EL4252: Excerpts from
Pride and Prejudice
We will view
relevant excerpts from the 1995 BBC dramatisation (Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth
Bennet, Colin Firth as Mr Darcy), referred to a lot in Bridget Jones’s Diary.
This is not the newer version (2005, with Keira Knightley and Matthew
MacFayden).
The texts below
are of from the novel, not the film script, so you might notice some
differences when you view the dramatisation.
Please put your comments and
responses in the discussion forum in IVLE.
(a)
Look at the famous opening sentence.
It is a truth
universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune,
must be in want of a wife.
(It
might also be useful to locate it in the context of the second sentence: ‘However little known the feelings or views
of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so
well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as
the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters’ and the
ensuing dialogue in (b).)
·
Examine
the context: who is saying this to whom and for what purpose? [Clue: is there a narrator in the novel?]
·
What
is the speech act performed?
·
How
is communication effected – by saying or by implicature? Are
maxims broken (flouted, etc.)?
·
Do
you believe what is said? Do you think people in England in 1800 did? Do you
think Jane Austen did? Do you think the narrator did?
·
Is
the statement politeness neutral?
·
Try
varying the style of the sentence. (Notice the emphasis: the narrator could
have said ‘Any single man in possession
of a good fortune must need a wife.’) Does it convey the same effect, same
implicature?
·
In
the BBC 1995 dramatisation, these words were put in the mouth of Elizabeth
(watch the youtube video indicated below); what difference does that make?
Watch Pride & Prejudice (1995) Episode 1 (Part 1/6): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQSFmrkR-QA
(up till the 6.55 mark)
(b)
Examine the ensuing interaction between Mr and Mrs Bennet (Chapter 1), set out
in the form of a dramatic dialogue (S1 = Mrs Bennet, S2 = Mr Bennet). On one
occasions, reported speech is used – I have converted this to direct speech
(where this occurs, the speech is in italics).
S1: (1) My dear Mr Bennet, have you heard that
Netherfield Park is let at last?
S2: (2) I can’t say that I have.
S1: (3) But it is, for Mrs Long has just been
here, and she told me all about it. (pause) Do not you want to know who
has taken it?
S2: (4) You want to tell me, and I have no
objection to hearing it.
S1: (5) Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs Long says
that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of
England; that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place, and
was so much delighted with it that he agreed with Mr Morris immediately; that
he is to take possession before Michaelmas [= 29 Sept], and some of his
servants are to be in the house by the end of next week.
S2: (6) What is his name?
S1: (7) Bingley.
S2: (8) Is he married or single?
S1: (9) Oh! single, my dear, to be sure! A single
man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our
girls!
S2: (10) How so? how can it affect them?
S1: (11) My dear Mr Bennet, how can you be so
tiresome! You must know that I am thinking of his marrying one of them.
S2: (12) Is that his design in settling here?
S1: (13) Design! nonsense, how can you talk so!
But it is very likely that he may fall in love with one of them, and therefore
you must visit him as soon as he comes.
S2: (14) I see no occasion for that. You and the
girls may go, or you may send them by themselves, which perhaps will be still
better; for, as you are as handsome as any of them, Mr Bingley might like you
the best of the party.
S1: (15) My dear, you flatter me. I certainly have
had my share of beauty, but I do not pretend to be any thing extraordinary now.
When a woman has five grown up daughters, she ought to give over thinking of
her own beauty.
S2: (16) In such cases, a woman has not often much
beauty to think of.
S1: (17) But, my dear, you must indeed go and see
Mr Bingley when he comes into the neighbourhood.
S2: (18) It is more than I engage for, I assure
you.
S1: (19) But consider your daughters. Only think
what an establishment it would be for one of them. Sir William and Lady Lucas
are determined to go, merely on that account, for in general, you know they
visit no new comers. Indeed you must go, for it will be impossible for us to
visit him, if you do not.
S2: (20) You are over-scrupulous, surely. I dare
say Mr Bingley will be very glad to see you; and I will send a few lines by you
to assure him of my hearty consent to his marrying which ever he chuses [sic]
of the girls; though I must throw in a good word for my little Lizzy.
S1: (21) I desire you will do no such thing. Lizzy
is not a bit better than the others; and I am sure she is not half so handsome
as Jane, nor half so good humoured as Lydia. But you are always giving her the
preference.
S2: (22) They have none of them much to recommend
them; they are all silly and ignorant like other girls; but Lizzy has something
more of quickness than her sisters.
S1: (23) Mr Bennet, how can you abuse your own
children in such way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion on
my poor nerves.
