Our Love Affair With Mr. Darcy - And The Worst Marriage Proposal in History

By Karen V. Wasylowski

What is this fascination we women have for Mr. Darcy?

Tom Lefroy

Jane Austen's true love and possibly the model for Darcy

(actually, and unfortunately for Jane, he was more of a Willoughby)

Apparently, there was a poll conducted years ago by the Orange Prize for Fiction.  Now I don't know exactly what the subject matter of the poll was, or exactly what the Orange Prize for Fiction is; however,1,900 women, across generational lines, selected Fitzwilliam Darcy as the man with whom they'd most like to go on a date.  He was also chosen as the man they'd most like to have attend their dinner party, which is odd since he'd probably not want to associate with most of those women - depending upon, of course,  just who their 'people' were.

He's kind of a prig when you think of it.  Just think of how he treats the woman he loves, most ardently...


 The Worst Proposal in Literary History, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE style

Mr Darcy: `In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.'

He continues on:  His sense of her inferiority -- of its being a degradation -- of the family obstacles which judgment had always opposed to inclination, were dwelt on with a warmth which seemed due to the consequence he was wounding, but was very unlikely to recommend his suit.  He spoke of apprehension and anxiety, but his countenance expressed real security. 


(Could that mean the lovely, lively Bennet girls won't be invited to Pemberley for weekend house parties very often?  And what of Mrs. Bennet?)


Elizabeth Bennet responds: "In such cases as this, it is, I believe, the established mode to express a sense of obligation for the sentiments avowed, however unequally they may be returned. It is natural that obligation should be felt, and if I could feel gratitude, I would now thank you. But I cannot -- I have never desired your good opinion, and you have certainly bestowed it most unwillingly. I am sorry to have occasioned pain to any one.

It has been most unconsciously done, however, and I hope will be of short duration. The feelings which, you tell me, have long prevented the acknowledgment of your regard, can have little difficulty in overcoming it after this explanation."

Jane Austen

The art of the put-down

Darcy is described as smug and defensive when she rejects him, he becomes pale with anger .  He is becoming unraveled now, however, and he struggles for composure.

Darcy:  ``And this is all the reply which I am to have the honour of expecting! I might, perhaps, wish to be informed why, with so little endeavour at civility, I am thus rejected. But it is of small importance.''

He simply can't believe that she doesn't understand how really scummy her family is compared to his:

Darcy again: (the poor guys doesn't realize - when you find yourself in a hole - stop digging!) Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections? To congratulate myself on the hope of relations, whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own?"

Can you imagine, in your wildest dreams, accepting a proposal like that?  I can't.

Unless he was really, really rich and owned Pemberley....but I digress.


Elizabeth confronts his part in ruining her sister's happiness and future: `Can you deny that you have done it?'' she repeated.

Darcy:  ``I have no wish of denying that I did every thing in my power to separate my friend from your sister, or that I rejoice in my success. Towards him I have been kinder than towards myself.''


That's when she gives him the final blow:

"From the very beginning, from the first moment I may almost say, of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form that ground-work of disapprobation, on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry."

A direct hit!  What a put down!  We women adore Darcy for his non-attainability, his self confidence, his superiority; then, oddly enough, we love to see him brought to his knees for the very same reasons.  Puzzling and very possibly schizophrenic; but, I have to admit, I too get a kick out of this scene each and every time I read it.

And we still love him!  Fitzwilliam Darcy's character is so artfully written that he is popular two hundred years after his inception,  he is so broadly drawn that he adapts to every age, he can fulfill every woman's fantasy of the 'perfect' man. Whether or not  any of us could actually live with a husband like this, a man who would say such things to a woman he supposedly loves - well, that's problematic.  Each generation seems to embrace it's own ideal romantic hero - it's own Darcy - employing the norms for that age.

And I wonder what our current film interpretations of this novel says about 'our' age.  I can't imagine Jane Austen's Darcy emerging soaking wet from the lake, or strolling toward Lizzy across a field shrouded in mist, his shirt undone, his hair wild...

No, I don't think that would have been acceptable in Jane Austen's age, but in ours...my, my, my.

Here it is - THE WORST PROPOSAL IN HISTORY, followed by the greatest put down

My book, DARCY AND FITZWILLIAM, is a continuation of Jane Austen's wonderful novel, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.  The two cousins from the Jane Austen book, the iconic Fitzwilliam Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam are best friends and share some very funny, and very poignant adventures.  They're the Regency Era's answer to Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.

COMING October 1, 2012, is my sequel to Darcy and Fitzwilliam, SONS AND DAUGHTERS.  The Family Saga begun in 'Pride and Prejudice', 

continued in 'Darcy and Fitzwilliam', 

now goes on with 'Sons and Daughters'.  

The men are fathers now and their families are growing, getting into mischief, and loving life.

