You know what I realize that people underestimate with Pride & Prejudice is the strategic importance of Jane.
Because like, I recently saw Charlotte and Elizabeth contrasted as the former being pragmatic and the latter holding out for a love match, because she's younger and prettier and thinks she can afford it, and that is very much not what's happening.
The Charlotte take is correct, but the Elizabeth is all wrong. Lizzie doesn't insist on a love match. That's serendipitous and rather unexpected. She wants, exactly as Mr. Bennet says, someone she can respect. Contempt won't do. Mr. Bennet puts it in weirdly sexist terms like he's trying to avoid acknowledging what he did to himself by marrying a self-absorbed idiot, but it's still true. That's what Elizabeth is shooting for: a marriage that won't make her unhappy.
She's grown up watching how miserable her parents make one another; she's not willing to sign up for a lifetime of being bitter and lonely in her own home.
I think she is very aware, in refusing Mr. Collins, that it's reasonably unlikely that anyone she actually respects is going to want her, with her few accomplishments and her lack of property. That she is turning down security and the chance keep the house she grew up in, and all she gets in return may be spinsterhood.
But, crucially, she has absolute faith in Jane.
The bit about teaching Jane's daughters to embroider badly? That's a joke, but it's also a serious potential life plan. Jane is the best creature in the world, and a beauty; there's no chance at all she won't get married to someone worthwhile.
(Bingley mucks this up by breaking Jane's heart, but her prospects remain reasonable if their mother would lay off!)
And if Elizabeth can't replicate that feat, then there's also no doubt in her mind that Jane will let her live in her house as a dependent as long as she likes, and never let it be made shameful or awful to be that impoverished spinster aunt. It will be okay never to be married at all, because she has her sister, whom she trusts absolutely to succeed and to protect her.
And if something eventually happens to Jane's family and they can't keep her anymore, she can throw herself upon the mercy of the Gardeners, who have money and like her very much, and are likewise good people. She has a support network--not a perfect or impregnable one, but it exists. It gives her realistic options.
Spinsterhood was a very dangerous choice; there are reasons you would go to considerable lengths not to risk it.
But Elizabeth has Jane, and her pride, and an understanding of what marrying someone who will make you miserable costs.
That's part of the thesis of the book, I would say! Recurring Austen thought. How important it is not to marry someone who will make you, specifically, unhappy.
She would rather be a dependent of people she likes and trusts than of someone she doesn't, even if the latter is formally considered more secure; she would rather live in a happy, reasonable household as an extra than be the mistress of her own home, but that home is full of Mr. Collins and her mother.
This is a calculation she's making consciously! She's not counting on a better marriage coming along. She just feels the most likely bad outcome from refusing Mr. Collins is still much better than the certain outcome of accepting him. Which is being stuck with Mr. Collins forever.
Elizabeth is also being pragmatic. Austen also endorses her choice, for the person she is and the concerns she has. She's just picking different trade-offs than Charlotte.
Elizabeth's flaw is not in her own priorities; she doesn't make a reckless choice and get lucky. But in being unable to accept that Charlotte's are different, and it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with Charlotte.
Because realistically, when your marriage is your whole family and career forever, and you only get to pick the ones that offer themselves to you, when you are legally bound to the status of dependent, you're always going to be making some trade-offs.
😂 Even the unrealistically ideal dream scenario of wealthy handsome clever ethical Mr. Darcy still asks you to undergo personal growth, accommodate someone else's communication style, and eat a little crow.
I hadn’t even thought about Jane being Lizzie’s fallback as an amplification to the anger at Darcy, but yes! I’m sure that “the happiness of a most beloved sister” is indeed foremost in her concerns on that - easily the most important thing - but I bet some subconscious anxiety is aggravating Lizzie’s anger here.
I feel like Austen fandom overcorrected with Charlotte some 15-20 years ago, and we're long overdue to pull back from it. Yes, Charlotte isn't being foolish or heedless in marrying Mr. Collins. She's making a calculated decision that she'd rather be the mistress of her own home (and eventually, of the estate of Longbourn) than a spinster daughter (and bear in mind, Charlotte's father's estate is substantial, and not entailed away; spinsterhood for her would be quite comfortable; the 2005 movie's "I'm a burden to my family" is pure invention).