S2: (24) You mistake me, my dear. I have a high
respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them
with consideration these twenty years at least.
S1: (25) Ah! you do not know what I suffer.
S2: (26) But I hope you will get over it, and live
to see many young men of four thousand a year come into the neighbourhood.
S1: (27) It will be no use to us if twenty such
should come, since you will not visit them.
S2: (28) Depend upon it, my dear, that when there
are twenty I will visit them all.
·
Bear
in mind Leech’s notion of rhetoric: what are Mr and Mrs Bennet’s goals,
and how do they try to achieve them linguistically? (You can think of these as
macro-speech acts, if you like.)
·
Discuss
Mr Bennet’s turns 4, 10, 12 and 24 in some detail and work out the
implicatures.
·
Usually
when we analyse discourse, we are able to relate the register features to the
linguistic features in the text. We are first introduced to the couple here.
Now try to work backwards. Our framework on face/politeness have made
predictions about the strategies employed, etc. depending on contextual
features. Which strategies are used (how often, where, by whom) – and what can
we conclude from these?
(c)
Examine Mr Darcy’s (D) first proposal to Elizabeth (E), Chapter 34.
Now watch the video Pride
& Prejudice (1995) Episode 3 (Part 6/6): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkQzWYS22aI
D: (1) 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 goes on to talk of his feelings and of his sense of
the inferiority of her family and concludes by representing to her the strength
of his attachment which, in spite of all his endeavours, he had found
impossible to conquer; and with expressing his hope that it would now be
rewarded by her acceptance of his hand.]
E: (2) 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. (pause)
D: (3) 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.
E: (4) I might as well enquire why, with so
evident a design of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you
liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your
character? Was not this some excuse for incivility, if I was uncivil? But I
have other provocations. You know I have. Had not my own feelings decided
against you, had they been indifferent, or had they even been favourable, do
you think that any consideration would tempt me to accept the man, who has been
the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most beloved sister?
(pause) I have every reason in the world to think ill of you. No motive
can excuse the unjust and ungenerous part you acted there. You dare not, you
cannot deny that you have been the principal, if not the only means of dividing
them from each other, of exposing one to the censure of the world for caprice
and instability, the other to its derision for disappointed hopes, and
involving them both in misery of the acutest kind. (pause) Can you deny
that you have done it?
D: (5) 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.
E: (6) But it is not merely this affair on
which my dislike is founded. Long before it had taken place, my opinion of you
was decided. Your character was unfolded in the recital which I received many
months ago from Mr Wickham. On this subject, what can you have to say? In what
imaginary act of friendship can you here defend yourself? or under what
misrepresentation, can you here impose upon others?
D: (7) You take an eager interest in that
gentleman's concerns.
E: (8) Who that knows what his misfortunes have
been, can help feeling an interest in him?
D: (9) His misfortunes! yes, his misfortunes
have been great indeed.
E: (10) And of your infliction. You have
reduced him to his present state of poverty, comparative poverty. You have
withheld the advantages, which you must know to have been designed for him. You
have deprived the best years of his life, of that independence which was no
less his due than his desert. You have done all this! and yet you can treat the
mention of his misfortunes with contempt and ridicule.
D: (11) And this is your opinion of me! This is
the estimation in which you hold me! I thank you for explaining it so fully. My
faults, according to this calculation, are heavy indeed! But perhaps these
offences might have been overlooked, had not your pride been hurt by my honest
confession of the scruples that had long prevented my forming any serious design.
These bitter accusations might have been suppressed, had I with greater policy
concealed my struggles, and flattered you into the belief of my being impelled
by unqualified, unalloyed inclination – by reason, by reflection, by every
thing. But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence. Nor am I ashamed of the
feelings I related. They were natural and just. 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?
E: (12) You are mistaken, Mr Darcy, if you
suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as
it spared me the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you
behaved in a more gentleman-like manner. (pause) You could not have made
me the offer of your hand in any possible way that would have tempted me to
accept it. (pause) 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 immoveable 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.
D: (13) You have said quite enough, madam. I
perfectly comprehend your feelings, and have now only to be ashamed of what my
own have been. Forgive me for having taken up so much of your time, and accept
my best wishes for your health and happiness.
·
What
are the main speech acts performed here?
·
Think
of alternative ways of (i) proposing marriage, (ii) rejecting a
proposal and (iii) providing an account for the rejection.
·
Discuss
how face threatening works together with face supporting in a
proposal.
·
Can
you work backwards to determine Darcy’s and Elizabeth’s goals?
