[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by MaggieScratch

But they're NOT trying to get them to marry them.

Depending on where you are in the book, this statement is untrue. (Unless you're going to argue that Jane doesn't give a flip either way.)

Originally Posted by MaggieScratch

And as I said, Lizzy actively discourages Darcy from hanging around her. He misinterprets her discouragement, but that's not her fault. And then he proposes and is instantly shot down. It's the modern equivalent of turning down a very easy job that pays a six-figure salary for which you aren't really qualified. It would be a surprising thing if someone turned it down. It's very surprising that Elizabeth Bennet turns down Darcy's proposal.

Yeah. That's great, really it is. What I DON'T like and what I was referring to earlier is the PAGES AND PAGES later where she beats herself up over her rejection. It's not a daring feminist act if the rest of the book is devoted to how it was a terrible, terrible move on her part.

Originally Posted by MaggieScratch

No, she's excoriating herself for not thinking through the things that Wickham was telling her and allowing her prejudice against Darcy to help convince her that Wickham's falsehoods are true. She is distressed that she misjudged Darcy, because he is a man of good character and doesn't deserve to have been misjudged. Like I said, all the clues are there that Wickham is a lying git, and when Elizabeth reflects on the past, she sees that. She knows Darcy didn't deserve the way she treated him. She didn't have to like him, but she shouldn't have thought he was evil for keeping Wickham from earning a living. This is, I know, a higher sense of morality and honor than people hold themselves to in this degenerate age.

Except it doesn't read that way to me. Yes, she's frustrated that she listened to a bad source, but it goes too far into "Well, if Wickham is a jerk, then Darcy MUST be all that is good in this cold world." It doesn't work that way to me -- they are BOTH jerks.

Whether or not someone is a jerk is subjective, I know. But Darcy is a rude, catty, nasty, antisocial person who gets away with it by being incredibly rich. Austen tries to pull a fast one in the second half and make him a big woobie misunderstood pretty boy, but I'm not going to swallow that. No matter how stupid, banal, or annoying Lizzie's mom is, or Blandy McBlandperson's sisters or whatever, Darcy still gets off on being a jerk to people he perceives as his inferiors, and Lizzie totally excuses it because he's not a complete ass to his servants. WELL GIVE THAT MAN A MEDAL.

Originally Posted by MaggieScratch

I'm not a big Darcy fan for the first half of the book, either. My private nickname for him is Snarky McJerkpants. He comes around, though. His behavior from the time he encounters her at Pemberley is designed to make her like him ("showing you, by every civility in my power, that I was not so mean as to resent the past"). She already knows she misjudged him, so she is willing to start over.

Unfortunately the social mores of the time didn't really allow for that. The cultural perspectives help. As I said in my previous post, that's why we read great literature--to learn about other perspectives on the world. It also helps you to understand how fortunate we are in some ways to live when we live--though of course it's possible to overshare one's feelings!

Except Lizzie hasn't misjudged him at that point except on the issue of whether or not he wants in her pants. Er, dress. He IS a jerk. He DOES get off on being rude to her mother and to Blandy's friends and relations. He's not QUITE as bad as Wickham makes him out to be, but the fact that Wickham is lying does not make Darcy a good man. It's not binary.

Originally Posted by MaggieScratch

I honestly don't expect everyone to love Jane Austen's work. I like the results of the survey--most people are casual fans, which is probably as it should be. But it distressed me to see your expressed views as I felt they were a pretty serious misrepresentation of the plot. Perhaps you need to re-read the book--with more information, and having abandoned your prejudices; much like Elizabeth Bennet treated Mr. Darcy.

Nor do I except everyone to loathe the work. But you needn't lecture me about misconceptions on my personal interpretation of a book -- not when you keep seeing the "the girls want the boys to marry them and it's boring" posts as being some sort of accusation of gold digging. Some people have made that criticism about Jane Austen in the past, but it is not MY point -- obviously if the girls wanted the boys to marry them for money it would be a different book, but that doesn't change the fact that they DO want them to marry them.

How a person views a book is ultimately subjective -- I've seen this especially in character studies of Bella Swan. I won't call your interpretation of the book invalid, but you have to (I'm afraid) extend the same courtesy in return.