The Literary Lamppost
✨Along with Caitlin’s analysis and Ashley’s imagination, wander through the world of stories and their meaning in our world. ✨
📚Inspired by C.S. Lewis's iconic lamppost in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", this podcast aims to shed light on some of the most important things going on in the world through the lens of literature. We explore family, friendships, religion, government, society, and other issues found in the pages of our favourite books, from classics to booktok. We hope you will join us on this adventure 📚
The Literary Lamppost
Pride and Prejudice: Enemies at First Slight
Ah Pride and Prejudice, a favourite Austen classic. In this episode we discuss some of the great and...not so great relationship dynamics that we find in the relationships between these beloved characters...and maybe think about why you shouldn’t say everything you think at a country ball...
We also discuss some things in relation to red pill stuff, it seems there is nothing new under the sun...
Sources:
We quoted Andrew Tate in this episode, and he should have to stand behind the awful things he says. Find his quote about bodycounts and other awful things he’s said in this article
www.ourwatch.org.au/education/the-evidence-for-respectful-relationships-education
www.forbes.com/sites/larissafaw/2015/07/28/watch-out-ladies-millennial-men-are-gold-diggers/
Follow us on Instagram @theliterarylamppost
So Ashley, what did you think of that guy on the train? He was tolerable, I suppose, but not handsome enough to tempt me. Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is basically a masterclass in how pride, assumptions, and personality quirks can make or break a relationship.
Hi, and welcome to the Literary Lamppost Podcast, where we analyze books and see what we can learn from them.
I'm Caitlin. I'm a math grad student, but I love analyzing literature and I love English, and I'm Ashley, an assistant editor for a magazine and a writer. I think Pride and Prejudice is actually my favorite book of all time. I've listened to the audiobook at this point, probably about 20 times. It was written in 1813 by the Great Jane Austen, and I think it's actually the oldest book that we've done so far.
And actually, Jane Austin was initially going to call Pride and Prejudice First Impressions. I think Pride and Prejudice is a lot catchier, so I'm glad that she changed it. Yeah, but I can actually see why first impressions worked. Yeah. Because it really was Lizzie's first impression of Mr. Darcy that set her up with this prejudice against him, wasn't it?
But we're getting ahead of ourselves anyway. How many times do you think you've read Pride and Prejudice? Honestly, I think only twice. But does it count that I have seen the BBC miniseries Pride and Prejudice at least once a year since I was 10? I think that counts. It's pretty close to the book. Which version do you prefer?
Oh no, the BBC one, all the way, even with Kira Knightly in the 2005 version. Yeah. Sorry, Colin Firth Outweighs Kira Knightley. Yeah. Fair enough. And, um, the 2005 version doesn't catch Mr. Colin's creepy wave. Oh, I love his creepy wave. It's so creepy. It's so bad. Caitlin, you found a couple of really interesting facts about pride and prejudice when we were doing some research for this episode.
Why don't you explain them? So actually in the early 20th century, the term Collins named for Mr. Collins came into use as a S slang for a thank you note to a host, which is hilarious because Mr. Collins writes excessive thank you notes. Yeah, that's awesome. And also, mark Twain overwhelmingly did not like pride and prejudice, he said.
Every time I read Pride and Prejudice, I want to dig Austin up and beat her over the skull with her own shin bone. Yikes. That's excessive. I don't know why he hated it that much. Look, mark Twain is good. I've read some of his work, but. Doesn't beat Jane Austen. No, no, I shouldn't say that. 'cause he actually has some really important works.
Well, he does. He does beat Jane Austen. If, if he were to dig her up, he would be her with her shin bone. Okay. Making, okay. We are going to be talking about more than just the character traits of Pride and Prejudice in this episode. We're talking relationships, looking at each of the couples in this story.
With some very interesting themes, kindness and resilience versus naivete and gullibility, the gold digger stereotype, emotion versus logic, critical thinking. We're also going to be touching on a couple things related to the red pill movement online, and we are going to give a bit of a trigger warning here.