(d)
The interaction between Lady Catherine de Bourgh (C) and Elizabeth (E) (chapter
56)
Now watch the video Pride
& Prejudice (1995) Episode 6 (Part 5/6): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSksfO8DE_o
(up until the 5.40 mark)
C: (1) You can be at no loss, Miss Bennet, to
understand the reason of my journey hither. Your own heart, your own
conscience, must tell you why I come.
E: (2) Indeed, you are mistaken, Madam. I have
not been at all able to account for the honour of seeing you here.
C: (3) Miss Bennet, you ought to know, that I am
not to be trifled with. But however insincere you may choose to be, you shall
not find me so. My character has ever been celebrated for its sincerity and
frankness, and in a cause of such moment as this, I shall certainly not depart
from it. A report of a most alarming nature reached me two days ago. I was told
that not only your sister was on the point of being most advantageously
married, but that you, that Miss Elizabeth Bennet, would, in all likelihood, be
soon afterwards united to my nephew, my own nephew, Mr Darcy. Though I know it
must be a scandalous falsehood, though I would not injure him so much as to
suppose the truth of it possible, I instantly resolved on setting off for this
place, that I might make my sentiments known to you.
E: (4) If you believed it impossible to be
true, I wonder you took the trouble of coming so far. What could your ladyship
propose by it?
C: (5) At once to insist upon having such a
report universally contradicted.
E: (6) Your coming to Longbourn, to see me and
my family will be rather a confirmation of it; if, indeed, such a report is in
existence.
C: (7) If! Do you then pretend to be ignorant of
it? Has it not been industriously circulated by yourselves? Do you not know
that such a report is spread abroad?
E: (8) I never heard that it was.
C: (9) And can you likewise declare, that there
is no foundation for it?
E: (10) I do not pretend to possess equal
frankness with your ladyship. You may ask questions which I shall not choose to
answer.
C: (11) This is not to be borne. Miss Bennet, I
insist on being satisfied. Has he, has my nephew, made you an offer of
marriage?
E: (12) Your ladyship has declared it to be
impossible.
C: (13) It ought to be so; it must be so, while
he retains the use of his reason. But your arts and allurements may, in a
moment of infatuation, have made him forget what he owes to himself and to all
his family. You may have drawn him in.
E: (14) If I have, I shall be the last person
to confess it.
C: (15) Miss Bennet, do you know who I am? I
have not been accustomed to such language as this. I am almost the nearest
relation he has in the world, and am entitled to know all his dearest concerns.
E: (16) But you are not entitled to know mine;
nor will such behaviour as this, ever induce me to be explicit.
C: (17) Let me be rightly understood. This
match, to which you have the presumption to aspire, can never take place. No,
never. Mr Darcy is engaged to my daughter. Now what have you to say?
E: (18) Only this; that if he is so, you can
have no reason to suppose he will make an offer to me.
C: (19) (pause) The engagement between
them is of a peculiar kind. From their infancy, they have been intended for
each other. It was the favourite wish of his mother, as well as of her’s [sic].
While in their cradles, we planned the union: and now, at the moment when the
wishes of both sisters would be accomplished in their marriage, to be prevented
by a young woman of inferior birth, of no importance in the world, and wholly
unallied to the family! Do you pay no regard to the wishes of his friends? To
his tacit engagement with Miss De Bourgh? Are you lost to every feeling of
propriety and delicacy? Have you not heard me say that from his earliest hours
he was destined for his cousin?
E: (20) Yes, and I had heard it before. But
what is that to me? If there is no other objection to my marrying your nephew,
I shall certainly not be kept from it by knowing that his mother and aunt
wished him to marry Miss De Bourgh. You both did as much as you could in
planning the marriage. Its completion depended on others. If Mr Darcy is
neither by honour nor inclination confined to his cousin, why is not he to make
another choice? And if I am that choice, why may not I accept him?
C: (21) Because honour, decorum, prudence, nay,
interest, forbid it. Yes, Miss Bennet, interest; for do not expect to be
noticed by his family or friends, if you wilfully act against the inclinations
of all. You will be censured, slighted, and despised, by every one connected
with him. Your alliance will be a disgrace; your name will never even be
mentioned by any of us.
E: (22) These are heavy misfortunes. But the
wife of Mr Darcy must have such extraordinary sources of happiness necessarily
attached to her situation, that she could, upon the whole, have no cause to
repine.
C: (23) Obstinate, headstrong girl! I am ashamed
of you! Is this your gratitude for my attentions to you last spring? Is nothing
due to me on that score? Let us sit down. You are to understand, Miss Bennet,
that I came here with the determined resolution of carrying my purpose; nor
will I be dissuaded from it. I have not been used to submit to any person’s
whims. I have not been in the habit of brooking disappointment.
