be wondering how this world of tea services, privet hedges, and country rambles can seem to anyone to be “upside down” or in any way subversive. 

But in this letter I hope to convince you, friend, if you haven’t already spotted it yourself - that in fact Aunt Jane in her second novel is throwing everything up in the air in a way worthy of Lewis Carroll’s floating tea party - and she’s making sure it all lands in a way that punctuates her points.

And mainly what Austen does in this story of Elizabeth Bennet, is that she upends an entire established system of values.

Not only is she throwing those values up in the air, she appears to be offering a whole new alternative value system - one that offers women more agency, inner resourcefulness, and happiness, and possibly even greater love and affection - if we will only throw over the Regency era’s worldly values and embrace a more humane, real, and affectionate life.

That’s a lot.

Let’s break it down.

Material Girls

First, money. Or a better word for it might be: Resources.

Right from the beginning in Pride and Prejudice, as in many of Austen’s stories, we get the lowdown on what people are worth - what their income is, what their inheritance is to be, what their housing situation is. As scholar Sandra Macpherson has written (in an essay reprinted in the Norton Critical edition, edited by Donald Gray and Mary A. Favret) we get details about whether these characters rent, or own, or are about to be “entailed.”

The handsome Bingley - who is the one who must be in want of a wife because it is universally acknowledged, right? - is actually renting. 

He has cash amassed by trade (which his snooty sisters would like us to ignore). He also comes from a good family, and is very much his own man, or at least as much as his free, easy spirit allows him to be. 

But he does not yet own - he is renting Netherfield. 

The Bennet sisters are in an unstable housing situation (as Jane Austen herself had experienced repeatedly.) 

Though Longbourn seems to be big, respectable, and full of natural features, it is not the Bennet sisters’ home to inherit - it’s being “entailed,” a complex and rather progressive (as Macpherson points out) feature of Regency inheritance laws, and it is not for them. It is for the unbearable cousin Mr. Collins who inherits the Bennet home in this complicated inheritance process. This of course puts a lot of weight on that comic proposal scene.

The Bennet sisters are under pressure, as is their ambitious, “vulgar” mother. Because the answer - one of the few available to them for security and shelter - is to marry, to avoid being cast on a distant relative or forced to find domestic employment, or worse.

All of this money, housing and resource accounting is set out clearly and entertainingly in the first few chapters. 

What’s later established is that - as is usually the case with an Austen Leading Man - Mr. Darcy is above and beyond all of this accounting. He has a great amount of money (that notorious 10 thousand pounds a year), and resides independently (no vulgar parents anywhere in sight) on an old family estate, Pemberley.

And so we begin - so far all is as it should be in the world, right? 

The girls are in danger - the guys have abundant resources. Mean Girls and Unhelpful Parents throw up their obstacles. Let the games begin. 

Rewind

But let’s go back just a minute and look at those introductions. 

In addition to the material resources we are getting in these introductions, we’re also getting an accounting of what we might call each character’s inner resources.

We learn immediately that the eldest Bennet sisters are intelligent, and that our heroine Elizabeth has “quickness of observation and less pliancy of temper” - boy, are we going to get to see that quick-observing and quick-temper in play. 

The girls are in danger - the guys have abundant resources. Mean Girls and Unhelpful Parents throw up their obstacles. Let the games begin.

Here’s where everyone stands when we size up those inner holdings:

• Charlotte Lucas, whose family seems to rent but has done well in the world, is “a sensible, intelligent” young woman who takes a sensible - if somewhat tragic - marriage choice that makes her a loyal favorite among the Janeites.

• The younger Bennet sisters, and their mother, are notoriously silly - in fact they may be “the silliest girls in England.”

• The Bingley sisters, for all their outer resources, have an “air of decided fashion” - and if you know Jane Austen, you know that this flags them as Danger Incarnate.

• Darcy has everything, but also has his overabundance of pride that makes him disagreeable. (Not to worry, his inner resources are going to grow, with interest.)

• Jane and Bingley are both gentle spirits, but both are also vulnerable to unhelpful persuasion from more assertive sorts - like Darcy and the Bingley sisters. Lizzy thinks with anger on Bingley’s “easiness of temper, that want of proper resolution.” This signals a deficiency. 

What Austen is doing here is giving us the literal Value of each character and family member in the vicinity; and then she’s throwing that up in the air and letting us know that the inner character matters. It literally counts.