We are going to be touching on themes of misogyny and sexuality issues. All right. Let's start off with introducing the Bennett family. There are five daughters and their mother's main goal in life is to marry them off to wealthy husbands. The three younger daughters, Lydia Kitty and Mary are very silly.
Really? Each in their own unique, special way. Yeah. But the two older ones are wiser. There is Elizabeth, kind of the main character. She's very witty and intelligent. And then there's Jane, the oldest Bennett sister. She's very kind. Now the Bennett family are high class, but they are on the poorer side. And now drum roll please.
Introducing our eligible bachelor's, Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley. Bingley is very excitable. Should I mention the X over excited celery? Yes. Bingley is very excitable when I was a kid and I really don't know why I used to call him over Excited celery. I was a strange child. Where'd that come from? I, I really dunno.
How did celery have anything to do with Mr. Bley? I don't understand. It's hilarious. Regardless, you don't question my child self anyways. Bingley has a lot of golden retriever energy and he's also a love at first sight kind of guy. Mr. Dsi, on the other hand, has zero social skills. He won't dance, he won't make conversation.
Is seen as very disagreeable by most people. Both of them are very wealthy. 10,000 pounds a year. Precisely. It was a lot back then. So Jane, the oldest, Bennett sister, and Mr. Bingley former connection, I. The Bennetts of course, are thrilled, but his friends think Jane's family isn't good enough, and Bingley's sister and Darcy tried to break them apart, eventually succeeding.
Poor Jane of course, is very upset. Meanwhile. Mr. Darcy is falling in love with Elizabeth, even though on their first interaction, he describes her as tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt him, which she overhears. And this starts her off prejudiced against him from the start. And. Instead turns her affection to a very charming officer, Mr.
Wickham, who flatters her and who has told her tall tales about how Mr. Darcy has wronged him. Let's not forget Mr. Collins, the ridiculous cousin who insists on wooing Elizabeth and keeps proposing even though she keeps turning him down. Then practically the next day, he proposes to Elizabeth's best friend Charlotte.
Charlotte says a yes, leading their friendship to suffer because of this. And in both movie adaptations, they have a fight. And from the 2005 movie version, what Charlotte says has gone viral and people put it on birthday cakes. Maybe you've heard it before. She says, I'm 27 years old, I have no money and no prospects.
I'm already a burden to my parents, and I'm frightened. I'll get that for you on a cake when you turn 27. Oh, yes, please do. That will be very relevant anyways, Darcy then proposes to Elizabeth saying, you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections and insulting her in various ways, but also saying, I love you.
She of course says no, not after you've insulted me and not after what you've done to poor Mr. Wickham, and not after splitting apart my beloved sister Jane and the love of her life, Mr. Bingley. But then Darcy writes Elizabeth a letter and she realizes that Darcy was not to blame for Wickham's downfall, but that Wickham was involved in a very sordid manner with Darcy's sister and had gambled away his money.
And Wickham blamed it all on Darcy, when really Darcy had done all he could. And then dun, dun, dun, Lydia. Runs away with Mr. Wickham. They disappear. The family is distraught, we're ruined, et cetera. But unbeknownst to the Bennett family, Darcy has gone to find them and pay Wickham enough to convince him to marry Lydia and not ruin the family reputation.
He did this all in secret, but Lydia accidentally told Elizabeth, who was shocked at Darcy's kindness. Darcy also apologized to Bingley, persuaded him that if he really loved Jane, he should propose. And so Bingley did. Second couple down, we see Elizabeth's feelings towards Darcy change and the man he is behind his stern exterior and she starts falling in love with him and we'll leave it there.
So in this episode, we're going to be talking about the themes in the context of each relationship and the question, what makes a happy relationship. I guess maybe before we start, we should mention Caitlin is happily married, has been happily married for two years, and I am so single, but you're a single Pringle ready to mingle.
Don't say that. No. And I am so single, single, my dear. No, I don't see that either. That's what Mrs. Bennett says to Mr. Bennett when he asks whether Mr. Bley is single. Oh, Mrs. Bennett would have so much to say to me about my relationship status. Oh, which I would for a man with 10,000 pounds a year. We're going to start off with a little look at Mr.