E: (24) That will make your ladyship’s
situation at present more pitiable; but it will have no effect on me.
C: (25) I will not be interrupted. Hear me in
silence. My daughter and my nephew are formed for each other. They are
descended, on the maternal side, from the same noble line; and, on the
father’s, from respectable, honourable, and ancient – though untitled –
families. Their fortune on both sides is splendid. They are destined for each
other by the voice of every member of their respective houses; and what is to
divide them? The upstart pretensions of a young woman without family,
connections, or fortune. Is this to be endured! But it must not, shall not be.
If you were sensible of your own good, you would not wish to quit the sphere in
which you have been brought up.
E: (26) In marrying your nephew, I should not
consider myself as quitting that sphere. He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman’s
daughter; so far we are equal.
C: (27) True. You are a gentleman’s daughter.
But who was your mother? Who are your uncles and aunts? Do not imagine me
ignorant of their condition.
E: (28) Whatever my connections may be, if your
nephew does not object to them, they can be nothing to you.
C: (29) Tell me once for all, are you engaged to
him?
E: (30) (pause) I am not.
C: (31) And will you promise me, never to enter
into such an engagement?
E: (32) I will make no promise of the kind.
C: (33) Miss Bennet I am shocked and astonished.
I expected to find a more reasonable young woman. But do not deceive yourself
into a belief that I will ever recede. I shall not go away till you have given
me the assurance I require.
E: (34) And I certainly never shall give it. I
am not to be intimidated into anything so wholly unreasonable. Your ladyship
wants Mr Darcy to marry your daughter; but would my giving you the wished-for
promise make their marriage at all more probable? Supposing him to be attached
to me, would my refusing to accept his hand make him wish to bestow it on his
cousin? Allow me to say, Lady Catherine, that the arguments with which you have
supported this extraordinary application have been as frivolous as the application
was ill-judged. You have widely mistaken my character, if you think I can be
worked on by such persuasions as these. How far your nephew might approve of
your interference in his affairs, I cannot tell; but you have certainly no
right to concern yourself in mine. I must beg, therefore, to be importuned no
farther on the subject.
C: (35) Not so hasty, if you please. I have by
no means done. To all the objections I have already urged, I have still another
to add. I am no stranger to the particulars of your youngest sister’s infamous
elopement. I know it all; that the young man’s marrying her was a patched-up
business, at the expence [sic] of your father and uncles. And is such a
girl to be my nephew’s sister? Is her husband, is the son of his late father’s
steward, to be his brother? Heaven and earth! – of what are you thinking? Are
the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?
E: (36) You can now have nothing farther to
say. You have insulted me in every possible method. I must beg to return to the
house (rising).
C: (37) You have no regard, then, for the honour
and credit of my nephew! Unfeeling, selfish girl! Do you not consider that a
connection with you must disgrace him in the eyes of everybody?
E: (38) Lady Catherine, I have nothing farther
to say. You know my sentiments.
C: (39) You are then resolved to have him?
E: (40) I have said no such thing. I am only
resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my
happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected
with me.
C: (41) It is well. You refuse, then, to oblige
me. You refuse to obey the claims of duty, honour, and gratitude. You are
determined to ruin him in the opinion of all his friends, and make him the
contempt of the world.
E: (42) Neither duty, nor honour, nor gratitude
have any possible claim on me, in the present instance. No principle of either
would be violated by my marriage with Mr Darcy. And with regard to the
resentment of his family, or the indignation of the world, if the former were
excited by his marrying me, it would not give me one moment’s concern – and the
world in general would have too much sense to join in the scorn.
C: (43) And this is your real opinion! This is
your final resolve! Very well. I shall now know how to act. Do not imagine,
Miss Bennet, that your ambition will ever be gratified. I came to try you. I
hoped to find you reasonable; but, depend upon it, I will carry my point. [In
this manner Lady Catherine talks on, till they are at the door of her carriage.]
I take no leave of you, Miss Bennet. I send no compliments to your mother. You
deserve no such attention. I am most seriously displeased.
·
Once
again, consider the overall and sub-goals of Lady Catherine and Elizabeth,
locating them in the context of culture if necessary.
·
What
face, etc. strategies have been taken to achieve these goals? Are they
linguistic or non-linguistic? Do they involve the choice of particular
illocutions? How are these illocutions expressed? What can you say about the face
wants of Lady Catherine and Elizabeth in this context? How much of what is said
is designed to manipulate the other party and how much of it is to give vent to
the characters’ inner feelings? How much self-censorship and misdirection is
there?