The 'Seeming' Reality

[Neri]

No: HPFGUIDX 155613

> 
> 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.
> 

Neri:
That's P&P fanon, perhaps, but it just doesn't work with Austen's canon.

The canon is that Elizabeth is very quickly disillusioned about
Wickham's nature. The first sign is when he chickens out of the
Netherfield ball despite previously claiming that he's not afraid of
confronting Darcy. The next sign is when he transfers his charms from
Elizabeth to Miss King because the last has a bigger inheritance.
Elizabeth perceives these signs and interprets them correctly. And she
hardly even feels disappointed about losing him. All this takes place
already before Darcy's first proposal.  


> Betsy Hp:
> 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.

Neri:
But this happens pretty early in the novel.

Already after Darcy's first proposal and his letter, the situation is
that it's his word against Wickham's. Elizabeth doesn't have any other
information to know who lies and who tells the truth. Darcy has
confirmed that he sees Elizabeth's family beneath him while Wickham
treats them pleasantly. Darcy admitted to his responsibility for
Jane's situation while Wickham has never wronged her or any other
person that Elizabeth knows. And yet, despite all this Elizabeth
believes Darcy's story and not Wickham's, even though it would mean
that Wickham is, as you say, an evil man in Austen's standards. When
Jane tries to convince her that this could all be some
misunderstanding Elizabeth insists that (paraphrasing for memory)
"Darcy has all the good in the world and Wickham all the appearance of
it". Already at this stage Elizabeth has no problem perceiving that a
seemingly unpleasant man can be honorable – and why should she? Her
own father is like that, although in a different style than Darcy.  

At this point Elizabeth already judges correctly the true nature of
both Darcy and Wickham. During the second half of the novel she is
only surprised by Darcy's motivation (that is, by how much he's ready
to do for her) and not by his true nature. Wickham running away with
Lydia isn't a surprise for Elizabeth at all, except that she didn't
think he'd be stupid enough to blow his chance of catching a richer
bride.  


> Betsy Hp:
> Ooh, I totally disagree. Yes, Austen wasn't about good vs. evil.  
> But she was all about mis-identifying friend and foe. 

Neri:
I'm not familiar with any canon for that. Not in P&P, not in Emma, not
in Persuasion and not in Mansfield Park, in none of these novels
misidentifying friend from foe by the heroine is a major issue. You
could perhaps make a case for Willoughby in S&S but I doubt it. He's a
weak person but (unlike Wickham) hardly a scheming villain. It's
misidentifying characters *motivations* (especially who's in love with
who and how much) that is the major issue in most these novels.


> wynnleaf
> 
> The problem here is that the *reader* is not deceived by Elizabeth or 
> Emma -- and particularly Emma, since the surprises in Emma are much 
> bigger, and it was the book, "Emma," that JKR particularly cited as 
> the "standard."
> 
> To repeat...  the *reader* is not deceived by Emma's understanding of 
> the character's or motivations of others.  The reader is deceived by 
> the narration.  Most decerning readers figure out relatively early on 
> that Emma's ideas about her friends and aquaintances are mostly fairy 
> tales and wishful thinking.  Or, in the case of what she thinks of 
> Jane (hey, she didn't get Jane right, did she?) it's basically 
> jealousy and spite.  No, the reader is not deceived by Emma.  The 
> reader is deceived by the narrator.  And that's the principal that 
> *does* fit JKR.  

Neri:
It's more difficult to say what the reader was deceived about than
what the heroine was deceived about, since each reader is different.
Still, I doubt many readers wanted Emma to end up with Churchill (OK,
unless it was a movie and he was played by Ewan McGregor <g>). I also
doubt many readers thought that Knightly was scheming or deceiving
anybody. So Austen never deceived the readers about the true nature of
the characters – only about their motivations. I don't think this is
any coincidence. As JKR says, the readers like to be tricked, but no
conned. It is very difficult to trick but *not* con the reader
regarding the true nature of a regular. In fact, right now I can't
recall any author who did it successfully. Doing it with secondary
characters that we don't know much about, like Crouch!Moody, is a
different thing, in part because we care less about them.

I quite agree that JKR has surprises in store about character
motivations and histories, and that she uses hero-limited narration
for that, but I doubt it would be extended to the true nature of main
characters. In any case you can't conclude that from Austen's and
certainly not from Emma.

Neri