Mr Wickham’s manipulations of Elizabeth Bennet about Mr Darcy in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice

hello and welcome to close reading classic literature with me dr octavia cox today i'm going to be looking at jane austen's glorious novel pride and prejudice in particular i want to look at the character of mr wickham and how easily he persuades elizabeth bennett into believing his account of mr darcy so today i'm going to break down the video into three sections i'm going to start by thinking about what prompts the big revelatory conversation between wickham and lizzie about darcy i'm then going to move on to consider three examples of some of the techniques that wickham uses to ingratiate himself with lizzie and in particular i want to focus on an aspect of austin's writing that i think really appeals to so so many of her readers and why she continues to be so popular which is her psychological realism and i think this conversation between lizzie and wickham is a really good example of the way that austin creates characters to be close to real life to have kind of motivations and to expose psychological truths through the ways in which she depicts conversations between her characters and i think this one between wickham and lizzie is a really good example so i'm very pleased to be i'm picking it in a bit more detail today but then i'm going to close by thinking about two examples of some discrepancies we might say in wickham's account that might might give the reader a hint that wickham might not be as amiable as lizzie believes him to be and that his account might not be as accurate as lizzie believes it to be as lizzie is rejecting mr darcy's first proposal to her one of the reasons she gives is that your character was unfolded in the recital which i received many months ago from mr wickham on this subject what can you have to say and after the catastrophic fallout from his proposal darcy writes lizzie his long letter explaining his relationship with mr wickham and having read the letter of neither darcy nor wickham could she lizzie think without feeling she had been blind partial prejudiced absurd and today i want to think about some of those ways in which we might see that lizzie has been blind partial prejudiced absurd reflecting on the recital she had had from wiccan of darcy's character she says she perfectly remembered everything that had passed in conversation between wickham and herself in their first evening at mr phillips's many of his expressions were still fresh in her memory she was now struck with the impropriety of such communications to a stranger and wondered it had escaped her before so the text at this real moment of crisis for the hero and the heroine the fallout from their proposal the texts explicitly draws the reader's attention to the earlier conversation between lizzie and wickham the text is asking readers to go back and reconsider their conversation so in this video i'm going to do just that i'm going to examine why mr wickham's improprieties in this conversation had escaped her before as part of this it's crucial i think to consider why mr wickham brings up mr darcy at all and it's perhaps something that lizzie herself should think a little bit more about too he knows that they are acquainted at least to some extent by they i mean lizzy and darcy he knows that because when they meet in meriton when they first meet samaritan so when wickham is introduced mr bingley and mr darcy had stopped to talk to the bennett sisters principally mr bingley had stopped to talk to jane bennett but it's clear that the two parties know each other and in that re-meeting scene as i as i'm going to call it readers have been told that darcy's eyes were suddenly arrested by the sight of the stranger that is wickham and elizabeth happening to see the countenance of both as they looked at each other was all astonishment at the effect of the meeting both changed colour one looked white the other red mr wickham after a few moments touched his hat a salutation which mr darcy just deigned to return what could be the meaning of it it was impossible to imagine it was impossible not to long to know lizzie's imagination has been fired she longs to know what the meaning of this cold meeting could be it is in the very next chapter that wickham and lizzie have their conversation at mrs phillips's cards and tupper party where wickham maligns darcy's character we remember that the sticks in lizzie's mind are such an extent that she brings it up in the fallout from darcy's proposal one of the very first things that wickham does when they finally have a chance to speak to each other is to bring up this re-meeting incident wickham says i have been connected with his family in a particular manner from my infancy elizabeth could not but look surprised you may well be surprised miss bennett at such an assertion after seeing as you probably might the very cold manner of our meeting yesterday i think wickham knows that she has seen it and he is going on the offensive which is exactly what he does in the subsequent conversation by saying as you probably might have noticed wikim is softening the severity of his acknowledgement that he has noticed that she noticed their cold meeting if he had said something like i noticed that you saw our cold meeting yesterday and i want to explain it that sounds that sounds more aggressive but by saying as you probably might he's making it seem more casual so why does wickham bring up darcy because he knows i think or at the very least he guesses that lizzie saw their reaction at their re-meeting each other in meriton and wants to explain it on his own terms and in a way that is favorable to him after all he does not want lizzie asking darcy how they know each other and why they are hostile to each other because then his past life his past behavior