II. The
Proposal of Mr. Darcy
"It's is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession
of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." It is the very famous opening
sentence of Pride and Prejudice. It indicates that money could be one of
the most important causes in marriage. People thinks that single men would
need a wife after they inherited the great money. By that time, girls have
a kind of marriage market for hunting a husband. Obviously, the marital
relationship was based on poverty. We know that Elizabeth will marry Mr.
Darcy eventually, but their marriage isn't like the previous condition
I mentioned. It begins with the proposal from Mr. Darcy in chapter 34.
And now I am going to talk about the proposal.
Mr. Darcy is from upper class and a wealthy family. He owns a big castle
called Pemperly. Most people don’t like him because he doesn’t smile and
he looks so proud even when he proposes to Elizabeth. First of all, I think
Mr. Darcy must have thought through his action clearly for long time and
finally he decides to tell his feeling to Elizabeth. Actually, he is very
conceited that he will win his goal without rejection because of his wealthy
and upper social status. But he is wrong. With his plain tone and face,
I think nobody will accept such dull and proud request. It tells, " He
spoke well, but…, and he was not eloquent on the subject of tender than
pride." And then it said, "his sense of her inferiority - of its being
a degradation - of the family obstacles which judgement had always opposed
to inclination…." In these passages we find that class differences sometimes
will be a problem in marriage. But I think it doesn't matter that Mr. Darcy
and Elizabeth are in different class. He was sensible and practical man
with a high sense of worth and responsibility, compassionate, yet reserved.
Since he wants to get married with Elizabeth, he does love her and makes
his personal decision instead of listening to other people. Meanwhile,
most upper class people have a certain degree of pride in mind. I think
Mr. Darcy is absolutely proud of his background of upper class. And Elizabeth
is from a middle class family and should be inferior to him. On the contrast,
Elizabeth has her own pride and she will not marry a man only for his great
possession. Elizabeth is shocked by the sudden and surprising expression
of Mr. Darcy. Although she didn't like Mr. Darcy at all, she still had
to response for the compliment of such a man's affection. However, Elizabeth
lost her compassion in anger till roused to resentment by Mr. Darcy's subsequent
language. She has to refuse him but in an indirect way. Hearing of Elizabeth's
rejection, Mr. Darcy's complexion became pale with anger. And then here
comes the verbal fighting and argument between two anger characters and
the combination of high feeling and great wit is exhilarating. Of course,
Elizabeth doesn't accept the first proposal from Mr. Darcy because she
has prejudice on him for the first impression. However, Elizabeth and Darcy
are capable of learning from their humiliating experiences and growing.
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