The 'Seeming' Reality

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 155597

> >>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. 
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
I think I'm still missing the distinction you're making.  Elizabeth 
saw Darcy's personality traits and used them to define his true 
nature for herself.  And she was completely wrong.  Just as she was 
completely wrong about Wickham.  Wrong as in she assigned the 
correct nature to the wrong man in each case.  And she was wrong 
about their true natures for most of the book.

What Elizabeth learned is that it's possible to have a prickly 
personality but an honorable true nature, and it's possible to have 
a pleasant personality and to be completely without honor.  (What 
Wickham does to Elizabeth's sister would easily fit under an ESE 
moniker in those days.  Girls did not bounce back from that sort of 
social ruin.  Generally their families were destroyed as well.)

> >>Neri:
> 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.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
I totally disagree.  Of course that's another discussion, but both 
books, IMO, are based on both girls being too confident in their 
abilities to judge other peoples' true natures.

> >>Neri:
> So in principle the ESE and DDM paradigms just don't work in      
> Austen's novels.

Betsy Hp:
Ooh, I totally disagree.  Yes, Austen wasn't about good vs. evil.  
But she was all about mis-identifying friend and foe.  And JKR has 
shown herself to be very good at a similar game.  Fake!Moody was a 
stunning example of that in GoF.  As was the great Crookshanks vs. 
Scabbers battle in PoA. 

I think the main point is that JKR is more Austen than Dahl.  The 
bad guys can't always be easily identified by their black hats. 

Betsy Hp