his reputation as a gambler and a womanizer and so on might become known in maritime which of course wickham wants to avoid we remember that lizzie thought it was impossible not to long to know about their cold re-meeting her eagerness to know all about it must have been palpable i would suggest especially to a character like wickham chalmers are always very good at understanding quickly the immediate wants at least of other people so when they meet up again at mrs phillips's cards and supper party it is necessary for wickham to explain away the cold re-meeting without revealing the truth this is potential damage limitation that wickham is sort of undertaking here how does the conversation actually come about then after all this is quite a delicate subject so how does wickham approach it the text reads allowing for the common demands of the game that is the card game that they're playing mr wickham was therefore at leisure to talk to elizabeth and she was very willing to hear him though what she chiefly wished to hear she could not hope to be told the history of his acquaintance with mr darcy she dared not even mention that gentleman her curiosity however was unexpectedly relieved mr wickham began the subject himself he inquired how far netherfield was from meritan and after receiving her answer asked in a hesitating manner how long darcy had been staying there so he appears reticent to talk about it asked in a hesitating manner even though he brought it up himself and he's pushing it slightly because he asks one question he gets an answer and then he asks again another question relating to darcy about a month said elizabeth and then unwilling to let the subject drop added he goes fishing to see if she will bite the bait which she does he asks how far netherfield so where else is staying is from meriton to gauge how interested she is in the topic and she jumps on it she is unwilling to let the subject drop just as wickham had hoped and probably suspected given how obviously keen lizzie had been to know what was going on at the re-meeting scene and i think this is a great example of jane austen's brilliant psychological verisimilitude so verify military meaning kind of fictional realism so how fictional texts are created to be life like and something that austin is so wonderful at this psychological very similarity and i think we have a fantastic example of it here because we are told that lizzie could not hope to be told the story of wickham and darcy she could not hope to be told it and that she herself dares not bring it up she dares not mention darcy essentially because it would be improper and she is aware that it would be improper for her to gossip with a stranger which is essentially what she and wickham are doing gossip with a stranger about someone that she does not really know at all and in fact that she is seeking to kind of confirm her dislike of that person but because she is so pleased to have her curiosity relieved she does not stop to ask why mr wickham began the subject himself she forgets that she knows really that it would be improper to talk about it because wickham confirms her prejudices back to her she doesn't question the reliability or trustworthiness of him as a source of information and that's what i'm going to interrogate a little bit more now when i look at these three techniques that wikim uses in this conversation so the first technique enters the text really at this point wickham ensures that lizzie does not know very much about a person before he disparages them so going back to the end of the previous quotation then elizabeth unwilling to let the subject drop added he is a man of very large property in derbyshire i understand yes replied mr wickham his estate there is a noble one essentially repeating back to lizzie what she has already said and then he asks the crucial question are you much acquainted with mr darcy he ascertains her knowledge before he commits himself and this is an absolutely kind of classic way that people have similar kinds of conversation in real life you know that if you want to find out something you want to gauge how much the other person knows and then you can filter how much you might color your own account of whatever it is that you're going to say because you need to know what they know so that they can't catch you out in a lie and that's what wickham is doing here and then we have elizabeth's unfiltered really response as much as i ever wished to be cried elizabeth very warmly i have spent four days in the same house with him and i think him very disagreeable so lizzy gives her opinion of darcy first and really at this point i think wicker must be rubbing his hands because she's laid it all out completely on the table for him i think him very disagreeable from wickham's prompting then he knows that he is safe to be as rude as he likes about mr darcy and to confirm elizabeth in her view that mr darcy is very disagreeable wickham then applies the same technique in reference to georgiana darcy mr darcy's sister he introduces her in vague terms only testing the waters to see if lizzie will again be unwilling to let the subject drop which she is wickham says he darcy also has brotherly pride which with some brotherly affection makes him a very kind and careful guardian of his sister and you will hear him generally cried up as the most attentive and best of brothers again he's fishing has lizzie heard that what might darcy be protecting his sister from what does she know about georgiana has she heard any rumors that darcy is a very protective brother because if she's heard those rumors she might have heard something about what has happened in the past with georgiana and wickham but from her response it's fairly clear that lizzie knows nothing at all about what has gone on in the past lizzie says what sort of girl is miss