Debate and discuss Pride and Prejudice characters

Dear students,

This week, you won't have to send me work individually, but I'm expecting you all to participate to this topic.

Read this article about the characters in Pride and Prejudice and the 200th anniversary of the book:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jan/26/pride-prejudice-200th-anniversary

1- Give your opinion about the way contemporary writers describe Jane Austen's characters and their relationships with each other.
2- Which is your favourite? (character and / or author)
3- Reply to at least one post from your classmates.

I'll intervene to help you improve your reflections and to answer questions, but mainly, I'd like you to DISCUSS together.  
Take care!

I honestly disagree with the majority of the articles. Trying to have a modern vision of the characters is interesting, taking them down isn't. I feel like reading the articles was giving a totally different point of view of the characters, which is a actually great constructive process. It's like when someone entirely a story : “what if we were wrong from the beginning ?” the authors seems to ask us. Well we might have forgotten some oblivious details (the fact that Darcy was a bit fragile when it comes to mental health), or judge some characters too hastily (Lydia or Mary).
But, to my mind, the articles were WAY too biased and some were indeed just nonconstructive. Either the authors clearly didn't like the book at all (why celebrating its anniversary then?), or they just like to go against common opinion at all cost.
I feel like each character interpretation isn't objective at all and is based on small details. Lizzie is actually misogynist, her father is a bully and Lydia is a charming and modern lady. Yeah, and Mr Collins is attractive maybe? These articles show another side of every character of the book and make us realize that we might have to question the writer's choices sometimes. I still don't think we can use them as real character interpretation because they don't really fit the sensation the original text is giving, at least in my opinion.
For instance, I really like Mr Bennet's light and sarcastic humor. I feel like his character is a disconnected from all the annoying manners of the high society and it was actually a more than welcome hint of humor during the lecture. Turning him into the bad guy is layering the character, but it's not making him justice.

I can't see any of my classmates posts so I can't answer them !
Fleur

These articles are clearly biased, they mostly have a negative opinion on Jane Austen’s characters. They talks a lot about judgment and ridiculous (particurlarly Mrs Bennet). Some of them think Austen drives us to like or dislike a character (for example she makes us like Elizabeth’s character) , others put hope in misunderstood or barely present charcters (Paula Byrne describes Lydia Bennet as an heroine with « glorious, noisy imperfection », that’s absolutely not what I would say about her). I think they are talking about the charcacters in a way we don't know what to think of them anymore, it’s confusing. To my mind we can’t judge these characters from an ancient era with a contemporary view, our codes and judgements just can’t be applied to them.

My favourite character of this novel is Mrs Bennet because her behavior is quite funny, she’s just ridiculous and too much.

Nevertheless I agree with Fleur, Mr Bennet is also a good and interesting character, at first I didn’t see this deconnection with the society and everything, but it’s well done.

Manon

We can clearly see in these articles the opinion of the writers. It is obviously biased and it doesn't allow the reader to have his own opinion on the characters and on Austen's litterature. It is not even a constructive criticism, it is just simply a rude critic. The comments on the male characters are also almost rude, whereas for the female characters the writers almost bow to them. It draws a non realistic portrait of the characters, because everyone will interprate each situation in a different way.

I think my favorite character is Mr Darcy, because even if he has made many bad decisions I can't help but feel sympathy for him and also he truly loves elizabeth.

And, I totally agree with what Manon said about the fact that we can't judge something which was written two centuries ago with our modern mindset.
Mina

The way contemporary writers describe Jane Austen's characters and their relationships with each other is very much centred on their own personal opinions. We are told that the reader is forced to take the restricted views because of the author’s writing. Moreover, men are much criticized, more than women in any event.
My favourite character is Elizabeth because she is the main character and she is feminist heroine. Moreover, she took the risk of refusing two marriages offers that would secure her material future.
I’m agree with Mina, i’m tend to think that my second favourite character is Mr Darcy, because even if he has made many bad decisions, he truly loves elizabeth. The love story between Elizabeth and Mr Darcy is very interesting to follow.

Manon

Regarding to the topic, I think everyone can see what’s obvious : all the articles are biased and full of many points of view that we can more or less (or not at all) agree. These are actually opinions of modern writers and, therefore, we don’t even know our own mind if we read them; like Fleur, Manon and Mina said.

But, as a personal « life experience », there’s something I’ve learned during my last year in Spain : we were studying Don Quijote de la Mancha -by Cervantes- and its critics (not trying to compare the two books, only to approach them by what they passed through). This book was, in fact, a source of positive and negative opinions like Pride and Prejudice’s Austen. The fact is that, according to my teacher, that’s because of the success of the book : indeed, a great book trigger a lot to talk and so, many, MANY, different points of view but mostly distinct, and even opposite, ways to understand a classical.