And Mrs. Bennett. Now, nobody wants to hear much about these ones, but they have some iconic lines and we can learn a lot from the way their relationship is described. Oh, you take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion on my nerves. You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves.
They've been my old friends these 20 years at least. See, we should have been on the stage, honestly. So Lizzie sees that her parents do not have the best marriage and she wants better for herself in the future. Mr. Bennett. Captivated by youth and beauty and that appearance of good humor, which youth and beauty generally give.
Had married a woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind, had very early in their marriage, put an end to all real affection for her respect, esteem and confidence had vanished forever. Not something you want to hear in a relationship. Mr. Bennett chose Mrs. Bennett based on her appearance, not their actual connection.
And you know, it's really important that the person you are with can match you and be friends with you, that you enjoy their company beyond that physical attraction. Yeah, because we can see how quickly that actually faded. And Mr. And Mrs. Bennett really don't have any sort of closeness in their marriage.
They're really mismatched, but Mr. Bennett does find a good deal of amusement in talking to Mrs. Bennett and teasing her, and there's a fair bit of that in the book. So I mean, yeah, it could be worse. Alright, let's move on to the main character couples. Let's start off with Jane and Overexcited, celery. Mr.
Bingley, so both Jane and Mr. Bingley see the best in people, and this is a really beautiful quality in some regards, but it also has some downsides. So on one hand it leads them to be easily fooled by others, but on the other hand, it is a kinder, less exhausting way of seeing the world. Yeah, both of them are kind and happy and very serene, but it makes them also somewhat gullible.
Take Bingley for example. He doesn't look at class. He doesn't judge people based on their inferior connections and situation in life. And he really loves Jane despite the ridicule and situation of her family. And he's also good friends with Darcy, despite what other people say about him. He loves deeply and cares about his friends, but this leads him to be easily swayed by his friends.
And he allows others to make his decisions for him against his own happiness. He. Lets Mr. Darcy and Ms. Bingley convince him that Jane's family is not good enough for him and that she doesn't love him, which is not true at all. So he places more confidence in especially Mr. Darcy's opinion than his own.
It reminds me of high school and. Caring more about what my friends thought about the boys that I liked, and feeling like I needed my friend's approval of my choice of crush, and trusting my own judgment was something that I had to work on a lot, and it's still actually something that I struggle with, but with Bingley, it ultimately leads him to temporarily lose his chance at happiness.
So it's an important thing to work on. Jane is also very sweet and kind. She always sees the best in people. She also never says. Anything judgmental or harsh against another human being, and she's treated as this quiet, passive sister. But you know, she loved deeply and she stays true to herself despite what she goes through.
She's really resilient. Despite being jilted by bingley, she's determined to get through it and see it in the best light and become a better person because of it. She has this quiet strength that is often overlooked and not considered as valuable as Elizabeth's. Fiery wittiness, but she also doesn't see when other people are using her or being mean to her.
So for example, she sees the best in Ms. Bingley, even though it's clear to Lizzie that Jane is only just good enough for Ms. Bingley to Dane to talk to her, and Ms. Bingley doesn't actually respect her, and Jane resists Lizzie's promptings about this for a while. Insisting that Ms. Bingley's friendship is completely genuine.
Only when it's really clear that Ms. Bingley has no interest in her and is outright mean to her. Does she admit that Lizzie is right? So both Jane and Bingley have this quality that leads them to be gullible in different ways. Um, and we see more of Jane's side of the story after all this happens, and we see that Jane, even after being hurt, remains kind and loving and generous.
And this honestly must have taken an incredible amount of strength. Yeah, she's determined to bear her pain with serenity and dignity and maintain her tendency to see the best in other people. That's really impressive that she is able to hold onto that quality. She doesn't seek revenge. She doesn't wanna hit back at those people who have hurt her, though she learns some self-respect and she puts up some boundaries with Ms.