darcy he shook his head i wish i could call her amiable he is only rude about georgiana darcy after lizzie has already asked the incredibly broad question what sort of girl is miss darcy making it clear that she does not know her that that they are not acquainted from lizzie's response wickham can be fairly certain that she knows nothing about his past behavior regarding georgiana so wickham can breathe a little easier and of course it means that wickham can get in first with his account of georgiana darcy wickham uses the same technique for a third time in relation to lady catherine berg mr collins drops her name and mr wickham's attention was caught he asked elizabeth in a low voice whether her relation that is mr collins were very intimately acquainted with the family of de berg to which elizabeth responds he certainly has not known her long and later i never heard of her existence till the day before yesterday now this is not actually strictly true because mr collins had spoken about lady catherine de berg in his letter uh that he wrote his introductory letter that he wrote to mr bennett inviting himself to long borne and that was back in chapter 13 but the point is that wickham goes fishing again and again lizzy obliges so he asks how intimately acquainted is mr collins with lady catherine how much can i say about lady catherine lizzie kind of again jumps at the chance to say what she thinks not a very nice opinion to say what she thinks about some of the people that mr wickham is bringing up mr collins said she speaks highly of both lady catherine and her daughter but from some particulars that he has related of her ladyship i suspect his gratitude misleads him and that in spite of her being his patroness she is an arrogant conceited woman again lizzie gives her opinion on the character that they are talking about first after being asked by wickham how much do you know about her wickham then responds i believe her to be both in a great degree that is arrogant and conceited parroting lizzie's opinion back to her wickham knows that he is safe to go on to disparage lady catherine more fully just as he had with mr darcy and georgiana darcy and it's an irony of this whole scene that lizzie thinks that she is getting information from wickham on mr darcy whereas in fact the opposite is is true wickham is using lizzie to get the information that he needs i'm now going to move on to the second technique which is that wickham uses lizzie's own words to explain darcy's behavior in particular he picks up on her assessment of darcy as proud when wickham is quietly fishing for her opinion by saying i have no right to give my opinion as to his being agreeable or otherwise lizzie responds with he is not at all liked in hertfordshire everybody is disgusted with his pride and wickham subsequently confirms lizzie's suspicions of darcy when he ascribes all of darcy's bad behavior to pride it is wonderful replied wickham this is when lizzie declares darcy's behaviour to be strange and abominable it is wonderful replied wickham for almost all his actions may be traced to pride and pride has often been his best friend so all his actions may be traced to pride wickham is playing into lizzie's craving really we might say her craving for confirmation bias in saying all his actions may be traced to pride he confirms her prejudice that everybody is disgusted with his pride of course it is not true that everybody is disgusted with his pride and lizzie brings mr bingley up herself mr bingley is obviously not disgusted with his pride mr bingley knows darcy as much more familiar with darcy has known him for much longer than lizzie has and yet still she won't take the fact that mr bingley you know kind nice affable gentleman like mr bingley clearly does not feel this way about mr darcy and wickham easily explained it away by saying well you know he probably just doesn't know what mr darcy is and lizzy accepts that but i'm picking that phrase a little bit more everybody is disgusted with his pride what lizzie really means by everybody is me and a couple of other people who do not really know darcy very well unlike of course mr bingley who does know him much better than they do but this is another example of austin's psychological rare similitude which is that a common way that people talk when they feel about something very strongly is to say everybody thinks what you know everybody thinks x and what they usually mean when they say everybody thinks x is i think x very strongly and i want you to confirm that anybody sensible will also think x 2. now is the reader included in this everybody are we also disgusted with his pride like lizzie do we just accept everything that wickham tells us because it confirms our own biases that we might have built up about mr darcy at this point in the novel and now i'll move on to look at the third technique which is the wickham picks up on lizzie's prejudices in other subtler ways too so wickham says of darcy the world is blinded by his fortune and consequence or frightened by his high and imposing manners and sees him only as he chooses to be seen lizzie prides herself on not being blinded by his fortune and consequence or frightened by his high and imposing manners so for example the moment at rosing's later in the novel when she is playing the piano and she says you mean to frighten me mr darcy by coming in all this state to hear me there is a stubbornness about me that can never bear to be frightened at the will of others wickham seems to have picked up on lizzy's determination not to be frightened by mr darcy and not to find his manners imposing as i was just talking about the quotation that i was picking up everybody is disgusted with his pride it's clearly not true what wickham has just said here that the world sees darcy in the way that wickham describes given that even