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#charlotte lucas
whetstonefires · 10 months
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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.
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hacash · 1 month
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the literally only amendment I'd make to pride and prejudice is a flashforward where charlotte collins née lucas is tragically widowed in her late thirties/early forties and uses the financial independence of her widowhood to move to london, buy a nice house, go to parties, take some dashing naval officer ten years her junior as a second husband and pretty much have the life she never was able to have when she was young.
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anghraine · 2 months
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It's 11 PM, but one of my favorite little Darcy/Elizabeth moments happens while she still hates him and thinks he's a depraved monster, and I find it really entertaining.
It's during the Kent section, when Darcy calls at the parsonage and finds Elizabeth alone. During a longer, awkward conversation in which they both deeply misunderstand each other, they have this tiny interchange:
[Darcy:] “This seems a very comfortable house. Lady Catherine, I believe, did a great deal to it when Mr Collins first came to Hunsford.” “I believe she did—and I am sure she could not have bestowed her kindness on a more grateful object.” “Mr Collins appears very fortunate in his choice of a wife.” “Yes, indeed; his friends may well rejoice in his having met with one of the very few sensible women who would have accepted him, or have made him happy if they had. My friend has an excellent understanding—though I am not certain that I consider her marrying Mr Collins as the wisest thing she ever did."
So: they are in Mr Collins's house. Darcy tries to re-start the conversation with a polite nothing about the house. Elizabeth agrees about Lady Catherine's micro-managing, but can't resist the chance to make a sly jab at Mr Collins (who is not present) to Darcy (a genuine villain, as far as she believes).
Darcy's reply looks a bit like an attempt to redirect the conversation into safer waters (they can agree that Charlotte is cool!). But although his remark is only somewhat related to what Elizabeth said, I think it's a natural follow-up in his mind because he is also insulting Mr Collins, if more subtly.
He could have praised Mr Collins's judgment in choosing Charlotte or just said something nice about Charlotte; he doesn't. Instead, he suggests that Mr Collins's choice of Charlotte was a matter of good fortune—or chance, as Charlotte herself would say!—on Collins's part. Darcy and Elizabeth both know Collins is a fool and that his choice of a woman like Charlotte says nothing about his judgment, only about his good fortune. (Elizabeth has even better reason than Darcy to know how much Collins ending up with Charlotte was lucky for him, but Darcy can see it anyway.)
Darcy's phrasing gives him some plausible deniability, but I think he's generally quite careful with his wording and the implicit insult to Mr Collins is not accidental.
Elizabeth, I think, takes this exactly as intended. She's not at all confused about where this tangent came from or offended by it or anything. She readily seizes on the new line of conversation as encouragement to keep insulting Mr Collins and his appeal to women with functioning brainpower.
Elizabeth is pretty scrupulously polite in general, so I kind of love that she just starts venting about her absolute contempt for Mr Collins and the Collins/Charlotte marriage to Darcy in the middle of a tense and weird conversation in Mr Collins's house. And I love that Darcy, who is otherwise more or less dog-paddling his way through this conversation, is like "yeah, your friend seems really cool, that dumbass is lucky he accidentally chose someone with a brain."
Elizabeth: "Right? And, let me add-"
(Is it a bit of an asshole move on both their parts in the context of that scene? Yeah, I think a little. I also love it! Please trash-talk obnoxious hosts in their own parlours for the rest of your lives.)
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dogzcats · 9 months
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So don't you judge me, Lizzie. Don't you dare judge me.
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shipsonmymind · 1 year
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didanagy · 1 month
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PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (1995)
dir. simon langton
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petratherrock · 9 days
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@bethanydelleman
I've seen this screenshot many times and it still cracks me up 😂
Altho in my personal view I think Mr. Darcy may have friends plural, he's just not the outgoing and approachable type. He has Bingley, and possibly more........? Maybe? He possibly went to school too right
This post does make me think of Lizzie and Darcy's relationship being not only romantic but also they're each other's friends. It's nice. I don't think a romantic dynamic alone works for their relationship, I think they're also friends
Mr. Collins on the other hand.......That final reblog, i can't
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firawren · 1 year
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Pride and Prejudice Chapter 29: Mr. Collins gets hyped about going to dinner at Rosings the next day
View the full series of P&P chapter memes here
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I don't think I noticed until my latest P&P re-read that Sir William Lucas is rooting for Lizzie/Darcy from the very beginning.
Of course Charlotte Lucas also sees the potential:
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I kind of love the idea of Charlotte and her dad hanging out at home, chatting about how Lizzie could totally get Darcy.
(Screenshots taken from The Project Gutenberg ebook of Pride and Prejudice.)
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variousqueerthings · 6 months
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who's some main characters with aromantic swag?
I'll go first:
hawkeye pierce
margaret houlihan
the doctor
granny weatherwax
rincewind
jean-luc picard
charlotte lucas
miss marple
sherlock holmes
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belle-keys · 10 months
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From "The passions are perfectly unknown to her" by Laurel Henning, comparing the works of Brontë and Austen.
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melmad21 · 28 days
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Had to make a book cover for a classic book in my illustration class. Had just finished Pride and Prejudice and thought why not!
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Charlotte Lucas is aroace reblog if you agree
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bethanydelleman · 1 year
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AITA for taking my friend’s “leftovers”?
u/NoAceNoFace
I (F27) have a good friend Eliza (F20). Because of some archaic inheritance laws, she is going to lose her house when her dad dies and it will go to her cousin (M25) Mr. C.
Mr. C came to visit and was clearly hitting on Eliza but she pretended not to notice because she did not like him. I saw right away that she was not into it, so when we all went to the ball I did some flirting. Then the next day he proposed to Eliza and she said no. I thought, fair game, and offered to spend the day with him.
About 18 hours after he proposed to my friend, he proposed to me and I accepted. Remember, Eliza was never into him and her sisters (there are four!) could have seen the writing on the wall if they wanted him. I did not expect him to propose so soon but I don't see a problem with ‘accidentally’ meeting him in the garden.
My sister thinks I broke girl code, my friend thinks I'm crazy for accepting him at all, but I think this is my last good chance at a comfortable home. AITA?
Edit: I do not live in the US, neither Eliza or myself “can just get a job” so stop suggesting that.
Top Comment:
u/PracticalPanda
NTA
You did what you had to do to survive. Not everyone gets a fairy tale romance.
AITA Jane Austen Masterpost
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taciturn-nerd · 1 year
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Elizabeth and Charlotte spill the tea in "If Pride and Prejudice was a podcast" starring Karolina Żebrowska and Karolina Żebrowska
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WAIT I have one more thing to add
Charlotte Lucas is aroace
Thank you and goodnight🫡
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