Fitzwilliam Darcy: Jane Austen’s Appealing Romantic Hero in Pride and Prejudice

Section D: 409110206 Daphne Lin

Introduction

Analysis

Methodology

Outline

01

04

02

Research Questions

& Literature Review

Conclusion

05

Works Cited

03

06

Motivation and Thesis Statement

Restate My Thesis Statement

Introduction

01

Motivation and Thesis Statement

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife” (1).

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Introduction

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• Pride and Prejudice, the second novel of Jane Austen published in 1813
• Adapted television programs and movies such as:
• Pride and Prejudice (1995 British television drama)
• Bridget Jones’s Diary in 2001

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Motivation

• My love for Pride and Prejudice
• Potter’s online article on The Guardian:

“According to a recent poll conducted by the Orange Prize for Fiction, 1,900 women across the generations voted for Mr. Darcy as the man they would most like to go on a date with.”

➔ Why?

• While many professionals praise Elizabeth for her rebellion and intelligence, they seldom discuss Darcy or why he is attractive for readers as a Romantic hero.

Thesis Statement

In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen uses plot, dialogue and characterization to portray Fitzwilliam Darcy as an appealing Romantic hero by drawing attention to

1. his good morals and sense of social responsibility,
2. his evolution by which he modifies his Romantic hero flaws for love,
3. his marriage to Elizabeth that is based on equality and genuine admiration.

Research Questions & Literature Review

02

Q1:

How does Jane Austen use plot and dialogue in Pride and Prejudice to show that Mr. Darcy values the social responsibilities of a rich gentleman and the good morals of other people?

In Reading Jane Austen, Scheuermann argues that

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• During Jane Austen’s era , good order and being kind to poor people are signs of morality and the social responsibilities of rich men.
• Darcy is moral as a friend to Bingley while he attempts to protect his friend from a bad marriage.
• He is moral throughout the chaos caused by Wickham.

Q2:

How does Jane Austen use plot and dialogue in Pride and Prejudice to portray Mr. Darcy as a Byronic hero who shows imperfect and weak personality, and which he then modifies those defects to become a compatible lover for Elizabeth?

In “Jane Austen’s Byronic Heroes II: Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice,” Wootton argues that

• “The socially awkward hero of Pride and Prejudice can be readily compared to the Romantic heroes of the Oriental Tales with their ‘haughty gesture[s]’” (Wootton 78).

➔ Pride and “will to power”: traits of Byronic heroes

• “For the reader to accept Darcy as a partner for Elizabeth, Austen must rehumanise and reform the aristocratic hero” (Wootton 81).
• Darcy learns how to be kind, perform civility and integrate into the community for Elizabeth.

Ailwood, Sarah. “‘A Man Violently in Love.’” Jane Austen’s Men. 1st ed., Taylor & Francis, 2019. Perlego, www.perlego.com/book/1377139/jane-austens-men-rewriting-masculinity-in-the-romantic-era-pdf. Accessed 9 Apr. 2023.

• The externalised value for reputation, status and wealth

vs. The internalised, authentic self that is captivated by Elizabeth

• Austen makes “a bastion of idealized gentry manhood changing himself for the sole purpose of becoming desirable to the woman he loves” (Ailwood ch. 4).

Q3:

How does Jane Austen use plot and dialogue in Pride and Prejudice to demonstrate that Mr. Darcy learns lessons about caring for other people more, and finally acknowledges Elizabeth as a teacher who is superior to him?

Fessenbecker, Patrick. “Jane Austen on Love and Pedagogical Power.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, vol. 51, no. 4, 2011, pp. 747-63. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41349035. Accessed 10 Nov. 2022.

• Many philosophers suggests that “the pedagogical relationship is a power relationship” (749).
• For Austen critics, pedagogy is an important element to enable love in her works.
• “By submitting as a student to the other as teacher, both Elizabeth and Darcy indicate their recognition of the other as a subject independent of their will” (759).

Q4:

How does Jane Austen use plot and dialogue in Pride and Prejudice to allude to “the female gaze” of Elizabeth on Mr. Darcy to create equality between them as they simultaneously desire and are desired by each other?