Bingley in particular, and in the end, she does get her happy ending. Her disappointment doesn't make her hard. Her heart stays soft, and this really does take a lot of strength and a lot of resilience, and hopefully Bingley learned not to take his friend's advice. Yeah, so I guess we can say that seeing the good in people makes for a much happier life and a much more trusting relationship.
Unfortunately, that can backfire and discernment is important. And realizing that there are times in which it is important to stand up for yourself, what you believe in, and what you ultimately want in life. In contrast to Jane and Bingley, we have Lydia and Wickham. They're so different to Jane and Bingley.
So remember, Wickham was the charming young officer who first captures Lizzie's eye at the very beginning, and Lizzie has a major crush on him for the first half of the book. And. After that, he kind of just chases girls for money and then at the very end he's pretty much like, yeah, I'll take it. When Lydia Lizzie's younger sister, wants to elope with him.
We know that Darcy and Wickham grew up together and we know that Darcy is 28 at the time of this book, so it's reasonable to assume that Wickham is also a similar age to that. So he's around 28 and. Lydia is about 15 or 16, and so there's a bit of a power imbalance there. A major power imbalance there.
Right? But it also means that Lydia. Is not going to have the relational experience and education that maybe her older sisters would. Lizzie ends up moving away from Mr. Wickham over time, but Lydia doesn't have that same wisdom and experience and learning, and she ends up falling prey to Mr. Wickham's.
Desire for a fling? Pretty much. Yeah. I guess we gotta remember that these girls really have a total lack of education about relationships nowadays. So many of these topics are open to discussion. We talk about relationships on social media. There are plenty of books that you can educate yourself. But someone like Lydia was not taught how to defend against toxic relationships, and Mr.
Bennett didn't at all help Lydia navigate relationships in a healthy way, and obviously Mrs. Bennett didn't either. She was just thrilled for her daughters to get married, even though Lizzie. Begs Mr. Bennett to check her behavior. She ended up being easy prey for someone like Wickham, and the book says Their father contented with laughing at them would never exert himself to restrain the wild giddiness of his youngest daughters and learning about relationships would've helped Lydia.
It's implied that they slept together before running away and they were living together outside of marriage. So she probably didn't know anything about sex. Think Daphne in Bridgeton. Yes, it's accurate. You can have a look at some of our sources in the description and probably very easy prey to the old stereotype.
If he sleeps with me, it means he loves me and will marry me. I. So talking about things openly and supporting education can be really helpful in preventing issues. For example, sex ed is very well proven to cut down on teen pregnancy, and therefore abortion and education can also be very helpful in preventing domestic violence.
So also we see this very well known. Stereotypical double standard that we still have today. But it was a lot worse back then that Lydia's elopement had completely ruined her virtue didn't really affect him. Uh, it ruined her virtue and it had the possibility to ruin all her sisters as well as lady Catherine Debo said, who will connect themselves with such a family.
So historian Amanda Vickery said that at the time. Of pride and prejudice. No virtuous young lady should be alone with a man to whom she was not related. Not only should she be pure, she should be seen as pure chastity. Modesty and obedience were the preeminent female virtues. Her sexual virtue had to appear unimpeachable or she would be ruined on the marriage market.
Gen Teel girls were expected to be innocent virgins on their wedding day to men of the world who had already practiced on married women abroad servant girls, the odd actress and prostitutes. Men's diaries are extraordinarily casual in reporting sex with servants. And until 1922, a man could divorce his wife for adultery alone.
But the same was not true for women. So women could not. Divorce their husband for adultery alone. So Bridgeton is kind of accurate. Yeah, it actually sadly is, hmm. Anyway, that double standard is still around and it was kind of fading a bit, but it has come back in the form of the red pill online space. So these red pill alpha dudes have this major obsession with women's.
Body count, needing it to be under a certain number while men are trying to get theirs as high as possible. And by body count it means, you know, how many people have you slept with? Like, they're not even hiding it. They are literally saying these exact words. A body count is probably the number one most easiest, yes, most easiest way to judge the value of a female.