She’s inviting us, maybe even forcing us, to observe and ask: But what are they like?

What Lizzy is Like

And what Lizzy is like is intelligent, resourceful, keenly observant, and “lively.” 

These are things that Darcy has too, but only up to a point. 

So we observe that with all his resources, Darcy is lacking the energy and animation that would enhance his love, his relationships, and his life - and he would profit by it.

In other words, he would profit by Elizabeth - she of the entailed estate and vulgar mother.

This perhaps is the biggest and best way that Austen upends her Regency world: By showing us, in a believable, realistic and also romantic narrative, that a young Regency woman can educate herself, train herself, and moralize herself into the type of strong character that satisfies herself, first; and then if romance comes calling, she can actually bring something to the table, no matter how opulent that table may be.

Austen, who abhors fashion and coyness in her characters so does not employ fashion or coyness in her narratives - gives Lizzy the upper hand bluntly, boldly, and right away, and the author doesn’t bother to hide it.

From Darcy’s first insult at finding her perhaps tolerable but smiling too much (yes, really), Elizabeth famously declares - and in doing so she at once shows astute judgement and resolve: “He has a very satirical eye, and if I do not begin by being impertinent myself, I shall soon grow afraid of him.” (Vol 1, Chapter 6).

In other words, he would profit by Elizabeth - she of the entailed estate and vulgar mother. … and then if romance comes calling, she can actually bring something to the table, no matter how opulent that table may be.

In the treacherous drawing room of Netherfield, confronted by the sarcasm and insults of Miss Bingley, Lizzy keeps her cool, challenging Darcy and judging Bingley, winning the upper hand through sheer observation and wit, or that ubiquitous “impertinence,” even in a situation where she is vulnerable, as she attempts to nurse her sister back to health amidst unwelcome guests in a grand house. 

Austen’s upside down world

But, starting with everyone’s and the readers’ “first impressions,” from Jane’s illness at Netherfield and taking flight throughout the narrative, Jane Austen proceeds to deploy Shakespearean confusions, conundrums, double talk and cross purposes to continue upending the Normal sense of things - and to present us with an alternative universe where the young women and their vast inner resources win the treacherous games society has imposed on them. 

First, our heroines do this for themselves.

One astonishing thing Austen does in this story is to let us in on Darcy’s viewpoint. We see very early that he is mesmerized by Lizzy. And in doing this, Austen boldly lets us readers see something that our heroine - as keen as she is - doesn’t see.

There’s no suspense here - the suspense, as Knightley might say, lies in another direction. We see Darcy in love, and our job is to sit back and see if one of the Regency-era obstacles - class, connection, status, money - will throw over the possibility of love.

But Lizzy stays constant, to herself. Throughout the twists and turns, and the misunderstandings and confusions, winding through this narrative, she reasons with herself, admonishes herself, comforts herself, and ultimately - and most importantly - stands up for herself.

This is all highly contrary to expectation, Aunt Jane!

Throughout this story, dualities collide, in meaning, in character and in language. 

For instance: 

• Mr. Bingley’s sarcasm repeatedly holds up the villainous Wickham as his “favorite” son-in-law. 

• Mrs. Bingley, who is for everyone and not least the reader, a mercenary lightweight, actually takes a disliking to, and looks down on, Mr. Darcy and is rude to him repeatedly. 

• Wickham’s predatory designs on Lydia Bennett are repeated, ironically, bringing Darcy’s prideful history right into the living room of the Bennets. 

It’s confusing!

Dualities in the language are constant as well: Mr. Bennet teases Lizzy about the rumor that Darcy might propose to her, causing her pain and confusion, as he jokes, “I cannot help giving him preference over Wickham, much as I value the impudence and hypocrisy of my son-in-law.” (Vol. 3, Chapter 16), and Lizzy reflects that she must “laugh when she would rather have cried.” 

The upside-downness culminates in the climactic conflagration with the austere Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who represents all that Regency Values might symbolize and all that fashionable society and any other society might hope for: Wealth, pride, agency, independence, fashion. A huge estate, Rosings. 

But when Lady Catherine comes after Elizabeth to express the Bennets’ unsuitability for a connection with a Darcy, everything goes “contrariwise.” (Vol 3, Chapter 16)

Elizabeth - through elegant, precise language that overtakes the elegance of Lady Catherine’s in a fantastic word-duel - puts Lady Catherine in her place with well-phrased sentences that make you want to stand up and cheer: “You may ask questions, which I shall not choose to answer.” And: “That will make your ladyship’s situation at present more pitiable; but it will have no effect on me.” 

