From Pride and Prejudice, vol II, ch x

University Degree Linguistics, Classics and related subjects

Debbie Wren; Personal Identifier: W5978943; TMA01

Please analyse this passage in no more than 1000 words, discussing ways in which the narrative voice and dialogue are used.

This chapter opens with a line from the omniscient narrator confiding or ‘telling’ us about Elizabeth’s unexpected encounters in the park with Mr Darcy. Austen’s use of the ‘telling’ technique here is economical and saves the reader actually having to read through each of these meetings to know that they took place.

In the next line the narrator slips into Elizabeth’s mode of speaking with the use of free and indirect speech, to convey her feelings about the so-called accidental meetings. The irony can be picked up in the statement: ‘She felt all the perverseness of the mischance that should bring him where no one else was brought;’ was it really coincidental that Darcy was walking there? If we back up to the previous chapter we notice that Mrs Collins had even suggested to Elizabeth that Mr Darcy was possibly partial to her, so did not these encounters somehow arouse Elizabeth’s suspicions and confirm this in some way, especially as she had taken care to tell him that this walk was a favourite haunt of hers? Was she somehow lying to herself here when she described the second and third encounter with Darcy as odd? Here the narrator wants us to believe that Elizabeth had no suspicions whatsoever concerning Darcy’s interest in her - this is not trustworthy, because we know that she knew about his possible interest, but she had always laughed at the idea.

The focalizing through Elizabeth continues with the narrator taking on Elizabeth’s character of speech to ‘tell’ us, clarify to us that Darcy, on these encounters, did not merely pass on fleeting formal enquiries, but that he actually thought it necessary to turn back and walk with her. Unwittingly Elizabeth’s own pride and prejudice shines through here to mock her.

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The narrator then addresses the reader by ‘telling’ us that ‘[Darcy] he never said a great deal, nor did she [Elizabeth] give herself the trouble of talking or listening much;’ but then the ‘Elizabeth conscious’ through the narrator then becomes aware that Darcy is asking odd, unconnected questions. Here you get the comical impression that the narrator is looking in on the couple and telling us, the outside world, what’s what, but there’s this reaction ‘it struck her…’ and the narrator is back in Elizabeth’s body and becoming aware that Darcy is perhaps overstepping the boundaries?

First impressions on this narrative in the park lead one to want to sympathise with Elizabeth and take her side against Darcy’s audacious behaviour and on the surface non-regard for her wishes and privacy. However looking deeper into this narrative on their walk together, you realise that Darcy was compelled towards Elizabeth. His feelings for her outweigh his social upbringing, as he probably would have taken the hint and avoided her favourite haunt under other circumstances. Through closer inspection of this passage our feelings are modified towards Darcy and we can see that he has a softer side to the one that Elizabeth ‘sees’ at that time and the one the narrator ‘tells’. He was not ill-natured or doing voluntary penance as the narrator would have us to believe. His questions about her pleasure in being in Hunsford and her love of solitary walks were certainly not idle chit chat, but from someone who was keen to get to know more about her. She in turn misconstrued his inquiries when it seemed he expected whenever she came to Kent again that she would be staying at Rosing. Here, if we do not look closer, we could be caught off guard and take Elizabeth’s side.

‘Could he [Darcy] have Colonel Fitzwilliam in his thoughts?’ is a question directed to the reader, but Elizabeth answers the question for us with her thoughts through the narrator, that ‘she supposed, if he meant anything, he must mean an allusion to what might arise in that quarter.’ This immediately takes us back to the previous chapter where we know that Elizabeth likes Colonel Fitzwilliam, we know about the schemes Mrs Collins has for Elizabeth and here in this chapter is this comical picture where Elizabeth mistakenly thinks that Darcy might be playing matchmaker for Colonel Fitzwilliam. Although Colonel Fitzwilliam and Darcy were wealthy with Darcy having considerable patronage in the church, neither one appealed to Elizabeth at that time. It was not to say that Elizabeth did not take marriage seriously. Marriage was a serious business for the women of that era; they could little afford to turn down marriage proposals. Austen reveals through the character Elizabeth that it was commendable for women to certainly not marry just anybody for the sake of status or money! But on the other hand a marriage of convenience was sometimes the order of the day.

The next paragraph is the third person narrator speaking directly to the reader. The tone of voice is authoritative and leads us away from the previous scene to a different meeting in the park. Without the intonation of Elizabeth the narrator ‘tells’ us that whilst out walking again Elizabeth was re-reading her sister Jane’s last letter. Instead of being surprised by Mr Darcy, she looked up to see Colonel Fitzwilliam walking up to meet with her. The ‘telling’ technique used here brings in the new scene economically. The next part of the narrative is a dialogue between the two. The question Elizabeth asked him, ‘I did not know before that you ever walked this way’, links itself to the opening chapter, where she had tried to dissuade Darcy from walking that way. Notice that she does not tell Colonel Fitzwilliam that this was her favourite haunt, but instead walks with him to the parsonage. Her lack of concern by this disturbance highlights her prejudices for Darcy and perhaps a subtle hint at her hypocrisy. And as the dialogue further progresses between the two, we are ‘shown’ first hand Elizabeth’s unfounded judgement of Darcy. This ‘showing’ technique dramatically confirms what we already know about Elizabeth that perhaps she is heading for a fall!