But the book doesn't admire her for this decision. It accepts her calculation, but it - and Elizabeth - ultimately conclude that to have made that calculation says some less than complimentary things about Charlotte. As the poster above writes, Charlotte is more able to put up with being the wife of Mrs. Collins, and constantly at the beck and call of Lady Catherine and her daughter, whereas Elizabeth wouldn't last five minutes in that life. But the book is also clear on the point that this doesn't speak well of Charlotte. That this combination of self-effacement (because she's willing to kowtow to fundamentally worthless people) and arrogance (because she fundamentally doesn't care about them, and thus doesn't mind that they impose on her) is a pretty shitty way to be. If I'm not mistaken Elizabeth even observes that she and Charlotte can never be as close as they once were, now that she's gained a greater understanding of who her friend is and what she's willing to put up with for money.
i already argued with that addition myself but i like these tags
#i dont vibe with most of that last addition #because like. we dont know what plans her father had for his estate. its never mentioned that charlotte is the heiress. #it is mentioned that she has other siblings and its quite likely that she would be allowed to remain in the family home by her brothers #but can you imagine relying on the hospitality of a younger sibling and his eventual wife who could be any kind of person
#im not a Charlotte. i am a lizzie in that i cannot stand people being wrong or self important it gets under my skin #but in charlottes position? i could see myself taking a mr collins just to avoid the uncertainty of that hospitality #because it was not required that it be offered. her father could die and her brother marry someone who doesnt want her there #and they would have the right to ask her to leave (see sense and sensibility) and then she would have nothing
#also lizzies comment about 'can never be as close as we were' is not about what Charlotte is Willing to put up with for money #it is because lizzie (as jane points out at least once) cannot respect Charlotte having different priorities to her. #if my future depended on one of my siblings liking me enough to put me up forever i would hope to god it would be the youngest
#'the book is clear that this doesnt speak well of Charlotte' the book is clear that LIZZIE doesnt think well of Charlotte for her choice #Lizzie is repeatedly unreliable biased and prejudiced based entirely on vibes and what SHE would do in their position #its. like. a major theme of the book. by the end of the trip lizzie doesn't disparage Charlotte anymore even if she still doesnt get it #its the character development innit
that last bit in particular, like lizzie being overconfident in passing judgement and learning better is kind of vital to the narrative. just because she has a reaction doesn't mean that's meant to be the reader takeaway.
Yeah, in the end, when she is engaged to Mr. Darcy and Charlotte comes over because she 'really rejoiced in the match', Elizabeth finds a lot of plessure in her company.
Also, where is this line from, to teach Jane's daughters embroidery badly?
I think a key piece this conversation is missing are the letters Mr Bennet receives from Mr Collins. Remember the Mr. Collins writes to the Bennets advising them is disown Lydia, stating that her basic character must be bad. He wants them to leave Lydia destitute, possibly homeless and pregnant, because she's a silly 15 year old and hasn't had "proper" adult supervision. And then, when he writes to congratulate them on Jane's marriage, he says that Charlotte is pregnant. Did you just feel a chill? You should have.
This is not a man a woman would in charge of her or her children and even if he never has the opportunity to disown a child, this attitude will come through in many smaller ways in day to day life as Charlotte is trying to raise their kids. The bigger threat? She'll know it's there.
[Oh, and I think the bit about embroidery comes from one of the movies. Folks are mixing up the movies, where Lizzie does sometimes state she will only marry for love, with the books, where she very much does not say that]
Yeah I've been over that being from the '95, which I have not actually watched and was merely referencing for ease of comprehension as one does a popular meme, several times now. I did not expect this post to circulate.
But wrt Mr. Collins being a bad father...that's true, and it's the sort of thing the reader is very much intended to reflect on, but I think it's pretty irrelevant to 'whether Charlotte's decision was bad,' because just as with holding out for a man she actually liked or any of the other things very manifestly wrong with him, the odds of getting someone better were so low as to be basically zero.
Collins is not a monster. He is a very normal, unremarkable, lame self-absorbed sort of shithead. He would disown a child for disgrace but he's incredibly unlikely to beat his dependents in anger; he is indifferent to his wife's personhood but has no particular interest in meddling with her exercise of agency as long as his life isn't disrupted; he is boring and annoying and embarrassing but he will not use his absolute legal control over all their finances to bring ruin on them both. And so forth. He sucks, but considering the menu on offer he's fine.
He represents a median outcome of marriage for a woman without particular prospects, as would a man of somewhat better character and far less financial security.
He's a critique of the whole institution and the positions in which it tended to place the legally infantilized gentlewoman, but I think it's a terrible mistake to understand that as a critique of Charlotte Lucas for engaging with the flawed institution on the terms she felt were the best she was going to get.