the inhabitants of little old meritan which is hardly the world that they do not see him in that way as was made clear in our introduction to darcy in chapter three he darcy was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity so there's a repetition of diction everybody is disgusted with his pride which lizzie tells us later and here in chapter three when we are introduced to the character of darcy he's looked at with great admiration for half an evening till his manners give disgust so austin sows a seed in chapter three that will be picked up again later in chapter 16 and it's an example of just how tightly woven austin's texts really are he was looked at great admiration for about half the evening to this manners gave her disgust which turned the tide of his popularity for he was discovered to be proud to be above his company and above being pleased and not all his large estate in derbyshire could then save him from having a most forbidding disagreeable countenance now these two statements are incompatible everybody is disgusted with him and yet at the same time apparently according to wickham the world is blinded by his uh status and by his kind of frightening mean but it is flattering to think one has not been blinded by something that the rest of the world apparently has been blinded by and so wickham draws on this flattery in his conversation with lizzie wickham also plays into lizzie's own prejudices about herself and what she considers to be admirable character traits when he says and this is explaining why darcy dislikes him he says i have a warm unguarded temper and i may have spoken my opinion of him and to him too freely this is how lizzie bennet likes to think of her own character warm unguarded and confident enough to speak her opinions freely and by the way this is not a criticism of lizzie bennet those are the characters that the characteristics that we really like or many of us really like about her character that we find um you know valuable and admirable wickham has seen from very early in this conversation that this is an essential character trait of lizzie's that she values these characteristics in herself and he exploits that essentially i think her comment about miss darcy that i quoted earlier is a case in point she is acquainted with darcy as much as i ever wished to be cried elizabeth very warmly i have spent four days in the same house with him and i think him very disagreeable and again note how jane austen uses the same diction the narrative voice has elizabeth speak very warmly wickham describes himself as having a warm temper that means he speaks freely wickham here explains why darcy does not like him in terms he can be sure will make lizzie particularly sympathetic to him of course another irony here is that in this whole conversation wickham has in fact been very guarded so he does not have an unguarded temper at all as he claims he's guarded in the sense of protecting himself against any potential threat from darcy exposing anything negative about him so in summary why had mr wickham's impropriety escaped her before because like all chalmers he is a sympathetic and astute listener who finds out lizzie bennet's prejudices and then confirms them back to her and she is so eager to have those prejudices confirmed that she doesn't stop to interrogate what wickham has said elizabeth bennett's eagerness to condemn mr darcy makes her overlook the flaws in wickham's arguments but readers should be on the lookout for discrepancies are we thinking more critically than lizzy is or do we just accept her acceptance of wickham's story so the first discrepancy i want to bring up is that wickham claims that lady catherine de berg has the reputation of being remarkably sensible and clever in part because of the pride of her nephew this is again reiterating lizzie's earlier assessment of darcy's pride wickham brings up darcy's pride again and again and again after lizzie has already said that she finds darcy to be proud in part she has this reputation because the pride of her nephew chooses that everyone connected with him should have an understanding of the first class but darcy has not mentioned lady catherine at all he can hardly be puffing up her reputation if he has not even mentioned her the only person we have heard lady catherine up until this point in relation to is mr collins who mentions her every chance he can get a second more significant incongruity is that wickham is inconsistent within his own account in relation to georgiana darcy for example he declares i wish i could call her amiable it gives me pain to speak ill of a darcy but she is too much like her brother very very proud it clearly does not give him pain to speak ill of a darcy if it did he could just stop talking furthermore there is no apparent need to bring up georgiana darcy in this conversation of course there is a reason as will become clear later in the novel but there is no ostensible reason at this point for him to even mention georgiana darcy at all especially given that he only mentions her to be rude about her despite apparently it giving him pain to speak ill of a darcy the reader if not lizzy ought to be smelling a rat thank you very much indeed for watching remember if you like what i do here on my channel where i analyze classic literature then do subscribe and if you have liked the video then do please press the thumbs up button it helps me out in youtube's algorithm and what do you think what techniques do you think that wickham uses to persuade lizzy and do you think there are other ways that the reader ought perhaps even if lizzy isn't that the reader ought to be smelling a bit of a rat

Channel: Dr Octavia Cox

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Id: UzUFlFYrE7s

Length: 29min 48sec (1788 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 22 2021