What's the deal with Wickham and Colonel Fitzwilliam?

[314Jason]

Hi everyone, I'm writing a type of compare and contrast paper and stumbled upon comparing the first encounter between Elizabeth and Wickham and Elizabeth and Colonel Fitzwilliam.

The two characters are very similar in that they have a gentlemenlike appeal, they're good at initiating conversation (very agreeable), they're both interested in Elizabeth and they both lack fortune.

Elizabeth is or was partial to both of them at one point. After having met Colonel Fitzwilliam, she even compares him to George Wickham, her "former favourite."

I find these the similarities between the two guys very interesting. From my point of view, it shows the criteria she uses as a foundation for her affection. As in there are certain things she looks for (appeal, ability to converse, confidence) and certain things she looks over (money).

Especially in this quote:


"If gratitude and esteem are good foundations of affection, Elizabeth's change of sentiment will be neither improbable nor faulty. But if otherwise -- if the regard springing from such sources is unreasonable or unnatural, in comparison of what is so often described as arising on a first interview with its object, and even before two words have been exchanged -- nothing can be said in her defence, except that she had given somewhat of a trial to the latter method in her partiality for Wickham."

I'm not sure what it means exactly, but I think she realizes that her foundations for affection might not be a good judge of character.

Anyway, what do you guys think of Elizabeth's relationship with Wickham and Colonel Fitzwilliam? Is there a more important connection between the two, or a more profound reason to even compare them at all? Why are they so similar and what is the importance of Colonel Fitzwilliam's character (besides revealing Mr. Darcy's little schemes).

[cacian]

Firstly who needs a wickham when you can darcy?


The two characters are very similar in that they have a gentlemenlike appeal, they're good at initiating conversation (very agreeable), they're both interested in Elizabeth and they both lack fortune.
A 'genlemenlike apppeal' whatever that means it is not something one relies on to get on with another person like a house on fire.
Intiating conversation anyone can do that. It is not about initiations although it does if someone does not say much, it is about how one converse.
The rest is secondary.
There is no point in initiating anything if one is not going to respond appropriately.

Agreable? I mean the mona lisa painting is agreable. One could look at it all day but that does not mean they are going to see anything. There is no guarantee in looking or appearing to be. The guarantees are in the doing and evne that might be tricky at times.

Lacking a fortune or something is not a good comparison to match two people.
People get on not because of their backgrounds their wealths or their pockets they get on because of their personalities and what they have to say for themselves.
Not having money is just a fact of life and even that can alter so one does not rely on that.
One does not go with another because they are similaire or happen to share a lack of possession. One goes with another because they like each other's company.


Elizabeth is or was partial to both of them at one point. After having met Colonel Fitzwilliam, she even compares him to George Wickham, her "former favourite."

I have yet to base my feelings on favourites the reasons being that I keep favouritism for food something I am going to eat. I favour vanilla over chocolate but I prefer a person over another because one is more is chattier then the other. I favour no one because one might as well say I favour a married man to a none.
This cannot be.
I might 'do a favour' for somebody but it is usually because I want to not because I want to do a favour.



I find these the similarities between the two guys very interesting. From my point of view, it shows the criteria she uses as a foundation for her affection. As in there are certain things she looks for (appeal, ability to converse, confidence) and certain things she looks over (money).
Let's face it that is why a book is called a book because reality is anthing but a book.
I find this argument quite weak.
One cannot uses foundations for affections. It is not possible. Affections is a not a roof over ones head one is going to build.
Affections are feelings and feelings are volatile. I personally do not collect points and rewards in a diary about my affections. It is not a box of chocolate you can pick one whenever a mood takes you.
The fact that the character 'looks' for things in someone reminds of a tick box. It is hilarious and very milseading. This tells me that this character has not got a clue about what a person is what makes them tick and most of all she has no idea what feelings are.
If we all behaved like Elizabeth will all be walking around looking like zombies.
A person is not a machine and one does not go around chosing who they are going to like because it takes two to tango. The other must like you first.
The other side of this argument is that it is all well and good what this character looks for but what about the others and what they make of here when they meet her. Are they going to be thinking the same and doing the same?
The idea of wanting this and that and looking for this and that like in shop window and not taking into accounts what the others going to think their points of views and feelings is totally ridiculous.
Feelings and opinions are reciprocated. It isnot one person's choice over another. It is a two way situation.
Jane Austeen characters are one sided one dimentional. They function in their own little bubble of world dreams and wants.
A good writer will engage two characters to show how both think interat and get on.
It is not about class money and gender it is about intereactions and conversations.
This is how the world work and this how marriage works two people get together doing the work, the thinking, the feelings, to get to know each other and themselves.
One cannot fully know themselves totally until they have spend time and effort getting to know others. They tell what you do how you do it and whether you have done it right and you do the same. Until then one might say I know myself a little bit better.
I feel that this character arrogance is without substance.
It is accusative and demeaning of people because they have money. Prejudice is ignorance.
The whole character idea boils down to one thing and one thing only and that is this:
The character is prejudiced against the rich not because they are arrogant and cannot behave in a gentlemanlike manner but because the rich have what she has not got and that is money. What she cannot have she will blame and judge.
But then ironically and after all the insults the dislikes and the misjudgement she ends up marrying Darcy. It says it all.
The character is not all that after all.

