PRIDE AND PREJUDICE'S MR COLLINS
By: Sharon Wagoner
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE'S MR COLLINS
In Pride and Prejudice , Mr Collins, with his pompous, obsequious ways, is easy to overlook as mere comic relief. Contemplation of the hero and heroine and their romantic relationship with its twists and turns is so much more appealing. I wonder though, if, in dismissing Mr Collins too quickly, we fail to recognise Jane Austen's genius for comic satire. The simple juxtaposition of Mr Collins in vivid and humorous interaction with the other characters in a coherent story line is a major accomplishment of invention.
Jane Austen, however, fashions more than amusement into her creation of his character. In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet's alternate amusement and embarrassment at Mr. Collin's hands displays the ridiculous position of a woman pursued by a man of inferior mind and manners, if not social position.
Likewise, Charlotte Lucas is forced to choose between life as a spinster in the home of her younger brother and marriage to a man she cannot either respect or love. Mr Collins is the key agent Miss Austen uses to measure and reveal her characters. The outrageously ridiculous dinner scene involving Mr Collins's obsequious praise of Lady Catherine de Bourgh and his overawed father-in-law Sir William Lucas echoing his words at Lady Catherine's table takes satire to a knife sharp edge that places rank and wealth in perspective. In a word rank and wealth without education, judgment, and the ability to laugh at one's self are ridiculous.
To quote another Jane Austen character's satiric comment on society from her book Persuasion :
"GOOD COMPANY REQUIRES ONLY BIRTH, EDUCATION, AND MANNERS, AND WITH REGARD TO EDUCATION IS NOT VERY NICE."
I am awed by Jane Austen's masterful use of her creation, Mr Collins, to satirise the preoccupation of society with wealth and rank in Pride and Prejudice , and demonstrate the extremely limited choices for women. Mr Collins as a member of the clergy is himself representational of marriage, a topic that is thoroughly examined in Pride and Prejudice. Mr Collins is both an agent for the performance of a marriage and a person whose respectability and position would be enhanced by his own marriage.
Jane Austen parades a diverse group of marriages before the reader and examines each with her lucid depiction. In an approach that is the reverse of Mr Collins's style, she strives to draw us into a consideration of marriage with humour and spare words.
Jane Austen had so abundant a well to draw her humour from, that she could afford to use some very good moments as mere throw away lines. When Mr. Collins reads aloud to the Bennets after dinner he chooses Fordyce's Sermons , a book, well-known at the time for preaching correct behaviour to young ladies. The headstrong Lydia quickly interrupts his attempt to sermonise to his host's daughters. The scene might have been drawn out for pages, but is kept to a smile provoking couple of paragraphs by the author. Jane Austen has been criticised for being too spare in her writing. However, her work has stood the test of time better than her Victorian critics. Her abundant creativity enhanced by her spare well-honed prose is almost haiku like in richness of meaning and forward momentum. The next time you read Pride and Prejudice take a moment to consider Austen's use of Mr. Collins in the story line.
Sharon Wagoner is the webmistress of The Georgian Index . Visit her site for a treasure trove of little known information about the Georgian period. A fascinating collection!
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I chose to post this article because the image of Mr. Collins was particularly singled out in the previous Jane Austen article I posted by one of the few members of NT who has sufficient literary background to discuss it. That previous image was the one of Mr. Collins being interrupted by Lydia while he was reading Fordyce's Sermons to the Bennet family after dinner. That scene is referred to in the above article:
The actual text concerning that scene from the original novel, Pride and Prejudice, reads as follows, and, bolded by me, contains the words spoken in the image at the top of the page about never reading novels:
Time for me to read the novel again, it has been too long, just as it has been too long since I've enjoyed a meal of lobster, or too long since I've played a game of golf.
For context, the "dose" was of Mr. Collins' company. Mr. Bennet liked making fun of him, but had had him all to himself for quite long enough, and turned him loose on the ladies of the house. If Mr. Collins is too annoying for Mr. Bennet to spend an hour or so alone with him, no woman should have had to endure him for life against her own wishes. Charlotte went into it with her eyes open. Mrs. Bennet tried to force him on Lizzie.
Yet Mr. Bennett then agreed to play backgammon with Mr. Collins, and if he did I would have hoped he beat Collins massively, since Collins proved himself more mouth than accomplishment. I thought Mrs. Bennett only suggested Lizzy to Mr. Collins, and that she actually tried to force Lizzy on Collins, or maybe I'm just thinking about the Knightly movie.
Mrs. Bennet suggested Lizzie to Collins because his first interest, Jane, had already attracted Bingley. Collins saw them as pretty much interchangeable, so he proposed to Lizzie. When she refused, Mrs. Bennet threatened to disown her ("I will never see her again!")
To which Mr. Bennet countered by telling Lizzy that from that day on one of her parents will never see her again. If she doesn't marry Mr. Collins her mother will never see her again, and if she does marry him, HE will never see her again. LOL Lizzy was saved by her father.
Benjamin Witrow played that scene so well in the '95 miniseries.
It's been quite a while since I last watched the Firth miniseries.
I think it's been maybe a year since I last watched.
I finally managed to get my hands on a copy of the Felicity Jones version of Northanger Abbey. I'd been looking for quite a while, but couldn't find it on BluRay. Last trip to Barnes & Noble, it was there.
