As I said earlier today, I’m going to the coast this weekend. This was something people in Jane Austen’s era (1775-1817, England) did frequently, believing it would aid in people’s health. There is some science now behind the idea of the coast being good for you, not least of which is the way the sounds of the ocean relieve tension and help reset people’s internal clock. I also find the smell of the ocean to be incredibly therapeutic and calming.

It is only right, then, that I am taking my copy of Pride and Prejudice with me on this trip. I don’t think I’ve ever read an Austen novel at the coast before, so this is going to be exciting for me. I’ve found myself thinking a lot about this novel over the last few months. I thought about it quite a lot while I was single. Elizabeth Bennet is, for me, a model of self-assurance and self-love. She knows exactly who she is and what she wants from life and love, and she doesn’t settle for less. Not even with a man of enormous financial means essentially throws himself at her and offers his hand in marriage.

There is so much I could write about Mr. Darcy. As a teenager, I idolized him for his dark looks and his brooding personality. I am a sucker for the somewhat damaged, socially awkward types with a mysterious past. Have been my whole life. But at sixteen, I didn’t appreciate Mr. Darcy’s humanity and, specifically, how he is, to the fullest degree, the anti-thesis to the patriarchy. (If I were going to write a dissertation for a PhD in 19th century British literature, it would be on Jane Austen and it would center around her male heroes and how they [almost] universally not only challenge the idea of patriarchy, they completely represent what it means to confront it and their own toxic masculinity. The only Austen hero I don’t think every quite does this is Mr. Knightley from Emma.)

I didn’t appreciate what it meant at that time, and now, for him to not only take Elizabeth’s rejection, but to actually use it to better himself. He was a very wealthy man. He could have had any other woman he wanted. He could have made a match that doubled his fortune. He could have chosen to ignore Elizabeth’s criticisms of him on the basis that she was poor and came from an obscure family. He could have lorded over her; he could have gone to her father and completely subverted her wishes to try and make the match without her approval, and his money and position in life would have supported such actions.

But he doesn’t. He, instead, owns up to his choices. He gives her the information she needs to understand his relationship with Wickham. And he resolves to improve himself. And then he actually does it! He follows through on absolutely every single point, up to and including his relationship with Wickham (even though he has every right to hate the man). He goes above and beyond simply because he loves and respects Elizabeth. He doesn’t do these things to win her back, either. That’s why he swears Elizabeth’s sister, Lydia, to secrecy when he pays Wickham to marry her. He doesn’t want Elizabeth to know that he was the one who paid Wickham off because he doesn’t want her to feel indebted to him. I did not understand the gravity of this as a teenager and it is one of the things that makes me love Mr. Darcy almost as much as I love Colonel Brandon from Sense and Sensibility. He could have used what he did for Lydia and Wickham to try and win Elizabeth back, but he doesn’t. He respects and cares for her too much to even consider such a scheme.

Which is, of course, why Elizabeth continues to fall in love with him. And it’s why she accepts his proposal when he asks her a second time. This really is revolutionary representation of feminism and consent from the literature of this period. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy are presented as equals, from the first, and it isn’t until Mr. Darcy really treats her as an equal that we see the genuine goodness of his character. Moreover, the very fact that he behaves this way, and not as a man of his wealth and position would have, he becomes a scathing criticism of the culture, a symbol of what men should be rather than what they were. It was and is well known that her novels are largely satirical, meant to be humorous criticisms of the English upper classes. But to be so blunt, so straightforward with her primary male protagonist and how he stands out, is utterly courageous and beautiful. Colonel Brandon is another I could write for hours on.

I am so excited to dig into this novel again. This will be my fifth time reading it and I am positively tingling with excitement. And at the coast, no less!

Have a great weekend!