about the proceedings.
[Context passage: Chapter 53 or Vol III, Chapter 11. From "It is a delightful thing, to be sure, to have a daughter well married" to "the appetite and pride of one who had ten thousand a year."]
This passage is taken from Bingley and Darcy's first
visit to Longbourn after their return to Meryton. The passage focuses on
Mrs Bennet's foolishness and Elizabeth's feelings
about the proceedings.
Mrs Bennet's speeches in the passage point to her ignorance,
which is part of Austen's narrative technique of letting characters reveal
themselves through their speech. The effect is particularly comic due to
Mrs Bennet's utter ignorance, which manifests itself in moral
insensitivity, as seen in her belief that Lydia is "well married" in her
disgraceful union with Wickham, and in lack of simple knowledge, as seen
in her commenting that Newcastle is "a
place quite northward, it seems." Because of this, she manages to be obsequiously
polite yet quite rude, as we can see from the contrast between her invitation
for Bingley to shoot birds on Mr Bennet's manor "When you have killed all
your own birds" and her insult to
Darcy that Wickham has "not so many [friends]
as he deserves." Austen uses a similar treatment for Mr Collins,
whose sycophantic language is even used when he is criticising Elizabeth's
class in his proposal to her, and whose excessive praise makes him
utterly ridiculous. The length of Mrs Bennet's speeches betray[s] the fact
that although she says much, she thinks and means very little, a
technique which is repeated in Mr Collins's speeches and letters and on
Lady Catherine's argument against Elizabeth marrying Darcy on her visit
to Longbourn. This is emphasised here by the fact that she is the only
one quoted in direct speech as speaking aloud in the whole
passage. Despite Elizabeth's sense, her own feelings are kept to herself
while her mother chatters
away indiscreetly on anything that enters her mind.
Elizabeth's poor reasoning as she listens to her mother
disgrace herself shows the extent of her shame and misery. Although this
scene is largely seen from the viewpoint of Elizabeth, Austen sometimes
speaks as the omniscient narrator to reveal little
ironies about Elizabeth herself. For example, after Elizabeth feels that
"The first wish of my heart... is never more to be in company with either
of them", which the reader should know to be silly, especially with regard
to Darcy, and that "years of happiness could not make Jane or herself amends,
for moments of such painful confusion", Austen comments that "the misery,
for which years of happiness were to offer no compensation, received soon
afterwards material relief"
simply from seeing that Bingley was still attracted to Jane. Although Elizabeth
is a thinking character and can laugh at the ridiculousness of unthinking
characters, Austen is able to turn the tables on her heroine once in a
while when emotion
overcomes her, demonstrating the fact that Elizabeth is not a creature
of pure reason
and showing us the folly of valuing emotion
over reason. A similar example of Elizabeth's fallibility is given in a
later visit by Bingley and Darcy, at which she is tormented by her feelings
for Darcy but is "a little revived... by his
bringing back his coffee cup himself."
As Austen does not wish to actually focus on Jane or
Bingley, neither being very interesting characters, she describes the renewal
of their relationship by summing up their actions and conversation rather
than reporting it in a detailed fashion. This method of describing their
relationship is common to the entire book, even as Elizabeth notes at the
beginning of their relationship that Jane's "uniform cheerfulness of manner"
makes the expression of her love noticeable only to her closest friends.
This is an example of Austen using Elizabeth as the principal character
for a limited omniscient style of narration, and
changes shortly afterward to a view through Mrs Bennet's eyes. Austen's
use of changing
viewpoints allows her greater freedom to provide information and opinions
of characters, such as the Bingleys' opinion of the Bennets as narrated
shortly after the first ball at which they meet.
Austen also tends to refer to past events in the plot,
which makes the story in its entirety more cohesive.
Here, Mrs Bennet refers to a year-old promise of Bingley's to dine with
them, which was indeed made in the course of the book, and Bingley's reaction,
looking "a little silly" and saying he was "prevented by business" implicitly
recalls how Darcy and Bingley's sisters persuaded him to cut off his ties
with Jane, causing him some guilt in this
instance. This reminds the reader of the complete situation in the story,
and is used again more heavily in Elizabeth's last few conversations with
Darcy, in which the[y] recall the events which brought them together.
The ending of the passage, with its focus on Mrs Bennet
planning for the coming dinner with Bingley, exemplifies on[e] of the methods
Austen tends to use to end chapters. She summarises the feelings of a particular
character with regard to the event which has just taken place, while giving
the reader impetus to read on by promising another interesting event to
follow. In this case, the promise of the dinner with Bingley and Darcy
also includes a reference to a previous dinner, as Mrs Bennet's feeling
that not "anything less than two courses could be good enough for a man...
who had ten thousand a year." This equation of
income and courses shows her narrow-mindedness, and was also mentioned
in her plans for the dinner for Bingley which was cancelled when he left
for the city, in which she had felt "two full courses" would be necessary.
Thus, this passage displays many of the narrative techniques
which Austen uses in the novel as a whole, and reveals her level of skill
in being able to express her ideas through the
narrative while still remaining entertaining and readable.
Actualizado en 2000 por Jose Antonio Hernández Pérez