Wednesday the 27th of November is when Mr Collins proposes to Elizabeth. One of the reasons that Mr Collins proposes so soon is that he only has Lady Catherine’s permission to be away until Saturday 30th and seeing as Mr Collins does everything to please Lady Catherine he doesn’t want to extend his visit.
Mr Collins begins by asking Mrs Bennet if he can talk to Elizabeth alone. When Elizabeth begs her mother not to leave the room she says ‘with a blush of surprise’
“Mr Collins must excuse me. He can have nothing to say to me that anybody need not hear. I am going away myself.”
A more perceptive man would get the hint and realise that Elizabeth does not want to hear his proposal, but Mr Collins thinks she is just being modest and he isn’t put off, unfortunately for her.
Elizabeth is then about to leave the room but her mother stops her and insists that she listens to what Mr Collins has to say. When Mr Collins and Elizabeth are left alone, he tells her that her ‘modesty’ just adds to her ‘other perfections’. Mr Collins also lets Elizabeth know that he has asked her mother’s permission for her hand in marriage. This is then like a trap because rather than Elizabeth being able to say that she has to ask her mother’s permission before she accepts or declines, she will have to tell Mr Collins the truth; that she doesn’t want to marry him and that she doesn’t love him.
Mr Collins then says to Elizabeth ‘Before I am run away with by my feelings on this subject, perhaps it will be advisable for me to state my reasons for marrying’ It is clear that Mr Collins doesn’t love Elizabeth but he is pretending that he does, in order to get her to accept his proposal. He has additionally prepared a long speech and is eager for Elizabeth to hear it before she replies to his proposal.
The reasons for Mr Collins proposal are that he feels it’s his duty as a clergyman to get married so that he can set a good example for his parishioners. This is obviously nonsense because the priest getting married is not going to convince his congregation to get married but he doesn’t realise this because he is so full of his own importance. He adds that he think it will make him happy, but clearly doesn’t consider Elizabeth’s happiness or else he wouldn’t have proposed to her after knowing her for only ten days.
He tells Elizabeth that Lady Catherine De Bourgh has told him to choose “an active, useful person, not brought up too high, but able to make a small income go a good way. Find such a woman as soon as you can, bring her to Hunsford and I will visit her” This unmistakably shows how dumb Mr Collins really is because he is revealing the real reason for wanting to marry her - because Lady Catherine advised him to. This shows Elizabeth that he has just proposed to the first woman he met and shows that he is not marrying Elizabeth because he cares about her but to make Lady Catherine happy which is totally ignoring the right reasons for marriage and as a priest he should know this.
Mr Collins then tells Elizabeth that there were ‘many amiable women’ in his neighbourhood whom he could have chosen to marry but he has chosen her and he hints that she should be grateful for this. He reminds Elizabeth that he will inherit Longbourn when her father dies, which is why he has chosen to marry one of the Bennet sisters. By mentioning this he thinks Elizabeth will be grateful, but by stating that when her father dies he will get all his money and home he just shows how inconsiderate, thoughtless and insensitive he really is.
Mr Collins talks to Elizabeth about the sum of money she will receive after her parent’s death, which is clearly something you shouldn’t mention in a proposal. At this moment Elizabeth interrupts Mr Collins and thanks him for his compliment but declines his offer. Mr Collins however doesn’t take her refusal seriously and tells her “I know you ladies usually refuse a proposal to begin with, but you usually accept later on”.
Elizabeth is exasperated by his refusal to accept her answer, but can also see the funny side of the situation. She replies, “I am perfectly serious in my refusal. You could not make me happy and I am perfectly convinced that I am the last woman in the world who could make you so.” She also adds that she doesn’t think Lady Catherine would think she was suitable for him.
Mr Collins lets Elizabeth know that if he thought Lady Catherine would not approve of her he would not be proposing to her in the first place which proves that he only wants to get married to make Lady Catherine happy.
To conclude their conversation, Elizabeth tells Mr Collins that she will not marry him but again he refuses to believe her. Elizabeth then informs him that she is deadly serious and Mr Collins leaves the room while reminding her that he will inherit everything her dad has and tells her that with such a small dowry she is unlikely to get another offer.
After being turned down by Elizabeth, Mr Collins leaves the Bennet household and goes to Charlotte Lucas’ house, Charlotte is Elizabeth’s best friend and Elizabeth is later informed by Kitty and Lydia her two youngest sisters, that Mr Collins and Charlotte have agreed to get married. At the Netherfield ball Elizabeth and Charlotte are talking about marriage and reasons for marriage. Charlotte is talking about getting married just for money and Elizabeth replies “Though we both know you would not do that yourself.”
Charlotte then marries Mr Collins just for his money and Jane Austin wants us to realise that Elizabeth’s judgement about other people is not reliable, but Elizabeth does not learn from her mistake about Charlotte, which leads to her failure to realise that she is wrong about Darcy and Wickham.
Elizabeth and Mr Darcy met early in October when he was at Netherfield. At the Meryton Assembly Mr Bingly, his best friend suggests that he dances with Elizabeth but Mr Darcy replies, “She is tolerable but not handsome enough to tempt me.” Elizabeth overhears this and jokes about it with her friends but inside she is hurt by his words; this is when her prejudice against him starts. Elizabeth also thinks that Mr Darcy is too proud and conceited.
Soon after the Assembly Mr Darcy starts to find Elizabeth rather attractive and comments on her to Miss Bingly. What Mr Darcy doesn’t realise is that Miss Bingly wants to marry him and she is very jealous about his comments on Elizabeth such as her “fine eyes” and the fact that he thinks she is ‘a pretty woman’. Miss Bingly then invites Jane; the eldest of the daughters, to dinner at Netherfield with her but when Jane accepts and visits she is taken ill. Jane asks for Elizabeth and when she arrives Mr Bingly asks her to stay also. During Elizabeth’s visit Mr Darcy ‘Began to feel the danger of paying Elizabeth too much attention’ and he decides ‘to be particularly careful that no sign of admiration should now escape him, nothing that could elevate her with the hope of influencing his felicity’. The reason he does this is because he thinks that if Elizabeth realises he likes her she will be very pleased but his presumption is much mistaken as he doesn’t know that she heard his comment about her at the Meryton Assembly. When he hears that Elizabeth is soon to leave, he is relieved because ‘She attracted him more than he liked’. Throughout the last day of her visit Mr Darcy scarcely speaks to Elizabeth because he considers her family to be lower than his.