That is my opinion on this book. I think I need to stop ranting haha:p
I really hope this does not deter you from liking the book.

[kiki1982]

Hmm, that's an interesting point.

The quote expresses the two approaches she has taken:

1. (between the hyphens) first impressions (based on the things you listed, also expressed in the conversaton between Lizzie and Jane after they've met Bingley for the first time at Meriton ball). A man needs to have 'easy manners', be handsome etc. and then you can get attached to him. Cue Wickham.
2. second impressions, attachment not because of easy manners or anything of the sort, but just because of esteem or respect.

She gave the first method a good trial, but it didn't work out. Her first impressions about Wickham were not really what he was, so she might as well go for the more boring, but slightly more secure way of doing things.

I am not sure where Colonel Fitzwilliam comes in. Maybe you could see him as a transition stage. She doesn't have to learn anything from Fitzwilliam, because he is not dishonourable, nor is he putting on an act (unlike Wickham). Maybe he is a little dishonest, because, as he has no money, he cannot be interested in Lizzie as she has nothing either. He should maybe not be associating with her. On the other hand, he didn't really seek her out, unlike Wickham. Possibly the 'connection' is more in her head than in reality, llke she totally mistakes Darcy in his feelings.
He can be a transitionary figure for her though, because as he is not dishonest, he forms a stage in between the dishonest Wickham who presents himself totally different to what he is and honest Darcy whom she can only value when she has left first impressions for what they are.
Colonel Fitzwilliam is still an easy-mannered man, handsome no doubt, but still honourable. He is an honourable Wickham and a Darcy (he has half Darcy's blood in him, after all) who makes a better impression, but is still an honest specimen.

[Jackson Richardson]

I can’t remember who the hell Colonel Fitzgerald is in terms of character. Either I’m dim or he is one of those character Jane includes for the sake of the plot but isn’t interested in characterising (Kitty Bennet, the Gardners, Julia Bertram).

I think Cacian totally misses the point about Jane Austen, and is only reacting to the clunky way in which she appears to be presented for the benefit of some students. Of course she’s aware of the financial and social context, (that’s one reason she is a genius) but they are only secondary to her presentation of individuals characters and their self deceptions, conveyed almost wholly in (often clichéd) dialogue and minimal domestic detais.

Lizzie is not a gold digger. She is appalled by Darcy on their first meeting not because he is rich, but because he is very, very rude. She turns down Mr Collins not because he is poor (he isn’t – he is her father’s heir) but because he is stupid. If she was mercenary, she would have accepted Mr Collins, then when her father died, she would be mistress of his house and able to control her mother.

[314Jason]

Thanks for your replies! I've given it some thought and felt like this topic might be futile, as in trying to make a topic from something that's not there.

I feel like all the characters in the book are two-dimensional, with the exception of Elizabeth (protagonist). Maybe because the narrator is speaking through Elizabeth's point of view, and people rarely see other people as three dimensional unless their opinions drastically change about that person.

But back to comparing Mr. Wickham and Colonel Fitzwilliam. If the focus wasn't on Elizabeth's preference for their similar qualities, then could something be taken from the statuses of the two men Elizabeth is envisions herself marrying?

What can you possibly get out of comparing these two relationships, help!

[Jackson Richardson]

I feel like all the characters in the book are two-dimensional, with the exception of Elizabeth (protagonist). Maybe because the narrator is speaking through Elizabeth's point of view, and people rarely see other people as three dimensional unless their opinions drastically change about that person.


I'd seriously disagree with you there, Jason, but I've got to leave home for a few nights soon so I don't have time to reply. The narrator is certainly not speaking through Elizabeth, because the whole point of the story is how Elizabeth sees herself to have been wrong.

Sorry, I can't help about Col F at the moment. If you're still here Monday, I'll have a look.

[kiki1982]

I don't think the statuses matter.

Lizzie says somewhere she doesn't care for money, but the point is that she would never have had a proposal from someone with zilch (if she would have accepted, she would have regretted it later). Simply because someone with zilch (as Wickham - if he had been serious at all - and Fitzwilliam) are after money, i.e. an heiress like Georgiana Darcy, not a penniless but clever and beautiful girl like Lizzie. Penniless and clever girls without titles are either for the rich fools who get swept off their feet or for the clergymen with good prospects.
So, no, I don't think Wickham or Fitzwilliam's statuses matter. They are both military men, however, and as today, military men have some kind of easy way with girls. Maybe it is the uniform (Wickham and Fitzwilliam would have worn it as a matter of course, if I am not mistaken, as Captain Wentworth would have worn his) or maybe it is the fact that these men are always involved with other men which makes them extremely up for it when they meet a woman. At any rate, they always go for it and as the military was one of the places in that age (and now too) where you could easily rise in the ranks if you were clever, independent from the class system (this was certainly so in the navy after one sea-battle that turned into a disaster purely because of the incompetence of the commanders, who were high class, but clueless nonetheless), a military man was a good catch, provided he could keep you at least. Soldiers also made money from looting, confiscating property etc. so they could get a fortune that way too. That is at least how Wentworth in Persuasion got his 25,000 pound fortune, from capturing enemy ships and selling the goods off.