If I have to be honest, at the time, I didn’t really know what my teacher was talking about – we had focused on Cervantes’ critics because his book was characterized as «boring »… and actually it is when you’re 12- but I understand it with Austen because, for modern, there are many interpretations of each character but also beliefs about what the author could probably want to say writing some passages (to hate or to love a character, for instance) or even if she wanted to disturb our own mind !

Mrs and Mr Bennet are my favourites characters of the book. She’s so funny being a « drama queen » and I like him because he doesn’t really care about what’s happening around him. But actually they’re my favourites because they’re married even if they’re quite opposite. To my mind, that’s what make them the real standing of true love.

Aura

As most of my classmates have said, this criticism is totally based and from my point of view also unfair. This article accuses Austen of forcing the reader to take Mrs Bennet's restricted views but that's Austen's story, we can't blame her for how she wanted to build her characters. Furthermore, this review is really hard with the different characters, especially with Mr Darcy . They qualify him as a "depressive", "hypocritical", "manipulative" man while he is the only one to really love Elizabeth so in my opinion they are very strict with him.

I Don't really know which character I prefer but I find that Mr Collin's character very interesting, we can't imagine the story without him. He is maybe a bit over the top and excessive but that's probably what makes him a funny character. He is entertaining.


Mélissa

From my point of view, rewrite a story is always a good thing, a book always gets inspiration from various other works. Rewrite a book; it’s bringing it up to date, adding new modern views and personal thoughts. For example the rewrite of Oedipe by Jean Cocteau in “La machine infernale” is a very good rewriting story, with new characters and modern adaptation. But I agree with Fleur that in this article, it’s more about giving a bad opinion of the characters than a good one.

The characters' personalities are pushed to the extreme, and to me, it’s just a bad tribute to the original characters. Nevertheless, I really like Lydia Bennet by Paula Byrne, she brings out the feminist view of this character and with her actions, shows that a girl can resist the oppressive systems imposed upon her.
I also find interesting the story of Lucy Mangan in which Charlotte and Lady Catherine have an affair that kills Mr Collins.

On the contrary the character of Mr Darcy by Sebastian Faulks is way too dramatic. Like Fleur said we might have forgotten some oblivious details but it’s just very disturbing. Well I don’t know about his entire story, if it is focus on Darcy, it can be good, but if all the characters are as dramatic as him, it may be disturbing as well.

Laura

Great work everyone!

I hope your other classmates will join you soon. It's always interesting to read other people's opinions and debate.

See, it's always interesting to find something you disagree with, because you have so many arguments to contradict the opinions you dislike! And therefore, in your exam file, you can see how useful it could be for you to include a document you don't like. You'd find quite a lot of things to say about it, and by justifying why you don't like it, you'd give your opinion about the theme we studied.

As my comrades have explicitly said before, writers express their own opinions completely. These opinions are negative and crude and do not allow readers to have their own opinion of Austen’s literature. In addition, men are more criticized than women. As Fleur already said, I don’t think you can use your articles as a true interpretation of the characters either, because I don’t think they correspond to the image of the characters that can be returned by the original text.

My favourite character is Lydia Bennett because as the article says it is a character filled with " good humour and good spirits". She is a modern figure because she does not want to comply with the conventions of polite society. Lydia is a young girl who will not abide by the rules that are dictated to her. She is a young girl who will not claim to be a prude, she is honest. And to describe it as a “proto-feminist” seems to me to be quite right, since refusing to comply with the “court’s behaviour protocols” is not a trivial thing at the time.

You're all going in the same direction: outrage at what the writers say about the characters. You all think their opinions are too excessive and negative.
And yet...
You're all doing the same thing as those writers.



Have you noticed how they keep quoting the book to justify their arguments?
How they know the book so well they can build their reasoning on facts, not just their opinions?
--> these are some excellently written and informed views on the characters. After 200 years, many things have been written about Pride and Prejudice, so it's refreshing to see new ideas. More than this, for you, this should become an example of how you should build your oral exam (even if it never takes place... ). They all lead with a main argument, and proceed to justify it with quotes and examples. Some begin with examples and quotes to get to their main argument, but those opinion pieces are all built according to the same rules - the ones I'm hoping to teach you.

Faulks' review on Darcy is not only excessive, it's funny. It's to be taken lightly. Why else would he call Elizabeth Darcy's "lifelong Prozac"? Janet Todd's letter is not only very perceptive, but also amusing. Humour is something that is often difficult to understand when it's in a foreign language, so you'll have to trust me on this: they're funny.

