The 'Seeming' Reality

[Sydney]

No: HPFGUIDX 155607


> 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.

Sydney:
I think the weasel words here are 'for long'.  In what way is
Elizabeth NOT mistaken about Darcy's 'true nature' for the several
months she believes him to have defrauded an innocent Wickham of his
inheritance?  Is this a 'biography' or is it a 'true nature'?
 
Neri:
> The quotes above, as you say, show Elizabeth when she isn't rational, 
> mainly because of the marriage proposal she just refused. 

Sydney:
So, the pivotal moment of Elizabeth's realization of her biases is
just about her momentary agitation?  Here I thought that was the
emotional center of the book,  but now I see I should just have
written it off as a case of the vapours! Elizabeth, I thought, was
being irrational in the specific stuff that the plot hinges on for
most of the book-- which is what makes it a story, as opposed to just
a bunch of stuff happening.  The point at which she has to reasses not
only her judgement about the two men but about how she judges people
in general, is what the whole story is ABOUT.   To make that some sort
of momentary hicup in the otherwise smooth flow of her psyche is to
suck out the whole point of the book, IMO, and turn it into an 'idiot
plot' of stupid misunderstandings rather a deep story of human frailties.

Neri:
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.

Sydney:
Darcy's version is indirectly given her by Bingley and, of course,
hotly dismissed:

``I have not a doubt of Mr. Bingley's sincerity,'' said Elizabeth
warmly; ``but you must excuse my not being convinced by assurances
only. Mr. Bingley's defence of his friend was a very able one I dare
say, but since he is unacquainted with several parts of the story, and
has learnt the rest from that friend himself, I shall venture still to
think of both gentlemen as I did before.''

I love that passage-- Elizabeth, of course, is also unaquainted with
several parts of the story!

She found out she wasn't in love with Wickham because he left her to
persue an heiress, but she certainly didn't realize he wasn't an
'admirable man' until she got Darcy's letter.  There is quite an
extended passage, I believe, when she's rationalizing why an
'admirable man' would dump her for a chick with money and succeeding
in coming up with quite handy explanations, I believe.  

 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. Elizabeth never falls 
> for Wickham and Emma never falls for Churchill. Elizabeth is deceived 
> about Darcy's character only for a short time


Sydney:  
I don't quite understand what you mean by 'a short time'here.  I mean,
Othello was decieved by Iago for 'a short time' in the sense of, just
a couple of days, but really, he's deceived for just long enough for
it to affect the plot.  Elizabeth is deceived about Darcy for just
long enough for it to play its part in the plot, which is a few 
months;  Harry is deceived about Snape's character for just long
enough for it to play its part in the plot, about seven years. If
something in the plot of Pride and Prejudice required seven years to
happen, I'm pretty sure Elizabeth's misunderstanding of Darcy would
continue for about that long.

Elizabeth DOES generally show good instincts about people-- which is
why she's led into being so overconfident of being smarter than
anybody else when the events of the story begin.  I mean, if she'd
always had terrible instincts then the story would be more of a farce.
 It is exactly their smug confidence in her instincts that lead both
characters astray.  

Neri:
 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.

Incidentally the character Emma is MOST wrong about is not Knightley,
but Jane Fairfax, the upright young lady about whom Emma spun some
quite monstrous fantasies, did she not?

The paradigm, such as it is, isn't about people being good or evil. 
It's about how hard it is to judge and understand people from our own
narrow point of view, how easy it is to overlay our own prejudices and
life experiences, how impossible to get into someone else's head.

The ESE or DDM paradigm of course is much more clearly demonstrated by
another of JKR's favorites, Agatha Christie, who tailored the
misunderstanding-of-character theme to fit neatly into mystery plots.
 And who in a million years would never reveal the True Villain at
this point of the story.  THIS point of the story is where we become
really, really sure the Red Herring character is the villain, so the
real villain can spring out of the woodwork at the last possible
instant.  Like in Philosopher's Stone, which used classic Christie
timing. 

To return to Wynleaf's question about reader misdirection in HP--
there's a very nice example in the setup about Peter Pettigrew. 
Becuase of how McGonnegal describes him, Harry connects him with
Neville, which sets up a radically different sort of personality than
we're expecting!  And, of course, the revelation about James'
character as a careless bully, which has to be my favorite shocker in
the series-- I totally didn't see it coming and laughed aloud at the
Pensive scene.  The technique here is to put the truth in the mouth of
a disagreeable character-- Snape says James was arrogant and strutted
around, and so he did, but who believed him?  The truth is hidden in
plain sight.  I've noticed this technique used a lot by Wilkie
Collins-- has JKR ever mentioned him as an influence?

-- Sydney