Their status, then, is one that betrays they actually do not have anything, but may do in the future. Still, it is only when that future comes, that Lizzie can expect a proposal. In the meantime she would have had to look elsewhere.


I disagree that Lizzie found Darccy apalling because he was rude. I have the impression that Davies caught that aspect better, as Darcy's lacking manners (read 'sociability'), as opposed to Bingley's, could have been down to plain shyness. His sister is a quiet girl and he is a quiet man, not at ease in the company of a lot of strangers. It is only because in men this quality is/was not a virtue that he is seen as rude, but his sister is considered a dream of a girl. Lizzie and Darcy are of course both proud and mistaken in their views (which he also admits later), so, initially, he is disposed not to like anyone because all the mothers will want their daughter to be his wife as soon as they've heard how much he's got (everywhere he goes, naturally, there will have been wispers and looks as soon as he is announced 'Mr Darcy of Pemberley', how mortifying), and there is no-one remotely his match in the room anyway, in terms of money/noble status (preferably the last), these are the only things that really matter. So he is predisposed to find Lizzie at least nothing special because he's too proud to admit it. Lizzie, on her side, is predisposed not to like him, because, firstly everyone is in awe about his 10,000 a year (she does't want to be caught being in awe too, how unoriginal) and secondly, most of the audience have already proclaimed him rude and 'too proud' to engage in conversation, even before Liie has seen him. That is merely their interpretation, though. It is true, Darcy is a proud and conceited man (he admits that), but surely the fact he doesn't talk to people is not necessarily down to that. Lizzie takes that view too, though.

Both will see they are mistaken in the end, if only because Darcy tries his very hardest when the Gardiners and Lizzie unexpectedly turn up on his lawn. He totally goes for it then, because he knows it is his last chance. She's there for several days at least, he's made a bad impression, she still knows it, he is unlikely to see her ever again at social occasions (he's taken Bingley away, after all). If he can turn this bad impression into a good one, he's only got those few weeks to do it. Strike when the iron is hot: he's got her on the lawn, she can't escape, why not charm the pants off her uncle and aunt (local girls are always good to charm in the first place), He puts his shyness to one side and plays the charming host, maybe more at ease with two people he doesn't really know, and driven on by the woman he worships (at least aunt Gardiner recognises this instantly). It probably took the stuffing out of him (I speak from experience). So Lizzie sees she is mistaken, i.e. it wasn't his pride that moved him not to speak, but he's just bad in company where there are a lot of people he doesn't know. He hasn't got Bingley's fearlessness, so to speak.

As Austen's initial title proclaimed, it is about the wrong first impressions.


I feel like all the characters in the book are two-dimensional, with the exception of Elizabeth (protagonist). Maybe because the narrator is speaking through Elizabeth's point of view, and people rarely see other people as three dimensional unless their opinions drastically change about that person.


I'd seriously disagree with you there, Jason, but I've got to leave home for a few nights soon so I don't have time to reply. The narrator is certainly not speaking through Elizabeth, because the whole point of the story is how Elizabeth sees herself to have been wrong.

Characters are not two-dimensional, but I grant you they are seen through a biased pair of brown eyes (as Darcy would have said it).

The free indirect discourse Austen writes in implies that she writes in the third person about her character, that she appears to be an auctorial narrator, but she is in fact expressing her thoughts as a seemigly auctorial narrator in the vocabulary and way of speaking that her character Lizzie would have used. Therefore, Austen in fact expresses Lizzie's thoughts and views (sometimes shifts to the general public; if you read the novel aloud, you'll see what I mean), but she disguises it as an auctorial narrator.

Auctorial or 'all-knowing' narrators used to be the foremost kind of narrator used in early novels, mimcking the author who was telling the story (that's logical), until novellists like Richardson started experimenting with different viewpoints, although they were still moved by the 'all-knowing' thing and needed quirks to get other viewpoints in (letters in most cases). Somehow they were unable to deal with a one-sided view of things, which necessarily manifests itself if you take only the opinion of one character. Some stories had been written earlier in the 'I'-form (the first to crop up beside the auctorial form, I believe; the third person form was the last and now most used), like Defoe's novels, but they were supposed to depict 'the truth'.

