Mr. Collins and the "Friend Zone"

When I blogged earlier this year about Ron Rosenbaum's article in Slate asking whether Jane Austen was overrated, I used Mr. Collins' proposal to Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice as an example of what really makes Austen great, and to try to push back against the idea that her books aren't serious.

Lo and behold, that very scene cropped up in Slate today, in a discussion about "the friend zone":

All this demonstrates what Jane Austen was trying to tell us 200 years ago: Sometimes it doesn't pay to let a guy down easy. Many a woman has uttered the phrase "Let's just be friends" on the theory that something a little more direct would result in an angry reaction. But really, even if your suitor goes so far as to cough up a word that starts with a b or even a c, is that really worse than having him go on Tumblr and write self-pitying posts about how the woman who belongs to him refuses to accept her fate? If you suspect that you're dealing with a guy who is comfortable with the term friend zone, then there's no reason not to be blunt in your rejection, preferably by saying, "I could never be with a man whose beard smells like Cheeto dust."

The highlighted link goes to Mr. Collins' proposal.  I'll spare you my very complex thoughts on "the friend zone" (which boil down to: certainly it's appropriately used SOME of the time) and just say that I'm pretty amused by the image of Mr. Collins galloping back to Lady Catherine and explaining that Elizabeth had "put him in the friend zone."

And now that I think about, didn't Jane Austen write a book that was precisely about a guy who manages to escape "the friend zone?"

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

I said long long ago that I preferred Emma to Pride and Prejudice by a hair, but having just re-read the latter, I think that I must be mistaken--surely Pride and Prejudice is one of the most perfect books ever written. (You will excuse me as I slip into something of a panegyric; I don't think I can help it.) Every moment, every character, every word seems perfectly shaped and in place. Certainly I can think of few other books that compel me to read them so strongly. This is the (I think) fourth time I've read Pride and Prejudice, but every time, I find myself in a bitter disposition doing anything else but reading it, because something about it draws you to its conclusion. The ultimate joke, I think, in a book constructed from jokes is that when the climax comes, it's reported secondhand:

Elizabeth feeling all the more than common awkwardness and anxiety of his situation now forced herself to speak; and and immediately, though not very fluently, gave him to understand that her sentiments had undergone so material a change, since the period to which he alluded, as to make her receive with gratitude and pleasure his present assurances. The happiness which this reply produced was such as he had probably never felt before; and he expressed himself on the occasion as sensibly and as warmly as a man violently in love can be supposed to do.

This is hilarious, and nasty. After priming the reader for a final declaration of love from Darcy and an acceptance of marriage from Elizabeth, Austen drops the dialogue and essentially cuts to black, no kiss, no knee, nothing. Just "[she] gave him to understand that her sentiments had undergone so material a change, since the period to which he alluded...," which is as funny as any of the ironic digs at Mr. Collins or William Lucas.

Not that you would be able to find much of that ironic sense in any of your ersatz Austen sequels, or even much in the (excellent) Joe Wright film, for which the love story outshines all other elements of the novel. But people insist on misunderstanding this book, even--or especially--its biggest fans. Why is it that the most irony-deficient people seem to love this book? How can it inspire such crippling sincerity as this?

In fact, the more I think about it, I wonder if Pride and Prejudice doesn't merely use irony as its modality, but its theme as well. It is, in a sense, a book about irony, that gap between perception and reality. Elizabeth is only able to find happiness with Darcy once she learns to balance public perception of him against his true character; it is a lesson she learns with Wickham in reverse. Mrs. Bennet jeopardizes her daughters' chances of marriage by being deficient in manners, which are a kind of irony, proudly bellowing what she perceives to be true at inopportune moments, unaware that saying what you do not mean, and meaning what you do not say, can both be a kind of social currency. For her part, Jane allows herself to be beguiled by Caroline Bingley because she cannot perceive the irony, or insincerity, of others. On the other hand, there is Mr. Bennet, so removed from the world by way of his ironic veil that he cannot grasp the danger of Lydia's Brighton trip, which serves as the prelude to a misbegotten elopement.

