Chapter 1-12

I love this book. So. Much. It is, truly, my favorite book of all time. I’m reminded of that every time I pick it up to read again. It is so smart and funny and biting and romantic. If you haven’t read it before, pick it up. If you have, read it again. You will not be disappointed.

Pride and Prejudice has one of the most famous opening lines in all of literature. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a great fortune, must be in want of a wife.” I’d like to combine that with the second line, “However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighborhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.” I love the opening line. And I love the combination of the two opening lines as they convey all you need to know about this story. Yes, it is about daughters being married to rich husbands, but it’s not as simple as all that. The satire of these lines gives more depth to them. Allows for us as readers to understand that there will be depth to this story beyond a silly mother doing all she can to marry off her five daughters.

We open with Mrs. Bennet in a tizzy because rich Mr. Bingley has let Netherfield Park. But she and her daughters (Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia), will be unable to engage with him – or become engaged to him – until Mr. Bennet calls on him first. Never fear, he shortly makes the connection, opening the door for the sisters to meet him at the next ball. He does not attend the ball alone. He brings his two sisters (one married, one not), his brother-in-law, and his particular friend, Mr. Darcy. Mr. Bingley may have $5,000 a year, but Mr. Darcy has $10,000. However, all this wealth isn’t enough to make up for Darcy being the “proudest, most disagreeable man in the world.” Mr. Bingley is a golden retriever, Mr. Darcy, a black cat. Try as Bingley might, he can’t get Darcy to dance. Bingley suggests Elizabeth, as her sister Jane has caught his eye, but is quickly rebuffed by Darcy: “She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me.” (Emphasis Austen’s.) Little does he know, Elizabeth overheard their entire conversation.

Over the next several pages, we see the ball discussed between Elizabeth and Jane, the Bingley’s and Darcy, and the Bennets and Lucases (neighbors of the Bennets outside of Meryton). I love these juxtapositions. Lizzy and Jane discuss the ball primarily in terms of Mr. Bingley and his companions. Jane is quite taken with him already, and Lizzy pokes fun, as is her character. Jane speaks of Bingley as, “sensible, good humoured, lively; and I never saw such happy manners! – so much at ease, with such perfect good breeding!” Lizzy: “He is also handsome, which a young man ought likewise to be if he possibly can. His character is therefore complete.” Lizzy also observes the Bingley sisters to be handsome, but proud, conceited, and lacking good humor. Jane, unable to see anything but the good in others, brushes her off. The glimpse we see into the Darcy/Bingley debrief only confirms Lizzy’s observations. Bingley had never met such agreeable people in all his life, and Miss Bennet (Jane) was an angel. The sisters and Darcy had “seen a collection of people in whom there was little beauty and no fashion.” Although, they do acknowledge the prettiness of Jane.

When the Bennets and Lucases meet, word has spread of Darcy’s aloofness and his rebuff of Lizzy. And while Lizzy is met with sympathy, she first laughs it off. But later states she could “easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.” She then asserts she can safely promise to never dance with him. I believe Lizzy is burying her true feelings between her two more humorous responses. Throughout the book, humor is her defense mechanism. She puts up a good front of not caring what other people think, but can’t quite hide her true feelings all the time.

Elizabeth and Charlotte Lucas are particularly close, however different their views on happiness and marriage may be. In fact, Charlotte is one of the few characters who can call Lizzy out when she is trying to hide behind her mask of indifference and derision. In this conversation between the two friends, Elizabeth is sure of Bingley’s affections for Jane, as they are evident upon every meeting between the two. She is also sure of Jane’s affections and proud of her ability to keep from letting them be on full display for all of Meryton. Charlotte points out that in “nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels. Bingley likes your sister undoubtedly; but he may never do more than like her, if she does not help him along.” What an age-old conundrum. Can’t show too much interest in the object of our affections because, what if they don’t return them? We’d be ridiculed by them and all those astute enough to observe how we felt. Yet, if we don’t know enough interest, “very few…have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement.”

All parties meet again at another party, Bingley proving just as enamored with Jane as he was previously. And, just as Darcy has convinced himself and his friends that he found nothing agreeable in Miss Elizabeth Bennet, he begins to admire her dark eyes.

The Bingley sisters invite Jane to lunch with them at Netherfield. As the gentlemen will be dining out and it looks like rain, Mrs. Bennet insists Jane goes on horseback – as she would then find herself stranded there, increasing the likelihood of another interaction with Mr. Bingley. She does indeed become stranded at Netherfield, but she also falls ill. “Well,” says Mr. Bennet, “if [Jane]…should die, it would be a comfort to know that it was all in pursuit of Mr. Bingley…” Elizabeth walks – how scandalous! – to Netherfield to check on her sister and finds her much sicker than Jane’s note indicated. On seeing Jane’s reluctance to let Lizzy go home, Miss Caroline Bingley has no choice but to extend an offer to Elizabeth to stay at Netherfield with her sister.

Over the course of the sister’s stay at Netherfield, we see Mr. Bingley become even more enamored with Jane and Mr. Darcy with Elizabeth. Miss Bingley picks up rather quickly on Darcy’s preference for Elizabeth. Her jealously manifests as disparaging remarks toward Elizabeth, Jane, the Bennets, and the country community in which their party is staying, as frequently as possible in her conversations with Mr. Darcy. Yet, he is wholly unaffected. In fact, it has rather the opposite effect. Drawing his attention toward Elizabeth more frequently and giving more opportunities for him to engage with her in conversation. Although, verbal sparring matches may be a more accurate term. The stay at Netherfield is one of my favorite parts of the book. I feel like those who aren’t as familiar with fiction from this time period get the idea that it is all stuffy, old language, proper to a fault. These pages are anything but. We get some strong opposing positions between characters, which lead to pretty passionate arguments. We also get a rather risqué and out of character (for what we know of him) comment from Mr. Darcy about admiring Miss. Bingley and Elizabeth’s figures – said in front of everyone!

After almost a week, one rather embarrassing visit to Netherfield from Mrs. Bennet and her three youngest daughters, and a debate on what qualifies a woman as accomplished, Jane is finally well enough to go home. The news is welcome to Darcy as Elizabeth “attracted him more than he liked – and Miss Bingley was uncivil to her, and more teasing than usual to himself.” (Gee, I wonder why, Darcy…?) He succeeds in letting no inkling of his admiration out on her last day there – he scarcely speaks ten words to her and even though they are left alone for half-an-hour, he never looks up from his book.

I’ll leave you this week with a few of my favorite quotes from these chapters:

Mrs. Bennet on Darcy after he slights Lizzy, “Lizzy does not lose much by not suiting his fancy; for he is a most disagreeable, horrid man, not at all worth pleasing. So high and so conceited that there was no enduring him!” And later, “…it would be quite a misfortune to be liked by him.”

Charlotte Lucas: “Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance… It is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life.”

Mr. Darcy: “A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment.”

Miss Bingley, in an attempt to slight Lizzy: “She is a great reader, and has no pleasure in anything else.”

Elizabeth: “I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!”
Darcy: “I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love.”
Elizabeth: “Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may…But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.”

“Darcy had never been bewitched by any woman as he was by her. He really believed, that were it not for the inferiority of her connections, he should be in some danger.”

Mr. Darcy: “My good opinion once lost, is lost forever.”