In “You Have Bewitched Me Body and Soul: Masculinity and the Female Gaze in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice,” Malone asserts that

• Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan: the gaze is a human’s desire for pleasure and sexual gratification, and the bond between subject and object
• Austen writes about the female gaze of her female characters and reveals that “Women choreograph the world of courtship.”
• “Through her gaze, Elizabeth Bennet achieves emotional and sexual equality with Darcy; never passive, she moulds her lover according to her own needs and wants” (88).

Q5:

How does Jane Austen use plot and dialogue in Pride and Prejudice to show how Mr. Darcy learns his flaws of conceit and arrogance during the process of falling in love with Elizabeth, and eventually establishes a marriage based on genuine respect and admiration with her?

In “‘In Want of a Wife’--or a Husband--in Pride and Prejudice,” Paalman suggests that

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• Three couples: the Bennets, the Collinses, and the Wickhams, asserting that “Each of these three marriages was formed with the intention of addressing some kind of human need or desire” (38).
• Philosophical friendship by Socrates: “the person who intends to put his soul to an adequate test, to see whether it lives rightly or not, must have ‘knowledge, good will, and frankness.’”
• “Within this relationship of acknowledged acceptance and esteem, they are able to give each other a new view of how to live well” (Paalman 53).

Methodology

03

Methodology

This paper will offer a textual analysis of how in Pride and Prejudice:

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• Mr. Darcy has the good morals and social responsibilities of a gentleman in Regency England ➔ The first part of my essay (Research Question 1)
• How he changes his Romantic heroic flaws for love ➔ The second part of my essay (Research Question 2 & 3)
• How he establishes a marriage of equality and of genuine admiration with Elizabeth

➔ The last part of my essay (Research Question 4 & 5)

Analysis

04

Plot Summary

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1. All Mrs. Bennet wants is to get five of her daughters married to rich men, including the heroine, Elizabeth Bennet
2. Elizabeth’s older sister Jane falls in love with the Bennets’ new neighbor Charles Bingley; however, Elizabeth is offended by Bingley’s friend, Mr. Darcy’s arrogance ➔ Her prejudice
3. Darcy is gradually attracted by Elizabeth’s wit and kindness while she dislikes him.
4. After Darcy’s proposal, he writes a letter to reveal George Wickham’s true colors, which makes Elizabeth be ashamed of her prejudice.

Plot Summary

5. Wickham entices Elizabeth’s youngest sister, Lydia, into a scandalous elopement.

6. Darcy discards his pride and negotiates with Wickham to solve the problem.

7. Elizabeth and Darcy finally get married and live happily ever after together.

Key Term: Romantic Hero

In “Modes of Heroism in the Early Nineteenth Century,” Williams suggests that:

The romantic hero displayed a multiplicity of characteristics and purposes, but all manifestations of the figure have three qualities in common:

01

02

03

A deep reverence for nature

A tendency to respond to the world through feeling rather than rational cogitation

The insistence that the world can only be understood when viewed from a subjective viewpoint

Part I

Darcy’s good morals and social responsibilities

Topic Sentences

Though Darcy was not a likable gentleman in the beginning, he is no doubt a man of good morals, especially in terms of fulfilling his social responsibilities

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Other than Darcy’s ethical fulfillment of his social responsibility, he is also moral as a friend and as a brother.

The Responsibility of a Gentleman

• During Austen’s time, the rich had the social responsibility to “providing work and, when necessary, support for the poor who are dependent upon him” (Scheuermann 103).
• Chapter 43: Mrs. Reynolds describes Darcy as “‘the best landlord, and the best master,’ said she, ‘that ever lived’” (211). When it comes to Darcy’s father, she said the old Darcy is a “an excellent man,” and “his son will be just like him—just as affable to the poor” (211).

➔ Turning point for Elizabeth

An Ethical Friend and Brother

Chapter 35: Darcy’s letter to Elizabeth explains 2 things

1. Darcy separates his friend Bingley from Elizabeth’s sister Jane
• Jane seems to be indifferent to Bingley
• The “total want of propriety” (170) of Elizabeth family

An Ethical Friend and Brother

2. Wickham enticed Darcy’s young sister Georgiana into an infamous elopement for her money

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• Darcy has “acted with perfect good will in a just and ethical manner in every situation where circumstance or mischief had caused Elizabeth to doubt him” (Scheuermann 100).