Or I could be completely full of shit. In any case, I love this book.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

I begrudgingly concur with the department lead at my school who recommended that we read Black Boy as the final book of the senior year instead of what he calls "the pink book"--since our copies of Pride and Prejudice are the color of Pepto-Bismol. Surely he is right when he says that Pride and Prejudice is not a book that teenagers would find inherently interesting, and its feminine appearance doesn't help (though I leave the irony of judging this particular book by its cover to the reader to notice).

But I also admit that I was secretly pleased to find that there were only enough copies of Black Boy to be read by one class. I love Pride and Prejudice. This puts me in good company, since it seems that in recent years sequels to Pride and Prejudice have become sort of a cottage industry.

But why? What is it about "the pink book" that has made it such an enduring work?

I think part of its popularity has to do with the fact that it is sort of an ur-text for a very familiar type of story: the romantic comedy. All romantic comedies are structured essentially the same way: Two people of very different stations or perspectives meet, and at first their natural opposition makes them hate each other. Inevitably, despite all odds, their mutual antipathy turns to love.

Surely Pride and Prejudice wasn't the first to do this, but it does it so well. Elizabeth Bennet's cleverness and disdain clash immediately with Mr. Darcy's prim elitism, but the reader sees what they do not, that their intelligence and discernment (or even snobbishness) make them perfect for each other. As I've been teaching it, I try to get across what might be lost on a young, modern audience, that Darcy and Elizabeth's love forms across class boundaries, and that Darcy's love for Elizabeth represents a non-trivial social risk.

Furthermore, I think that Pride and Prejudice taps directly into that well of human feeling that romantic comedies exploit repeatedly, the desire to find one's soulmate. Darcy and Elizabeth are drawn just broadly enough to allow the reader to live vicariously through them; Darcy is handsome, well-mannered, eloquent, but also appealingly aloof. Likewise Elizabeth is clever and strong-willed. Not only is it easy to imagine ourselves in a relationship with (or someone like) one, it is easy to imagine ourselves as (or like) the other. We love the story because it affirms the archetype of finding "the One."

And, like romantic comedies ought to be, it's funny. This is especially lost on my students, who fail to pick up on the humor underneath the language. In this scene, Mr. Bingley's sister Caroline betrays her crush on Darcy, who earlier had remarked how he appreciates a woman who reads frequently:

Miss Bingley's attention was quite as much engaged in watching Mr. Darcy's progress through his book, as in reading her own; and she was perpetually either making some inquiry, or looking at his page. She could not win him, however, to any conversation; he merely answered her question, and read on. At length, quite exhausted by the attempt to be amused with her own book, which she had only chosen because it was the second volume of his, she gave a great yawn and said, "How pleasant it is to spend an evening in this way! I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than a book! When I havea house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library."

No one made any reply. She then yawned again, threw her book, and cast her eyes round the room in quest of some amusement...

I think the image of Caroline saying "How much sooner one tires of anything than a book," and then tossing her book aside when no one responds, is pretty amusing. But you know what they say about what happens to a joke when you explain it. Much of the humor is subtle, and based on changes in register that modern readers have trouble picking up on:

Sir William Lucas had been formerly in trade in Meryton, where he had made a tolerable fortune and risen to the honour of knighthood by an address to the King, during his mayoralty. The distinction had perhaps been felt too strongly. It had given him a disgust to his business and to his residence in a small market town and quitting them both, he had removed with his family to a house about a mile from Meryton, denominated from that period Lucas Lodge, where he could think with pleasure of his own importance, and unshackled by business, occupy himself solely in being civil to all the world.

The humor here lies in the diction: Lucas' house, "denominated from that period Lucas Lodge," his "tolerable fortune," all endowing the passage with a false grandiloquence that shows exactly why Lucas has felt "the distinction... too strongly." Lucas is a pompous ass, and has given up any useful contribution to society to "occupy himself solely in being civil to all the world," enamored of his own fortune and relatively paltry social status. But to recognize the different shades of meaning here requires a much more sophisticated sense of vocabulary than even the brightest teenagers possess.

Still, I hope to kindle in at least one student an appreciation of how good Pride and Prejudice is. If I can do that, then I will count this semester a grand success.