Ugh. I hate that use of the word female. It makes us sound like breeding stock. Guys, honestly, if you're listening, please, no. This is a massive, massive turnoff. Girls are human beings and they deserve to be treated as such, and girls don't put up with being talked to like this. You deserve to be treated as more than a reproductive and sex vessel.
Your value is not determined by who you sleep with. Do not let yourself be put under this standard, but there's this inherent contradiction, which almost makes me laugh like. If women are supposed to be chased, yet men are supposed to be well experienced. Doesn't that mean that these guys who are sleeping with all these women are causing the problem?
Yeah, pretty much. It's just, it's kind of funny that they don't see it, but the other double standards that, you know, we're in Victorian times about. Being able to divorce over adultery, that's also come back up like men are saying that they're allowed to cheat in relationships, but women aren't allowed to cheat.
Like it's actually ludicrous how blatantly sexist and harmful they're being and they're not even trying to hide it. And it's just really scary how much boys and young men are just eating it up and not thinking about it and just. Taking it on, and we support both men and women making responsible choices in relationships.
You know, whatever those choices might be, they're personal and they don't determine a person's worth, but this red pill double standard is just. It's ridiculous. Yeah, and it's concerning because this is what's being fed to boys and young men in their algorithms and we saw it show up in schools. You know, Ashley and I both have worked as teachers in past and how boys started talking to the girls as if they're the boys' property and how they lacked respect for female staff.
One of my 14-year-old male students even informed me that I was my husband's property. And it's not only concerning because of the harm to girls. But it also harms these boys, they're being exploited at the hands of influencers who really just want their money to sign up for all their courses on business or weightlifting, and they keep this control over them by convincing them that women are out to get them.
And a big message of these dudes is that all women. Only want their money and are golden diggers. And men have to learn to extort women for sex in exchange for it. And it actually gets pretty dark. So we're not gonna go into it, but there's some horrendous consequences to this kind of attitude, including human trafficking.
Uh, there's a show on Netflix that has just come out, it's called Adolescence that addresses these issues in a really thoughtful way. So go check that out if you want to know more, but. Obviously exercise some care because it is likely to be triggering for some people. Yeah, so we strongly disagree with this characterization of women that all they want is money.
It's so bad, it's almost laughable, but it actually has some pretty serious consequences. So Pride and Prejudice opens with this super famous line. It is a truth, universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. So in light of this, what do we think about the women?
Were they gold diggers or did they just want to survive? And are the Bennett sisters gold diggers. So we see that the Bennett sisters actually do need to think about money because they are cut off from their inheritance because their inheritance is entailed on Mr. Collins, which means that he'll get all of the.
A state when Mr. Bennett dies, and so they really needed to get married decently well in order to be able to survive. But Lizzie very quickly dismisses Darcy despite his 10,000 a year because of his pride and his attitudes to everyone around him. So clearly money wasn't the only thing that the Bennett sisters.
We're looking for in relationships. There is a quote from the movie where Lizzie says, I am determined that only the deepest love will induce me into matrimony. So we can see that character is actually really important to Elizabeth. And she even scolds Charlotte who. Married Mr. Collins for wanting to secure a man without being certain of his character, even though Charlotte had a good situation.
According to a 2015 article by Forbes, which you know, is 10 years old at this point, but not old enough to be completely irrelevant. 54% of quote unquote gold diggers are actually men. And we see the idea of marrying only for money being looked down on as mercenary. So for example, Wickham pursuing a woman, as soon as she inherits a fortune is seen as in poor taste, and he's labeled as being mercenary.
And that kind of really. Challenges this idea that's being pushed by the Red Pill Alpha Bros. That women only want money and they're the only ones that want money and whatnot. And it's funny 'cause Wickham is actually the most gold diggy gold, diggy gold dig, degree Dig Wickham is actually the biggest gold digger in the whole book.
So pride and Prejudice. Does a good job challenging this idea that women are only after wealth. And it comments on the fact that society actually forces them into these strategic financial relationships because they could not own property or inherit, and there's a good quote. Marriage was the only honorable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune.
