The 'Seeming' Reality

[Neri]

No: HPFGUIDX 155593

> Pippin:
> If you can't see the irony in "I could forgive his pride" then I 
guess
> we are reading the same book but living in different universes <g> 

Neri:
Of course there's irony. There's also self-irony in the other 
half "if he hadn't mortified mine". This is exactly why this line is 
memorable. But there isn't condemnation of pride as a deadly sin 
here, or of Darcy as an evil man.

> Sydney:
> 
> *blink*  Um, did we read the same book?  Of course Elizabeth's
> mistaken about Darcy's motives and his whole character.  She is 
ready
> to believe he defrauded a man out of his inheritance, and that he
> wilfully destroyed the love of Bingley and Jane because Jane wasn't
> rich enough.  When she finds out the truth, she's hardly 
just, "huh. 
> so that's what really happened."  She's like:
> 
> "Astonishment, apprehension, and even horror, oppressed her. She
> wished to discredit it entirely, repeatedly exclaiming, "This must 
be
> false! This cannot be! This must be the grossest falsehood!" "
>

Neri:
You miss the distinction I make between motivations, biography and 
true nature. Elizabeth *is* mistaken about motivations (of herself as 
well as of others), about biography (The quarrel between Wickham and 
Darcy) but she does not mistake true nature for long. 

The quotes above, as you say, show Elizabeth when she isn't rational, 
mainly because of the marriage proposal she just refused. However, at 
that point she had already found by herself that she's not in love 
with Wickham, that he's not an admirable man, and she has only 
believed his version because she didn't have Darcy's version. Just 
several days after reading Darcy's version, when her agitation 
subsides a bit, she believes him although it's still only his word 
against Wickham's, and despite her other objections to him (his 
interference with her sister's engagements and his despise for her 
family) have only been confirmed.

Basically both Elizabeth and Emma show good instincts regarding human 
true nature despite their intellectual failure to recognize 
motivations and being lied to about the facts. Elizabeth never falls 
for Wickham and Emma never falls for Churchill. Elizabeth is deceived 
about Darcy's character only for a short time and Emma is never 
deceived about Knightly's character. So in principle the ESE and DDM 
paradigms just don't work in Austen's novels.

Neri