Part II

Darcy modifies his flaws for love

The Byronic Darcy

• Darcy is a socially awkward hero
• “can be readily compared to the Romantic heroes of the Oriental Tales with their ‘haughty gesture[s]’” (Wootton 78), including Conrads, the hero from Lord Byron’s The Corsair.
• Darcy has some typical Byronic traits, such as his “will to power” (McGann qtd. in Wootton 80), and his pride, which is “a ubiquitous trait of the Byronic hero” (78).

The Byronic Darcy

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• In order to making him become a compatible lover for Elizabeth, “Austen must rehumanise and reform the aristocratic hero” (Wootton 81).

The Change of Byronic Darcy

Turning point: Darcy’s rude proposal & Elizabeth’s rejection

• Chapter 43: Elizabeth finds that instead of talking to Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner (Elizabeth’s uncle and aunt) with condescendence, “He is perfectly well-behaved, polite, and unassuming” (218).

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• “The detached Byronic hero is gradually integrated into a wider community” (Wootton 82).

Topic Sentence

Austen’s description of Darcy’s learning and changing for love can be examined in terms of pedagogy, which, in fact, enables true love between Elizabeth and him.

Love, Change and Pedagogy

Chapter 58 Darcy and Elizabeth walk to Charlotte’s house

• “You taught me a lesson … By you, I was properly humbled… You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased” (317).
• Darcy admits that what he did and changed were all for her
• “I hoped to obtain your forgiveness, to lessen your ill opinion, by letting you see that your reproofs has been attended to” (318).

Love, Change and Pedagogy

• For Austen critics, pedagogy is an important element to enable love in her works.
• “By submitting as a student to the other as teacher, both Elizabeth and Darcy indicate their recognition of the other as a subject independent of their will” (759).
• “Successful romantic narratives” where “the characters reconcile by mutually succumbing to the superiority of the former inferior or oppositional other” (Fessenbecker 758).

Topic Sentence

Darcy’s changes can be considered as an ideal conception of masculinity in that his rational identity influenced by social values can reconcile with his emotional self that he ovce suppressed under the power of romantic love.

An Ideal Masculinity

• The externalised value for reputation, status and wealth

vs. The internalised, authentic self that is captivated by Elizabeth

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• Before his change: The rude proposal
• Darcy’s externalised value and pride even when he is asking her to marry him

An Ideal Masculinity

- “But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence. Nor am I ashamed of the feelings I related. They were natural and just. Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections?—to congratulate myself on the hope of relations, whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own?”

An Ideal Masculinity

• Darcy: “That the wish of giving happiness to you might add force to the other inducements which led me on … But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe I thought only of you” (Austen 314).
• He “discards a masculine identity defined by status and reputation, and accepts an internalized, authentic identity” (Ailwood ch. 4).
• Austen makes “a bastion of idealized gentry manhood changing himself for the sole purpose of becoming desirable to the woman he loves” (ch. 4).

Part III

Darcy’s marriage that is based on equality and genuine admiration

Topic Sentence

Darcy is an appealing Romantic hero because he established a marriage and relationship of sexual equality with Elizabeth, including being the object of the female gaze from her.

The Male Gaze

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Screen, vol. 16, no. 3, Autumn 1975, pp. 6-18. Accessed 10 Dec. 2022.

• The erotic gazing pleasure that divides “active/male and passive/female” (11).
• The spectator gains “control and possession of the woman within the diegesis” (Mulvey 13) to satisfy his male fantasy.
• Women’s beautiful appearance is displayed to please men, and females are never the active characters who make the plot develop further

The Female Gaze at Darcy

• Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan: Gaze represents human desire, which creates “the bond between subject and object” (Malone 71).
• Darcy’s gaze at Elizabeth
• He suddenly “began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eye” (18)

The Female Gaze at Darcy

One example:

• As Elizabeth visits the rooms of Pemberley, she looks at a portrait of Darcy
• “such a smile over the face, as she remembered to have sometimes seen, when he looked at her” (50).
• allows the heroine to “achieves emotional and sexual equality with Darcy” (88).