And however, uncertain of giving happiness must be their pleasants. Preservative from want, meaning that, you know. Women of similar social standing to the Bennett sisters really had no other options than to marry. They couldn't work, they couldn't own land. Their only way to survive in life was actually to marry someone who could give them the means for survival.
And so there's this delicate balance within pride and prejudice between. The girls wanting to marry for love and actually needing to choose a good situation in life. Nowadays, women have most of the same opportunities as men. They can be independent, they can own property, they can make money independent of a man, but unfortunately, often this.
Gold digger stereotype continues, and it's also often continued by modern day girls, which is unfortunate. Girls, come on, do better. In a world where you have so many opportunities, don't be a gold digger. Don't keep perpetuating these harmful patterns of relationship that give other people so much power over you.
So now we're finally getting to our main character couple, Lizzie and Darcy. Lizzie with her prejudice, and Mr. Darcy with his pride. Lizzie is a great character. I really like her, and I think a lot of girls have been able to relate to her and learn from her over the last. Two centuries. Um, she's really witty, really intelligent.
The book is full of great one-liners. She's really funny and bubbly, and she can think on her toes, and it's just really entertaining to listen to how she manages these social situations. So Lizzie starts out with. Having this prejudice against Mr. Darcy because he says this line about her being not handsome enough to tempt him, that sets her down this path of seeing him in this really negative light.
So then when Mr. Wicken comes in and flatters her and gives her attention and starts telling. All these stories about how Mr. Darcy has done him wrong. She believes him because it matches her emotional understanding of who Mr. Darcy is, and she believes Mr. Wickham's story despite the inconsistencies, which she is only able to see later in hindsight, and Lizzie thinks she's being logical, but her emotion, you could say her prejudice blinds her.
It's really interesting to think about the fact that we have these emotional reasons behind what we believe. Even if you think you're being completely logical. My best friend, Maya and I have been working on this theory of logic versus emotion since we were in college, and we used to think it was like logic versus emotion.
Like you want to do something, but your logic tells you you can't, and the chew pull in opposite ways. We had this chalkboard with this heart being pulled apart by these two characters of logic and emotion. Over time, we have realized that they really work together. But over time we've realized that they work together and they have these different functions.
So for example, emotion might give you the idea of the direction that you want to go, and logic builds you the bridge to get you there. And even if you think you're being completely logical, you do have these emotions driving the direction in which you make your decisions, and it's actually even more dangerous.
If you try to ignore your emotions completely and be totally focused on logic because you'll end up being blind to how your emotions are influencing your logic. Everybody has emotions whether they like it or not, and that ends up influencing our logic and the decisions that we make. And this ties into the idea of confirmation bias, where you start off with an idea you believe, and you collect bits and pieces of evidence to support that belief, and you kind of ignore the stuff that doesn't.
And so with Lizzie, she likes Wickham. And she's already got this idea that Mr. Darcy is this horrible, mean person. And so she rejects the evidence that says that Wickham isn't a good guy, which comes from Jane's conversation with Bingley. And she accepts his story because honestly, she wants to, and she wants to dislike Darcy and Wickham harnesses this and uses it.
And it's really important to engage with people that have different ideas than you, because if you don't, you might just end up reinforcing what you already believe, and that isn't always. Good. Yeah. And it took Darcy revealing some really incredibly personal and damning information about Wiki and having a credible witness to get Lizzie to question her previous beliefs.
And even then, she really tries to dismiss everything he says. It took some time for her to process it all, and I actually really admire Lizzie for what she does next because she realizes that she has been wrong and she reflects. On the fact that she was flattered by Wickham and hurt by Darcy, and this colored her opinions of them, and she's willing to admit that she was wrong and change her mind.
And that's hard. But it shows maturity if you're able to do so, and it gains the respect of others. I remember watching a video by a dude called CGP Gray years ago about how your opinions should. All be in a box in your mind and you should swap out the opinions when you find better ones, rather than your opinions being like fixed in you as a person.
