Motives
Posted by Bob S. on November 26, 1997 at 17:55:38:
In response to First Refusal, written by Annie3 on November 26, 1997 at 12:41:17
] My question is why did he propose in the first place? She was so sarcastic to him and didn't want to encourage him, yet he proposed. To top it off, he claims he discouraged Bingley from persuing Jane because he didnt' see any signs that she cared for him. What signs did he see in Lizzie?
When you think about it, there are some simularities between the motives behind Darcy's first proposal and Mr. Collins' proposal. True, Mr. Collins just wanted to get married and he didn't particularly care who to and Darcy particularly wanted to marry Lizzy; but neither one of them bothered to check with the recipient of their proposals to she how she felt towards the person offering them (until it was to late, of course), and each of them thought that it was a foregone conclusion that Elizabeth would jump at the chance to marry him because he had so much to offer her. (Collins came right out and said so; Darcy felt what he had to offer was so obvious that he didn't have to point it out, in fact he essentially said that he had so much to offer that he would be substantially degraded by her consenting to marry him.) Mr. Collins was only interested in her as an appendage to take with him to Rosings and I think that Darcy, at that time, thought of Elizabeth as someone whose mind could complement his but that she would require "molding" to make her "respectable" to his relatives (i.e.: be his "appendage"). (Which bring up the question: what would their life have been like if Elizabeth had not stuck to her convictions and had accepted his first proposal - sounds like something which has probably been discussed at Pemberley before.)
I guess that what I am saying in a nutshell is that both of them approached the prospect of marrying Elizabeth from a purely selfish point of view and it didn't matter to them how Elizabeth had treated them.
The though of Darcy being compared to Mr. Collins seems a little disgusting - even to me, :-) but maybe that's another point that JA was making.
Bob S.
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