I do have to disagree that, because of this, any other character would be two-dimensional. Despite some distortion, Austen still manages to criticise her characters' opinions and views. So even though she expresses P&P through Lizzie, she still puts in her own comments (like the quote in the original post) to balance things. There is also a lot to be got from the tiniest little things her characters say. One sentence may betray a whole character or they may contradict themselves later, which also says something about a character. They may only talk about money and status like Sir Thomas (?) (Charlotte's father), or be very wordy and pedantic (like Collins, wo almost slithers off the page), they may be incredibly annoying like Mrs Bennet or they may express their views on marriage and status like Charlotte. They are all stock characters, though, but not really two-dimensional, I don't think.

[314Jason]

Wow! Your insight on the status of military men is astounding. That explains why they're always generally eager to converse and charm, because that correlates to their intelligence and amiability, which, in the militia, can award fortune through the ranking system as opposed to class.

Also, I understand where you're coming from about Darcy, but it seems like Elizabeth "falls" for him just because he expressed his interest in her. Before he did, she misinterpreted his actions and made sure she is always dispising him. But after he'd expressed his interest, she began seeing him like less of a threat and allows herself to see the other sides of his personality (mainly helping her family, telling the truth). So arguably, Elizabeth's foundation for affection to Mr. Darcy is based on his interest in her. Maybe she's intimidated by his status, his fortune? She seems to converse much more easily, or at least be more at ease with people of her own "rank".

What do you guys think?

[cacian]

I can’t remember who the hell Colonel Fitzgerald is in terms of character. Either I’m dim or he is one of those character Jane includes for the sake of the plot but isn’t interested in characterising (Kitty Bennet, the Gardners, Julia Bertram).

The same here I cannot remember who he is either.



I think Cacian totally misses the point about Jane Austen, and is only reacting to the clunky way in which she appears to be presented for the benefit of some students. Of course she’s aware of the financial and social context, (that’s one reason she is a genius) but they are only secondary to her presentation of individuals characters and their self deceptions, conveyed almost wholly in (often clichéd) dialogue and minimal domestic detais.

Lizzie is not a gold digger. She is appalled by Darcy on their first meeting not because he is rich, but because he is very, very rude. She turns down Mr Collins not because he is poor (he isn’t – he is her father’s heir) but because he is stupid. If she was mercenary, she would have accepted Mr Collins, then when her father died, she would be mistress of his house and able to control her mother.

Lizzie is not a gold digger is besides the point.
I do not know about being appauled towards Darcy but more 'hurt' that he rejected her. Her vanity was not chuffed perhaps.
She however turned down Mr Collins not because he is stupid because that is too obvious the be the point.
Jane Austen feels the need to present characters whom the MC rejects on the ground of weaknesses such as stupidity or dullness and looks. I find this side of Jane of Austen rather weak and dellusional.
Most of the characters in her books come across as either stuck up because they have money or stupid apart from the MCs that is.
In on of her stories she even manages to show the mc's mother as stupid and the father as clever and the sisters frivolous and thoughteless.
We all know that reality is not such.
Not all rich upper class people are stuck up and not all society's middle to working classes ere either stupid or ignorant.
It is rather obvious from Jane Austen writing that she did have a clue about what a general society was all about. She should have gone out a bit more into the real world and seen the real life from her fictious stories.

People in life do not fail they are not good looking or not very bright but because their personalities do not match. So Lizzie turns Mr Collin down because she has not feeling for him and he is totally not her type. He would not be considering his age interest and whatever he does.
I find the whole Jane Austen books rather a big stereotypes a pack of lies about what English Victorian society as a whole.
It gives the wrong impressions and sets out to put people down on the ground of their class and not personalites.
It does get a bit boring after a while.
That is my point.

[hillwalker]

I find the whole Jane Austen books rather a big stereotypes a pack of lies about what English Victorian society as a whole.

Not surprising really since Victoria didn't come to the throne until about 20 years after Austen died.

H

[Gladys]

I can’t remember who the hell Colonel Fitzgerald is in terms of character.

Perhaps your stereotypical gentleman from English Victorian society?

[kiki1982]

Wow! Your insight on the status of military men is astounding. That explains why they're always generally eager to converse and charm, because that correlates to their intelligence and amiability, which, in the militia, can award fortune through the ranking system as opposed to class.

Also, I understand where you're coming from about Darcy, but it seems like Elizabeth "falls" for him just because he expressed his interest in her. Before he did, she misinterpreted his actions and made sure she is always dispising him. But after he'd expressed his interest, she began seeing him like less of a threat and allows herself to see the other sides of his personality (mainly helping her family, telling the truth). So arguably, Elizabeth's foundation for affection to Mr. Darcy is based on his interest in her. Maybe she's intimidated by his status, his fortune? She seems to converse much more easily, or at least be more at ease with people of her own "rank".

What do you guys think?

Beside which, of course, soldiers have always been a bit raucous when they are together. Even now. Not sure why this is, maybe because they are practically reliant on each other in wars, they are also formidable when they go out together...

That's an interesting point about Lizzie...

The thing is, that in all likelihood, his approaching presence would have been whispered about in the village/town. When Austen starts her book with that famous quote, she doesn't only mean Bingley. Of course, he is the one who has come to take the Netherfield estate and of course he is the first object to go and visit for any father with unmarried daughters in the neighbourhood.