I'll wait until we've had some more comments to add other insights and remarks.

In my point of view this contemporary criticism is maybe biased, because of our society way too far from this time (As Manon, ... also thought).
Some actions seems bad in our society, like the fact that Mr Bennet will be bad. But at this time it was maybe like that that people were acting. But to see this contemporary criticism allows us to have another point of view on Pride and Prejudice, which would be more modern. Even if we don't agree with this article, It's Always good to know an other meaning of Pride and Prejudice, leaned on passages of the text

My favorite character by far is Elizabeth, because she is feminist and despite the constraints of its time she refused two proposal. Also she seems really determined to take her own decision.

Saying this is not going to make me stand out from the crowd, but like my classmates I think writers have a bit of an easy time criticizing most characters, sometimes very negatively as with Mr Darcy or Mrs Bennet, but by saying this I am not adding anything new to what my classmates have already said.

I find that the remarks of Mina and Manon on the fact that Mr Darcy can be a good character are right, in spite of his mistakes made in the past he knew how to assume the consequences and he finally became just and good, he grants Elizabeth a true love.

My favourite character is Mr Wickham, I like very much the values he is supposed to embody, even if they are a little false. He is not venal, he has become over time a character of value who is much more interested in the goods made of religion than women, he does not consider them as toys, on the contrary of most other male characters and finally he has dedicated his life to others.

I personnally think the article are interesting because they gave me another point on view on the story. However, I disagree with some things, like the fact that Lizzie is mysogynist, because on the contrary she just want women to be more inedpendant and strong and less superficial like her sister lydia.
I really like her because she is an brave women who doesn't care about money or appearances and wants to stay true to herself. I think she is a great example of feminist women in the past centuries even if she isn't real. I agree with Manon on the fact that it is hard to judge characters from two centuries ago, but at the same time it's very interesting and shows us that we can always bring something new to a story, even if it's old.
Meryl

Kymani - Mr Wickham is a thief and an opportunist. I'm not sure, unless you admire thieves, that you quite mean what you wrote!

Meryl, think about what makes the whole book interesting - the fact that there are so many different characters that they make a good picture of Austen's contemporary society.

Clara - she's, as the article says, a proto-feminist: this term is tied to some historical events and didn't exist in that context, at that time.

Sorry I tried to use second degree humour for the part about Mr Wickham, I won’t try it again. I’m not good at this ..

I think I would go in the same direction as my classmate saying that the article is made by people that are just taking down the caracters and actually that is kind of the case. But I would also say that I don't think they really want to make us see each single character as a bad one. Basically in 200 years minds changed and what we are reading in the original book seems really far away from our times. I'm sure that the people judging the characters in this article are just trying to give a totaly different look at the book and as it is formal and for a special even such as the anniversary of the book those people must have been choosen for a very special reason and it seems like they know what they are saying. Portraying the characters this way offers another "side" of the story that can make us feel like the book doesn't bring the same message to us. They also may ahev done it this way because a lot of other writers must have written their point of view on the book before and they didn't want to say the same things in order to actually give a "fresh" look at the classic.
Then as the article says "Everyone seems to love Mr Bennet". Well I would say that it is the case. This character is quite interesting as most people like satirical humour and having a character which, I would say, make us take a deep breath in a story where the athmosphere can be quite tense sometimes.

Lucas

In contraste with my classmate I appriciate this article, I think it is funny but especially it is importante to sometimes quetion the great authors.
I am agree with the fact that Mr Darcy is a disturbing person like Laura has said so I don't really appriciate him. Nevertheless I was agree with Meryl to say that the character of Lizzy is really interesting and powerful. However I don't have a large knowledge of the novel for have a view of the others characters.
madeleine

KyLo wrote:Sorry I tried to use second degree humour for the part about Mr Wickham, I won’t try it again. I’m not good at this ..

There - now you've made me laugh!

At first, I thought like my classmates that the authors were really quick to critize centuries old characters with our modern moral and point of vue, but the fact is that they are real novelist it is their job, they have more experience and have read countless of books probably even older than Pride and Prejudice. So if people of such culture and level decide to analyse Austen's characters with such virulence, then who are we to judge them and tell them wrong ?

With that said, I still think that when you talk about any work of art, you have to acknowledge it's time and context. I mean weren't the pyramid build by slave ? And Gone with wind doens't talk about a family of confederates slavers ? Ho and like everyone else my favorite characters is Mr Bennet. I love sarcasm !

Sorry to send this post so late but I just found the work that you have send us miss, be sure that I will send you everything as soon as possible.

Well - and now I've seen your post. Good work!