Now I need to find the 2008 Sense and Sensibility, which I liked better than the 1995 Emma Thompson version, with the notable exception of Alan Rickman as Colonel Brandon.
I considered Rickman one of my favourite character actors. I can just see him in my minds eye now as Colonel Brandon in he wedding carriage throwing coins to the people.
Same. No matter what character he played, villain, hero, antihero, I just loved him.
You are going to have us all reading it if you don't stop!
It's what turned me on to English Literature when I was 16, and guided me to major in English Literature for my first B.A., so it isn't poison, but it can be addictive.
Once again, I owe you a thanks. You may not have fostered my appreciation of literature, but you did help me financially. After reading this yesterday I sat down this afternoon to the first race at Santa Anita. I seldom play hunches, but there was a first-time starter in the race named Jane Austen. Unfortunately, Santa Anita posts the replays in Spanish. I think it's a California thing. I managed to get 5-1.
What? No percentage for me? Tell you what, buy me a lottery ticket with my share of the winnings and if we win we can share that. Deal?
Sure. Is gambling allowed over there?
I don't know, but I think that Asians, generally, are are fond of gambling. There are casinos on Macau.
I agree.
I'll tell you what, you keep us educated on Jane Austen the novelist and I'll keep you updated on the career of Jane Austen the racehorse.
Tapit's Jane Austen Posts Debut Win at Santa Anita (thoroughbreddailynews.com)
Okay. You've given me an opening to tell stories, something I enjoy doing and have often done on this site. I was never much of a gambler. My father only gambled by playing Bridge, if there WAS gambling in it - he played with Canada's Bridge champion Eric Murray, a runner-up, Dr. Fraser Hamilton and a friend from our community. I used to sit on the stairs in our house with a view of the living room where they were playing to watch them, but never learned how to play Bridge.
My father once told me to NEVER go to bet on the races. He said that if I were to go and make a bet and win, I'd be lost for the rest of my life. Well, I did go to the dog races once in Miami and I enjoyed the Jai Lai Fronton, but it was all penny-ante and didn't turn me on to gambling. I played poker with my law school classmate friends once a week but it was not big deal, it was just entertainment, and nobody won or lost much.
Then the charity I was involved in and was on the International Board of had a meeting at the MGM Grande in Las Vegas. The first time I went into the casino I purchased $10 worth of tokens and put the first token in a slot machine and won $100. My dad's prediction took hold, I became obsessed, transfixed by the slot machines. I would sit between two of them and play two at the same time. I was noticed by the casino staff who presented me with a VIP card since I was so crazy over it. When I was about to return to Toronto, and had $100 worth of tokens left I called my then wife who told me to put them on the lucky number 18 at a roulette table. I went there, the croupier was just about to spin the wheel and I went to put the tokens on number 18 but there were already so many tokens on it there was no room so I didn't, and guess what number came up? At 30 to 1 odds I would have gone home with $3000. I no longer gamble.
You are lucky in many ways. That is a very interesting story. You had a lot of fun with a game that was strictly luck. I have done a lot of gambling, but I have only played games that had some element of skill in them.
As for people playing Bridge for money, there are those who have played Bridge for money and these days you can even do it online. Gamblers are creations of a certain place & time. I think environment has a lot to do with it. Where I grew up gambling was commonplace and most of my friends at a very young age were gamblers. Believe it or not, for me it all began with a book I read when I was about 18. The man who wrote it was an accomplished writer who had grown up in the shadow of Aqueduct racetrack in New York. As you say, he became obsessed with something. In his case: horseracing and he sought a book on how to play the races. He was surprised to see that there were none, so he decided to write one himself. The book is incredibly well written, and I think I can still quote from it.
Tom Ainslie's Legacy (trpublishing.com)
At this point in my life, I do a lot of looking back. In many ways I too was very lucky. Not that I walked away, but that I always took gambling very seriously and noted what gambling did to my old childhood friends.
I certainly don't wonder how the "young ladies" of today would "take" to those sermons. LOL
Apparently, they were considered prudish and plodding even then.
BTW Happy 460th to this guy
Although I couldn't open the image you posted, how could I, or ANYONE sufficiently literary to post on this group not have known who you meant.
There may be gems about Jane Austen’s life and times buried in a memoir handwritten by her older brother – but it is proving difficult to decipher his tricky handwriting.
So museum curators at her old cottage in the Hampshire village of Chawton are asking Austen enthusiasts across the world if they can help transcribe the newly acquired 78-page document.
The head of collections, interpretation and engagement at Jane Austen’s House , Sophie Reynolds, said: “It’s really, really, rare to have new Austen family material come to light. It’s not fully known what is in there so that’s really exciting.”
As well as the unpublished handwritten biography, the museum has bought an album of watercolours and drawings Austen’s brother made during his career in the Royal Navy. Both have gone on display in an exhibition called Travels with Frank Austen – the name he was known by.
Jane Austen museum appeals to public for help deciphering brother’s memoir | Jane Austen | The Guardian
That's fantastic news for the Jane Austen crowd.
I guess it doesn't matter that The Guardian is blocked here, because I have trouble deciphering my OWN handwriting these days, it's become such a scrawl.