This is why Mrs Bennet starts shouting at Mr Bennet. The thing was that one could not greet another without being acquainted. I.e. Mrs Bennet and her daughters mainly (they are of the opposite sex, after all) cannot get acquainted with Mr Bingley, a possible target :D, without being introduced.
How to introduce oneself? Mr Bennet and any established middle class man in the neighbourhood, like Sir Thomas, would have gone 'calling' in the morning with a card for about half an hour to introduce himself. Then he would have invited Mr Bingley over to have some tea or for a morning call to introduce him to his wife and family. With women, it was the woman who did it, though not for married women. Husbands came first. Before Mr Bennet has gone to Mr Bingley on a polite visit and is therefore on 'hello'-terms, Mrs Bennet could have no access to Mr Bingley. That is why she wishes her husband to be the very first. Her daughters, then, will be the very first to be introduced and therefore the very first choice, indeed. :D It's all about access.

For Darcy there would have been a similar rush. If Mr Bingley was something with 5,000 a year, Mr Darcy is the one to catch. He's like a prized stallion. Everyone wants him for what he's got. Initially.
Although, you see, any man of that status (fortune + unmarried) must have been aware and uncomfortable that he would have been looked at and 'targetted' purely because he was there. That's kind of sad. As soon as he is announced in the hall (they still do this now at balls, 'Mr Darcy of Pemberley'), the crowds look and fall silent. '*Gasp* there is the man with his ten thousand a year. How does he looks like? Hmm, a little fat, nice cheek bones, hmmm, nice hair, and a good nose.' (thing Lavater)

I think, coming from where you are, Lizzie kind of feels that all this is ridiculous. If you see the opening sentence as part of the free indirect discourse, she critcises this targetting and feels Bingley's money has nothing to do with it. Indeed, Darcy's money has little to do with it. Otherwise, she would have accepted him from the first, after all, although she regrets her reection afterwards (why would she be crying otherwise?).

As he is a prize stallion, though, there would have been some awe in everyone. *Gasp*, ten thousand a year! He's a bit as if we were to meet a Prince William. In today's money, his income (around 10% of his fortune) is about £500,000 a year. And maybe, depending on the entailment, he stands to inherit some Rosings as well (not sure). But Lizzie is disposed not to be in awe. He's just a person, after all, like her. And she will not, will not, swoon. I don't know whether she absolutely wants to despise him. I believe, if I remember well after 3 years, that when they arrive at the Meriton ball, people are already whispering the fact that 'he is too proud to talk to anyone'. They have been observing him and as he is not acquainted with anyone, he can't really do what he needs to do (Bingley is freer in this respect as he has been visited by a lot of neighbours by now). As he is shy, though, he is not even comfortable talking to the men he is acquainted with. I don't think Lizzie sees for herself first and makes her judgment by herself. Darvcy later backs up the rumours that he is a pr*ck by not wanting to dance with her (probably not daring to ask), even declining Bingley's introduction which was the only way to get acquainted and to be able to dance with her. He was not allowed to ask unless he had been introduced by an acquaintance, i.e. Bingley. The second time it is slightly inapropriate Sir Thomas who subects him to an introduction to Lizzie. It will still be a while before he asks her. Lizzie's impression and judgment of Mr Darcy is only down to the rumours and to that one sentence she overheard, which essentially hurt her pride more than anything else, because she was known to be a great beauty (if not the greatest) in her town. Mortifying to anyone.

I think the turning point where she starts to consider him as less than obnoxious and proud is when he proposes and she rejects. Admittedly his proposal is not really nice ('I didn't like you at first and I am going to throw my status away partly by associating with your lowly connections, but I am prepared to make that sacrifice because I love you. I am sure you are grateful for this and you will rejoice and accept my hand in manrriage. Naturally.'), but she still cries afterwards. Why? Because of the millions she threw away, or because she has started to see that the nasty, selfish (acc. to Wickham), proud and aloof man is in fact a soft misinterpreted egg? I.e. is she mortified at the pecuniary loss or at her own mistake? and did she reject him because she doesn't like him or because she is to proud to accept him? The letter he writes to her during the night to clear up the case with Wickham seals the deal: she has allowed herself to be led astray in her (self-prized) judgment by rumours and has totally misinterpreted a man who is really very tender and loving.
If she had started to value him just because he expressed interest, she would have accepted him straight away, but she did not.

To me, their relationship and the novel is as much about her own pride in her (faulty) judgment of people as about what things you hear can do to someone in your eyes.


Jane Austen feels the need to present characters whom the MC rejects not on the ground of weaknesses such as stupidity or dullness and looks. I find this side of Jane of Austen rather weak and dellusional.
Most of the characters in her books come across as either stuck up because they have or stupid apart from the MCs that is.
In on of her stories she even manages to show the mc's mother as stupid and the father as clever and the sisters frivolous and thoughteless.
We all know that reality is not such.
Not all rich upper class people are stuck up and not all society's middle to working classes ere either stupid or ignorant.
It is rather obvious from Jane Austen writing that she did have a clue about what a general society was all about. She should have gone out a bit more into the real world and seen the real life from her fictious stories.