Look for a contest all through October on 

THE LEAGUE OF BRITISH ARTISTS

to enter and win a Free Kindle, with 

"Sons and Daughters" 

or one of two copies of

"Darcy and Fitzwilliam"

'Mr. Darcy, Wormhole' By Lady A~, Authoress of The Bath Novels of Lady A~ Collection

(Photo by William Hoiles/courtesy Flickr)

Whilst ambling recently about the drearily brash purveyor halls of some very modern malls, I noticed something rather extraordinary: not one but several store fronts/interiors were unabashedly sporting period embellishment? From chinoiserie wallpaper and scattered editions of sepia-toned tomes to historical ‘artifacts’ (as one sales associate so quaintly expressed) and gilded ‘portraits’ of gamine waifs, attired in Empire-style gingham and plaid. Was this merely faddish nostalgia—or had History finally come to stamp its sovereign seal on retail? Such riveting revelation gave me pause and then occasion to think of the uncommon, common denominator that may have brought so many malls to their senses and so many historical writers of fiction to the thoroughly modern ‘worlde’ of social media. It is something that has inspired my own work, in fact, and it is not entirely unconnected with the prevailing intrigue over English ‘history’ or, particularly, the fascination with Regency England and the ‘bonnet dramas’ of Jane Austen. I thought you should not mind my musing over it here, with you, and in so appropriate and historical a place.

(Photo courtesy NASA)

Not long ago I touted a rather novel theory to a rather bemused audience of Janeites. It went something like this and, of course if you comprehend my two fine quirks, along cosmological/historical lines. A wormhole is a hypothetical connection between widely separated regions of space and time; essentially a time-travel ‘tunnel’ that connects point A to B, and vice versa. In 1795 a ‘Point A’ was spontaneously created. ‘A’ certain lady, who was singularly ‘unique’ to the literary world, gave to history, from her most remarkable mind, a most remarkable man. His name was Fitzwilliam Darcy. A creature of stature, noble mien, in possession of a large fortune and tantalizingly ‘in want of a wife’. These two, as yet unparalleled, touchstone dimensions—an enigmatic, singular Creator and her perfectly intangible Creation—had unpredictably evolved within England’s rich Regency milieu to begin an historic ‘wormhole’ in the literary Universe.

Though Austen’s heroines garnered much acclaim through the years, the ethereal star-derivative that seemed to keep driving the desire for all things Jane was arguably (and still is) her one great pride—and prejudice— ‘Mr Darcy’. But no matter how light, bright or sparkling, her scintillating phenomenon yet lacked an articulated third dimension; a ‘Point B’, if you will. Shift forward in the process of time, some two hundred years on, to 1995. It was in this coincidental, bicentennial P&P inception-year that Jane’s fabulous Fitzwilliam finally took manly material shape.

(Photo by Nicolas Genin/courtesy Flickr)

As if directly shuttled to us from JA’s highly charged and emotive mind a shining gentleman, in Regency Buck, body-carving ensemble, first stepped into the ‘Meryton’ Assembly Rooms of the BBC. He came, quite like a ‘star’-man, in the fetching figure and form of one heart-poundingly glorious creation of the flesh—enter, ‘Point B’, Colin Firth!

As the meteoric swoon of this entity rapidly overtook us all, the ‘historic’ wormhole was, at such dramatic juncture, opened between its two penetrating ‘points’. From the English Regency to the modern world, Jane Austen’s ironic reflective passage between two mirroring eras was, rather theatrically, unveiled. A Janeite ‘Stargate’ was revealed and Anglophiles, history addicts and wistful escapists everywhere saw its incandescent ‘light’. Suddenly the provenance-seeking multitudes clambered lustily out of their frowsty armoires (much like Dr. Who time-machines), emerging vociferously into the tawdry neorealism of the present day, clamoring for anything and everything English history could throw at them in a technological bonnet! Janeite fanfic sites initially set the chaise-and-four bandwagon into warp speed, then came the prequels, the sequels, the mashups; the intense love of the English estate, and associated ‘Grand Tours’ industry, followed no less fervently by the devotional blogs and everything and anything seeking likely affiliation. From Tudors, pirates, Bards and knights to sword-wielding zombies and devilishly delectable ‘vampyres’, the specter of the ‘Darcinian’ wormhole effect had metamorphosed to form its perfect paradox. And as we all wildly reached for this immutable creature, back across the centuries and through multifarious genres, Darcy continued to materialize forth as the universal paragon of the timeless metrosexual.

Certainly, I cannot but conjecture that the reason we are all gathered here today, in this very fine and historic corner of the ‘blogo-shire’, perusing Sheridans and pursuing Stanhopes, is because we all owe a debt of Anglo-fetish to Jane’s Darcy, and Mr. F’s palpable representation of him. Nay, even the erstwhile Ms. Middleton’s celebrated conquest of her fair Prince has been compared to a contemporary Bennet-style coup over P&P’s gold-standard Darcy Prize!

(Photo by John Pannel/courtesy Flickr)

So, as we all proceed here to follow the fascinations of ‘the days of Anglo-yore’, and as I myself dig heartily into English history’s entrails with my next (quite literally, I assure you), I thought it appropriate to first salute the progenitors of such fashionable frenzy with some historic aplomb.

Thus with a scraping bow (à la Mr. Collins) do I invite all Anglophiles to a journey of no indifferent venture: an exploration of the past in our own time, as magnified through Jane’s Regency looking glass. A place of scrutiny where reflections of Miss Austen’s universal truths still support the teasing notion that all of history, English or otherwise, must always adore a hero.

Past or present, can his name be anything but Fitzwilliam Darcy?

Journey back to a time in Bath to discover what Jane Austen may have been secretly writing as 'A Lady'. Pray, amble to ye TBNLA WEBSITE & TBNLA ON FACEBOOK

Follow TBNLA's Mrs. Skyelark upon Twitter, pray!

Purchase and Possess Lady A~'s First 'Bath Beauty' & most dashing Regency romp, Merits and Mercenaries.