Elizabeth (in whom we meet in the first chapter) is the second eldest daughter to Mr and Mrs Bennet. She has 4 other sisters Jane, the eldest and who is Elizabeth’s most beloved sister (they seem best of friends), Lizzy and Lydia who are the young, naïve, clueless sisters (who actually by the bystanders of today are just typical teenagers) and Mary who although not particularly attractive is of extensive intelligence. They all live under one roof in Netherfeild, none of the sisters have married.
In the book Elizabeth’s described as to have ‘ a great spirit’ and to have ‘ a lively, playful disposition which is delighted in anything ridiculous’. I see Elizabeth as being a typical middle class woman with beauty and brains. I feel Elizabeth has a lot of mental independence and as being a women who exercises much personal control over her own life for example she did not except Mr Collins proposal even though it was her mothers wish for her to do so and she knew for her families security she probably should have. She makes up her own mind and although she listeners to others she always has her own view point on something or someone. Elizabeth is very quick to decide on some ones character, but in cases like Mr Darcy’s her decision on his character was made far to quickly. She seems to make fixed ideas on her first meetings.
Mr Darcy is somewhat of an intriguing, interesting character. When we first meet him at an assembly that is being held to welcom Mr Bingley into the neighbourhood, we learn nothing of him except that ‘ he has 10 thousand a year’.
He enters the assembly with Mr Bingley and almost instantly his character was decided he is labelled as being ‘Constituted’ and Mrs Bennet describes him as being ‘The proudest most disagreeable man in the world’ and all this was decided in one night of his company. But as we all know these perceptions that were so quickly made were all wrong his true character was that of a friendly fair and very generous man.
Mr Collins is a man who we once again meet in the book he is Elizabeth’s second cousin. He’s a fairly arrogant and a rather matter of fact type of guy. We know just as little about his background, but yet he comes across as a lot less complicated than Darcy.
By the bystanders of today the proposals were made alarmingly quick. Mr Collins had only known Elizabeth for 2 weeks before he proposed and although Darcy had known Elizabeth for nearly a year they were only social acquaintances.
In both proposals it was just Elizabeth and the particular man there, nobody else was around.
Neither man expected to be rejected like they were; each of the men had something positive to bring to a marriage (Darcy with his money, stability and status and Collins with his connections to Lady de bough and stability) and after all what did she have, she was poor and in need of a husband. They honestly thought they were doing her a favour.
When Elizabeth refused Mr Collins he was not disheartened in fact he was so big headed and sure of himself that he thought she was just playing hard to get and that she would still say yes, ‘ It is very usual for a young lady to reject the address of the man whom she secretly means to accept, when he first applies for their favour; and that sometimes the refusal is repeated a 2nd or even a 3rd time. I am their for by no means discouraged by what you have just said’ he even goes on to say that basically your parents will make you marry me. Mr Darcy however had a very opposite reaction he got extremely agitated by the whole situation and left in a hurry.
The proposals had very positive and negative sides to them although both men thought they had given a perfect proposal. Some positive sides to Mr Darcy’s proposal is that every thing he said was the truth and it came from the heart ‘ You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you’. In a way he demonstrates his love by being truthful and he means to do the right thing but he ends up insulting her and going to far.
When Mr Darcy arrives in the room with Elizabeth he is clearly agitated. He doesn’t start his proposal very well, ‘in vain I have struggled it will not do. My feelings will not be repressed’. He’s basically saying I don’t want to like you but I cant help it. He then goes on to talk of her inferiority and of it being degradation. After he’s insulted her and her family he says that his feelings were ‘ natural and just’ what although true was not what she needed to hear. He also says ‘could you of expected me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections? To congratulate myself on the hope of your relations, whose conditions in life were so decdingley below my own’ which once again although we can see were he’s coming from and was true was not needed to be said. In insults made Elizabeth grow more and more angry by every moment. However unlike Mr Collins Mr Darcy left and wished her the best for the future.
In this era manners were very important people seemed much more able to bite their tongues and be constantly polite.
In Mr Collins proposal I can personally see no good and nor could Elizabeth. What he said did not come from the heart, he lied and wasn’t even romantic, ‘ My first reason for marriage are, first I think it the right thing for every clergymen in easy circumstances (like myself) to set the example of matrimony in his parish, secondly, that I am convinced it will add very greatly to my happiness and thirdly – which perhaps I ought to have mentioned earlier, that it is the particular advice and recommended of the very noble lady whom I have the honour of calling patroness’ he has no feeling in his proposal to Elizabeth, just towards himself and Lady Catherine de bourgh and he still seems to think that he’s making the perfect proposal. He also says ‘as soon as I entered the house I entered the house I singled you out’ which is not only a lie, because he firstly selected Jane but it also tells Elizabeth that he didn’t come and fall in love with her but came to Netherfeild looking for a wife and settled for her, not very romantic. He also states this when he say ‘perhaps, it would be advisable for me to state my reasons for marrying- the moreover for coming to Hertfordshire with the design for selecting a wife, as I certainly did’ In his proposal (much like Mr Darcy) he was insulting and rude. I feel if any one Mr Collins would have been more suited to Mary or the woman who he really loves Lady Catherine de bourgh. He also insults her in the way of letting her know that he’s done his homework on what hell get from the marriage ‘and that 1 thousand pound in the 4 percents which will not be yours till after your mothers decease is all that you may ever be entitled to’.
I believe that Darcy’s proposal was set on love, he spoke from the heart but that ended up in not such a good thing and that Mr Collin’s proposal was void of any emotion at- it had more of an element of being a business arrangement than a proposal for marriage. So I conclude that neither of the marriages was typical of an 18th centaury proposal. One lacked all concepts of emotion and the other (that of Mr Darcy’s) lacked any element of pragmatism. Darcy’s proposal was more typical of a 21st centaury proposal that we get now a days.