To clear up the problem with Colonel Fitzwilliam: he is Darcy's cousin Lizzie meets at Rosings when she is visiting Charlotte Lucas who has turned Mrs Collins. If my recollection is right, he is somewhat of a help in defining Darcy not as haughty and aloof, but for the man he is. Quite surprising for Lizzie.
I do wonder what we are doing here if we can't remember that.

As to the rest:
Austen writes satires, so of course her characters will be caricatures. Austen never meant to represent deep characters, although she does manage to make them more than two-dimensional.
If you knew a little about the society she moved in, which was much more restricted than ours, you would know that her interpretation of it was not much diferent than the reality, although it is a little more focused on laughing at the ridicule of it all. Looks and money/class was really what things were about. If you cannot be as free as to walk up to someone and talk to them because that is not how things work, you need to rely on your looks and your appearance to do things for you. Personality is not much of an asset if you depend on chaperones to guard you and your fiancée when you are talking of private things. That is when you are already engaged to be married. Not before.
Austen did see quite a bit of her society in Bath to be well acquainted with the strategic scenes in its assemby rooms. Even during the Victorian period, Trollope compred the whole courting things as a strategic battle.
Things did not really get any looser when Victoria came on the throne in 1837 (that is still indeed at least about 20 years from when Austen wrote her novels, even 30 years in some cases). At any rate, Austen was long deceased by then.

The point is that you did not have any control over whom you met and what you did with them: 1. you had to be introduced by a common acquaintance; Catherine Morland in NA has a stroke of luck that she is introduced to charming-the-pants-off-you Tilney; 2. if you went your separate ways, you could not converse with anyone of the opposite sex unless you were engaged; 3. you could not talk about anything important, because women were not supposed to be intelligent and private conversation was well-nigh impossible, because you were never alone. The dance floor was about the only place to be able to talk 'in private' and was about as close as you could ever come to a person of the opposite sex you were not married to; 4. things were mainly based on the outer side of things, what you knew about them would be from rumour alone because it was indiscrete and improper to ask probing questions or to spread nasty stories (see the revelations about Mr Elliot in Persuasion by Mrs Smith). WHat Wickham does is frankly disgusting.

[Jackson Richardson]

I find the whole Jane Austen books rather a big stereotypes a pack of lies about what English Victorian society as a whole.

That is my point.

Since Jane Austen died twenty years before the accession of Queen Victoria, it would be rather surprising if she had any insight into society at that period.

[Jackson Richardson]

Auctorial or 'all-knowing' narrators used to be the foremost kind of narrator used in early novels, mimcking the author who was telling the story (that's logical), until novellists like Richardson started experimenting with different viewpoints...
Some stories had been written earlier in the 'I'-form (the first to crop up beside the auctorial form, I believe; the third person form was the last and now most used), like Defoe's novels,

Kiki is so good on Austen that I don’t want to contradict her. But I had the impression that the first person narrative was the standard form of what we now call the novel, and Austen certainly wrote in that form (and sent it up mercilessly) in her youth. The earliest third person, omniscient narrator, well known novel I can think of is Fielding’s Tom Jones, and the third person narration is used there because it is parodying of epic convention. Defoe, Behn, Smollet, Richardson, even Sterne – all first person narratives.



I do have to disagree that, because of this, any other character would be two-dimensional.
One sentence may betray a whole character or they may contradict themselves later, which also says something about a character.

Quite.

[Jackson Richardson]

Back to jason's question.

I've looked up the book, and at the first encounter, we are not given details of their conversation. In the next chapter, there's a three way conversation between Lizzie, Darcy and Fitzwilliam, in which he is used by the other two as a means of indirect communication.

I imagine things are so tense at Hunsford for Lizzie (given what's happened between her and Charlotte and Darcy, let alone the awfulness of Lady Catherine and Mr Collins) that it is a relief to find someone to talk to with whom she can relax. Sex appeal and potential husband material are irrelevant.

Sorry, I'm not being very helpful.

[kiki1982]

Kiki is so good on Austen that I don’t want to contradict her. But I had the impression that the first person narrative was the standard form of what we now call the novel, and Austen certainly wrote in that form (and sent it up mercilessly) in her youth. The earliest third person, omniscient narrator, well known novel I can think of is Fielding’s Tom Jones, and the third person narration is used there because it is parodying of epic convention. Defoe, Behn, Smollet, Richardson, even Sterne – all first person narratives.


Haha, I thank you for the compliment, but I wasn't fishing or anything ;).