Talk about establishing clear boundaries in life! Not to mention: “I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you …”

Lady Catherine tries her best, but cannot say much more than, “I am most seriously displeased.” (Vol 3, Chapter 16)

Having no one and nothing to draw on when the eminent, intimidating Lady Catherine arrives in her drawing room - not an income, not an estate, not a parent, protector, or recognizable future - Eliza merely draws deep into her own intelligence, resolve, and sense of decency, and she talks back. 

And don’t forget the ultimate irony and upside-downness of this showdown - which is that Darcy has already proposed to Eliza; and she has refused him, on the basis of his ungentlemanly manner, among other issues.

Property, Pemberley and 10,000 pounds be damned; Elizabeth is looking at character, and she finds this gentleman impoverished and, OK, beneath her. 

She’s upside, he’s downside, folks.

Elizabeth wins the upper hand. It’s her inner resources, in the end, that come out on top and clear this confusion.

Rightside up at Pemberley

All of this duality, cross-talk and conflagration come peacefully together when Darcy and Eliza declare their love. 

And sure, it’s very romantic, and we’re all swooning with images of Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen (or Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle) even as I write. 

But it’s also a very wordy union. 

As with Knightley and Emma, post-game apologies are in order, and mostly on the gentleman’s part. 

Property, Pemberley and 10,000 pounds be damned; Elizabeth is looking at character, and she finds this gentleman impoverished and, OK, beneath her. 

Here, pride is put aside as the satire-eyed Darcy declares that he was a “spoiled child” and points out the gaps in the parenting skills of his parents (Yes, I know it’s hard to believe that a love scene actually reads like a parenting manual - but this is Austen realism, so hold on tight, it’ll get sexier in a moment).

He recounts his point of view and reflects on Elizabeth’s challenges, that he might have “behaved in a more gentleman-like manner,” and declares that he is “most heartily ashamed of” his earlier dealings with her. 

We’re still a little upside down here, as the eminent Darcy is opening himself up completely to Eliza’s judgements, and looking to her for clearance. 

You showed me, he tells her, “how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.”

So there it is: Eliza is in the end worthy. And this is co-signed by the eminent, rich, powerful Darcy. It’s not her outer status but her inner holdings that have made it so.

And her reaction is to wish to make a joke, but she thinks better of it. She’s still training him, and she “remembered that he had yet to learn to be laughed at, and it was rather too early to begin.”

But she can laugh with sister Jane, and when the family’s astonishment that Eliza would like such a rich, haughty person (another subtle conversion of reactions from Austen), Elizabeth jokes that she thinks she must have begun to love Darcy when she first saw “his beautiful grounds at Pemberley.”

She’s joking! “Another intreaty that she would be serious, however,” and she convinces Jane with “solemn assurances” that she is indeed genuinely attached to the person - not the property.

And here we are able to joke because Jane Austen has so successfully won us over to her own value system. 

We don’t, after all, marry for property, or shelter, or stability - even when those are very much endangered. We marry for genuine affection, with someone we consider an equal (or if we’re lucky, maybe a bit better) to our own strong character. This is how we have strong romance, equal marriage, strong family - and it’s how we have equality and strength in our society too.

There it is, Friends. Was Jane Austen just a little bit subversive? Do you like the subtext going on under what the critics Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar called her “cover story”?

It has to be said - when it comes to leveling the Regency world around her, decimating the structures, and rising up a heroine from underdog to conqueror, Austen takes this to the extreme with Mansfield Park. So keep a lookout a future Letter about Fanny Price as Zombie Slayer! 

And meanwhile, please, let me know - does reading Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, or other novels encourage you to throw off FOMO, and Insta-friendly performative status symbols, and the frivolous-fashion pressures of our world, and to look inward? To work on yourself?

 Who is your favorite “upside down” Austenland character? 

Or maybe you can relate to the studied practicality of Charlotte Lucas? Should we be talking more about Charlotte?!

Let me know your thoughts - you can comment below! - and also just let me know what you’re reading and watching right now. 

Meanwhile, stay safe, well and healthy, and remember when things go upside down, you can always engage with plenty of #JaneAusten therapy in the books, the films, and in our conversations together.

Yours truly,

Plain Jane 

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*This post was updated to give the accurate name of the home of the Bennet family as Longbourn (not Hartfield - that is another story!)