That's a really good way of thinking about it actually. Yeah, I found it really helpful and it's meant that my opinions aren't part of my identity, and so it's kind of given me this freedom to feel like I'm allowed to rethink things and come to better conclusions without. Being embarrassed of it. Yeah, and I definitely think it's good to have opinions about things, but it's also good to be constantly thinking through them and reworking them because as our world changes, our opinions should naturally change.
With us because we can really easily end up being stuck with an outdated way of understanding the world that isn't actually relevant anymore. Exactly. So Elizabeth realizes that Darcy is actually not a bad guy, and over time she starts to fall in love with him. On the other hand, we have Mr. Darcy who starts out with this idea that he is above everyone else because he has this family background that is of higher status and he has more money, and he doesn't really have patience for people who he sees that are beneath him.
When he proposes to Lizzie, he actually brings some of these things up, her lack of connections and lack of money. That being said, though, a big concern for him is. The total want of propriety, so frequently, so uniformly betrayed by Lizzie's mother and her three younger sisters and her father. So he's judging Lizzie, not on her own merits, but by her circumstances, by her family, by her situation.
And that's kind of similar to some of. The stuff in the red pill space where they talk about, you know, money looks, fame, body count, quote unquote, what you bring to the table. And Lizzie completely dresses him down for this, and rightly so, it shows her self-respect. And I actually think this is where Darcy kind of wakes up to seeing her as a full, equal human being.
I also think it's important that Darcy's willing to change. After Lizzie says No, and he goes on this journey where he fixes his problems. He backtracks with Bingley and Jane. He apologizes and he works on himself instead of hating Lizzie and going down on the incel route. He's even the one that steps into save Lydia, even though Elizabeth has rejected him because he cares about Lizzie and her wellbeing and he saves Lydia totally in secret.
He didn't want Lizzie to know. So we can see the goodness of his character start to come out in him doing this. You know, I read in one of those fundamentalist evangelical relationship. Books in high school, it was called. It's not that complicated, which no hate to my dear friend who sent this to me. If you're listening, it developed my critical thinking and they said that all women love Mr.
Darcy because he's so bland that you can superimpose onto him. Your ideal man, and I actually really disagree with this. I think that Mr. Darcy is this enduring romantic hero. For some really genuine reasons. I think that his empathy and his genuine kindness are at the forefront. The fact that he ends up.
Helping Lydia and rescuing the family's reputation. And he doesn't even want Lizzie to know about this because he doesn't want her to feel indebted to him. And you know, he actually takes feedback from Lizzie. He respects her and respects her opinion. And in a world where women at times receive violence for saying no to guys, this is a really, really upstanding way of handling things.
He's willing to learn and admit his own mistakes, and he ends up feeling genuine remorse for his harmful actions. And by the end, their relationship is founded on mutual respect and regard, which is one of the most important factors in a happy relationship and also kindness. I think that that's what the two happy relationships in this book have in common.
Bley and Jane, Lizzie, and Darcy. I think kindness really goes a long way in relationships, kindness, empathy, and mutual respect. So what do you guys think makes a relationship strong and happy? Do you see similar patterns to some of the ones that we talked about today in your relationships? And we encourage you to examine your own relationships that you have with others.
Do you see similarities with the characters in pride and prejudice? Not just romantic relationships, but friendships and family relationships as well? We'll end with this quote from Tumblr. User Moon, Achilles. Jane Austen really said, I respect that I can fix him movement, but that's just not for me. He'll fix himself if he knows what's good for him, and that's why her works are still calling the shots 📍 today.
And on that note, thank you so much for joining us for this episode of The Literary Lamppost. Join us on Instagram and share your thoughts with us. We'll be posting a few community things this coming week, so keep an eye on both our posts and our story. We'd love to hear what you think. Also, we would love it if you shared this podcast with somebody who you think would enjoy it and stay tuned for our next episode, which will be on the book.
A little princess by France, Hodgson Burnett. Also follow us on YouTube at the literary lamppost, as well as subscribing on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or any podcast platform to make sure that you don't miss any of our new episodes. Thanks for listening and see you next time. This podcast includes brief excerpts from literary works for the purpose of commentary, criticism, and analysis, which we believe constitutes fair use under copyright law.
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