I was under the other impression, as you see. ;)

I know that's what it seems like, but do not forget that early fictional works like Swift, Defoe (I've only read Moll Flanders, but I expect the remainder is about the same format), Richardson, etc. provide a frame story (i.e. the editor has found an amount of letters that looked interesting, the editor feels it his duty to tell this story for the good of man, etc.) with an auctorial narrator. Then, in order to facilitate a deeper characterisation (which early novellists searched for, they were looking for teh human side of things, not for the story itself), they leave the frame story to delve into a person's mind via the 'I' persp/ective, which is the most obvious. The mosst elaborate and extreme cases are Richardson's two enormous works Clarissa adn Pamela, but Moll Flanders and Robinson Crusoeare also good examples of this.

Still, a Jane Eyre 'I' perspective is different from a Moll Flanders 'I' in that JE is written by a narrator in that perspective with the express aim of telling an all-encompassing story, while Moll tells her own life, but has been 'edited' by an editor. So she only tells those bits important for humanity, not anything that happens like Miss Eyre. Some of the bits Moll leaves out are quite fundamental. Miss Eyre on the other hand, describes even the hay making which is not really important to her story.
AN auctorial narrator also typically comments on the events he is telling, comments which may differ from the main character's thoughts.

Looking at something like Waverley by Scott from 1814, it is written in a different perspective than Austen. There is a narrator who tells what happens to one Edward Waverley, sometimes tells the reader about his feelings, but he never describes what happens from Waverley's perspective. The auctorial narrator hovers over the story, as it were, and flits over to any object that is interesting for his story.
Austen sometimes shifts out of her free indirect discourse (that's what she's famous for), mainly at the end when she's tying up all the loose ends, but most of the time she retains it. The story rarely leaves her heroine, precisely for that reason. You cannot tell a story from someone's perspective if that person isn't there. Waverley at some point is left for what he is, I think when he is in prison, or something.

The problem the early novellists had was that they werre used to telling a story like a child, essentially: "And then this, and then that, and this happened and then that." The I-perspective was not enough. WHen they started to experiment, like Richardson, they found that what Clarissa Harlowe is telling (what she knows, which is grievously little, poor girl) so they included other I-perspectives in order to 'fill up' the whole auctorial picture. So the reader knows more than the character. It's quite nerve-wracking, really. A bit the same feel as Natuarlism will give you 150 years later. Eventually they got used to this, maybe because if shifts in how they considered human beings as well. Not sure. Or maybe because they found other ways to 'expose' characters through other characters' eyes, at which Austen took a good attempt. It is not complete yet, but it's a good try.

Shockingly, I have not read Tom Jones yet. I'll have to crack on.

[Jackson Richardson]

Jason - I hope you haven't been put off by our tangential discussions. and you managed your assignment. Do let us know how it went.

[kiki1982]

Actually, come to think of it, Ian Hislop's documentary got me thinking about this thing with Wickham and Fitzwilliam v Darcy.

Hislop's documentary is about the quintessentially British 'stiff upper lip'. This was only an early 19th century invention. Apparently the British were pretty effeminate in Shakespeare's day (according to Belgian/Flemish historian-author Erasmus). Kisses everywhere, apparently. Men too. Cue Lord Percy in Blackadder.

Anyway, Admiral Horatio Nelson was also pretty effminate, in our perception at least, and very emotional. The cult of sensibility, so nicely embodied in Marianne in S&S, had very much taken hold.

Now, when Nelson died, he asked his captain, a Mr Hardy, to 'kiss him'. The Victorians were so appalled they argued he had been rambling in Turkish, meaning in fact 'faith' instead of 'kiss me, Hardy'.

Hislop emmphasised the connection between the perception of Nelson as the Hero of the Napoleonic Wars before the Duke of Wellington. Hysterical crowds burst into the bulding of the Admiralty in Greenwich to greet his coffin. Hundreds of thousands of people also came to Wellington's funeral, but in contrast to the total hysteria surrounding Nelson's death (perfume bottles, plates, portraits, etc.) the crowds just watched in silence, which is pretty surprising. So much so that even Queen Victoria was astonished about it.

Austen later, in her unfinished novel, apparently features one budding businessman who has called his sea-side hostel the 'Trafalgar' (emohasising the craze for Nelson). Whereas he later regrets not calling it the 'Waterloo'.
The craze for sensibility Europe-wide (starting in Germany) was apparently viewed across the Channel on the British island as dangerous by the time the French Revolution erupted. Order must be restored. Hysteria leads to chaos and look what happened in Paris with the Bastille state prison. So, figures like Wellington decided consciously to do away with any outward emotion whatsoever (although they still felt it; hence why he threw his violin away, you can see what the violin means to Sherlock Holmes some 100 years later).

Austen writes on the cusp of this change, relfected in the regret of the businessman about his hostel: by 1817, when she was writing her last novel, Wellington had taken over as the epitomy of the British man probably, and had eclipsed Nelson.