Topic Sentence

Darcy manages to establish a marriage of true love and admiration with Elizabeth because they develop their affections based on a philosophical friendship, which they help each other see their flaws and live rightfully.

Philosophical Friendship

• Unlike the three other couples in the novel, Darcy and Elizabeth do not start their relationship with specific intentions.

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• Socrates’ philosophical friendship
• “‘the person who intends to put his soul to an adequate test, to see whether it lives rightly or not,’ must have ‘knowledge, good will, and frankness’” (Zeyl qtd. in Paalman 45).

Knowledge & Frankness

• Both Darcy and Elizabeth are intelligent people who love reading
• They are honest with each other, even when pointing out the flaws in their characters straightforwardly
• Elizabeth reveals to Darcy that his defect is “a propensity to hate everyone,” he replied frankly that hers is “willfully to misunderstand them” (49).

Good Will

• Elizabeth’s welfare is central to Darcy: Wickham and Lydia’s elopement
• “It was owing to him, to his reserve and want of proper consideration, that Wickham’s character had been so misunderstood” (277).
• Elizabeth has her good will for Darcy after visiting Pemberley, as “She respected, she esteemed, she was grateful to him, she felt a real interest in his welfare” (225).
• The Darcys become better human beings through their philosophical friendship, and thus have a marriage “formed with social and sexual union” (53).

Conclusion

In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen uses plot, dialogue and characterization to portray Fitzwilliam Darcy as an appealing Romantic hero by drawing attention to

1. his good morals and sense of social responsibility
2. the process by which he modifies his Romantic hero flaws for love
3. his marriage of equality and genuine admiration to Elizabeth.

Restate: Thesis Statement

• Darcy attracts numerous readers of different generations because he not only has honorable personality, but also is a hero that can change himself for the woman he ardently loves and thus establishes a marriage of true love with her.
• Through Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen gives her readers a different but admirable male protagonist, and influences the narratives of countless authors after her.

Briefly Summarizing My Points

Works Cited

Ailwood, Sarah. “‘A Man Violently in Love.’” Jane Austen’s Men. 1st ed., Taylor & Francis, 2019. Perlego, www.perlego.com/book/1377139/jane-austens-men-rewriting-masculinity-in-the-romantic-era-pdf. Accessed 9 Apr. 2023.

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Bantam Classics, 1983.

Fessenbecker, Patrick. “Jane Austen on Love and Pedagogical Power.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, vol. 51, no. 4, 2011, pp. 747-63. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41349035. Accessed 10 Nov. 2022.

Malone, Meaghan. “You Have Bewitched Me Body and Soul: Masculinity and the Female Gaze in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.” at the EDGE, vol. 1, 2010, pp. 62-91. Accessed 11 Nov. 2022.

Works Cited

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Screen, vol. 16, no. 3, Autumn 1975, pp. 6-18. Accessed 10 Dec. 2022.

Paalman, Susan. “‘In Want of a Wife’--or a Husband--in Pride and Prejudice.” St. John’s Review, vol. 57, no. 1, Fall 2015, pp. 33-55. EBSCOhost, search-ebscohost-com.autorpa.lib.fju.edu.tw/login.aspx? direct=true&AuthType=shib&db=a9h&AN=137695075&lang=zh-tw&site=ehost-live. Accessed 12 Nov. 2022.

Potter, Cherry. “Why Do We Still Fall for Mr. Darcy?” The Guardian, 29 Sep. 2003, theguardian.com/film/2004/sep/29/books.gender. Accessed 10 Dec. 2022.

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Works Cited

Scheuermann, Mona. Reading Jane Austen. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

Williams, Simon. “Modes of heroism in the early nineteenth century.” Wagner and the Romantic Hero. Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 5-19. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511481741. Accessed 26 Nov. 2022.

Wootton, Sarah. “Jane Austen’s Byronic Heroes II: Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice.” Byronic Heroes in Nineteenth-Century Women's Writing and Screen Adaptation. Palgrave Macmillan London, 2016, pp. 61-92.

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