Anyway, so my point being: at the time when Lizzie faces Wickham and Fitzwilliam, the ideal is still a Nelson: pouring out your feelings etc. You shouldn't become hysterical, but a very reserved person like Darcy comes across as cold and utterly devoid of feeling. A point Jane and Lizzie make together when talking about Bingley.
Darcy will only make Lizzie realise he does have some feeling in him when he does his best there when the Gardiners turn up suddenly at Pemberley.
In that, the symbolic description of the Pemberley grounds as a nice English landscape (read: him as his physical appearance, with goood features as an effect of good breeding), cut through by a river (read: his inner emotions) and the interior of the house (again, what he is inside) evoke the shock Lizzie feels at beholding that, wow, the man has got it in him! She had probably exected it to be a barren landscape, unfertile and undecorated whatsoever.
Wickham and Fitzwilliam come across as better people, though the first one is definitely not, because they are open and more mainstream men who answer to the image of Nelson. Darcy not so.

Now I am reminiscing about this aspect, I can see the issue returning in Sense and Sensibility in Colonel Brandon who must be utterly past love, according to Marianne Dashwood :rolleyes:; in Persuasion where Wentworth is practically accused of having forgotten Anne Elliot; Fanny Price in Mansfield Park is regularly mistaken for just a friend and just about feelingless, pretty much like Elenor in S&S too; Jane Fairfax and someone else (big spoiler here, so I won't say) who use this convention in misleading the rest of their community; General Tilney who seems so cold he coul dhave murdered his wife in the imagination of Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey.

Although, then, the thing came up that in Austen's work, those who pour out their feelings are dishonest. I do not really agree. There are such people - mainly thinking of Isabella Thorpe in Northanger Abbey and Wickham, naturally - but others, like Colonel Fitzwilliam and Eleanor Tilney and her brother are not dishonest but I suppose it's rather people in Austen's work who directly go the whole hog who get the stick afterwards. Such people, even nowadays, are mostly short-term phenomenons and are not worth investing your energy into.

So, if you had to pair up Fitzwilliam and Wickham, you could put them together in the idea of what a human being should be v Darcy who does not answer to that image completely. If you had to find differences, you would be able to go with the fact that Wickham is too eager to say certain things which Fitzwilliam is not, i.e. Wickham is too fast so dishonest where Fitzwilliam is moderate so honest. Darcy says nothing, so is empty.

[Jackson Richardson]

I've just re-read the book for my own enjoyment and noticed the two long conversations in question.

The main difference is sex appeal.

That with Col Fitzwilliam is basically a plot device in order to give Elizabeth more ammunition when she rejects Darcy's proposal of marriage in the next chapter. She has no particular attraction to him (other than in my last post), he does not appear further in the novel and his character is hardly sketched.

By contrast in Elizabeth's long conversation with Wickham in which he gives his dishonest account of Darcy, she finds him extremely sexy - "he had never looked so handsome" as when he puts in a particularly shameless hard luck story.

I wonder how many first time readers would see through Wickham any more than Elizabeth?

[kiki1982]

As to your point 'how many first-time readers would see through Wickham', I think that's quite a potent one.

I think contemporary first-time readers would have started to see through him from the moment Darcy refused to greet him. I'm not sure, I think that occurs after Lizzie has learned that they know each other. Darcy not ackowledging Wickham as an acquaintance is extremely disturbing, even offensive to some extent. Lizzie also notes that. As Darcy is a man of wealth, standing and honour, he naturally knows how to behave. It would not have popped into his head to not greet Wickham on a whim. I.e. there must be a substancial reason why he does not bow to him, a matter of a gentleman's honour. Pretty scary stuff.

Then it only becomes worse when Wickham starts talking about Darcy. One did not reveal such things about another in those days. Hence why Darcy does not do that about Wickham, although he would be more entitled to (he does not even really have to mention his sister in this either). The least that happens to Wickham in the eyes of contemporary first-time readers is that he comes across as dishonorable and devoid of propriety in some way, which is pretty severe.

As to modern first-time readers, I think they would probably not notice if they didn't know the conventions from back then.

Saying that, when I read it first, I had already seen Lost in Austen where Wickham was rudely pushed aside by a character who had read the book several times and warned to stay away from Lydia (don't ask, just watch ;)). Later he is redeemed (unlike in the original), but of course that spoilt the effect for me a little. The conclusion was that something was up with Wickham. I do have to say that he made a fairly good impression on me. I would not be so fooled anymore now, though...

[Jackson Richardson]

Just as a footnote, Col Fitzwilliam as the younger son of an earl is strictly speaking the Honourable Col Fitzwilliam. (It is a quirk of the English orders of nobility that whereas younger sons of earls are Honourable, their sisters are Lady Diana Spencer or Lady Anne Darcy. They maintain that rank and title if they marry below them, as Lady Catherine and her sister have.)

Now I can't think of a single character in Jane Austen with an hereditary title whom she respects. (Lady Russell in Persuasion has a title in virtue of her husband being a knight - it is not hereditary. Sir Thomas Bertram is a baronet - a hereditary title - and although redeemed in our eyes, has obvious shortcoming.)

Col Fitzwilliam is never referred to by his full hereditary title and I can't help wonder if that's because Jane wants us to see him as a good guy.

I'm quite embarrassed that I'm so on the ball with all this snobbish stuff.