![](\"http:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/images\/PP%20button.jpg\" "\\"Pride")
\nThe next Group Read will be next Monday, on Chapters 25-32.<\/b>
\nThis week, we’re discussing Chapters 19-24. We eagerly await your comments and discussion! (We are avoiding spoilers.)<\/p>\n
\n
\nThe next Group Read will be next Monday, on Chapters 25-32.<\/b>
\nThis week, we’re discussing Chapters 19-24. We eagerly await your comments and discussion! (We are avoiding spoilers.)<\/p>\n
\n
Chapter 19:<\/b> Mr Collins proposes to Elizabeth. Elizabeth declines, but Mr Collins does not believe she is serious.
\nChapter 20:<\/b> Mrs Bennet tries to settle the situation — she takes Elizabeth’s refusal seriously, but hopes to persuade Elizabeth to accept Mr Collins. She appeals to Mr Bennet, who settles the question (in the inimitable Mr Bennet style) in favor of Elizabeth. Mrs Bennet keeps working on Elizabeth, while Mr Collins grows more and more grumpy. The house is in an uproar, when Charlotte Lucas comes to call.
\nChapter 21:<\/b> In spite of his disappointment and resentment, Mr Collins does not curtail his visit to Longbourn. The girls takes a stroll to Meryton, where they meet their acquaintances among the officers, including Mr Wickham. The officers walk the girls back to Meryton, and Elizabeth introduces Mr Wickham to her parents. Jane receives a letter from Netherfield — Caroline Bingley has written to tell her that the entire party has gone to London and will certainly stay there for the winter. Jane is particularly saddened by Caroline’s confiding her hopes that Bingley will propose to Mr Darcy’s sister Georgiana. Jane and Elizabeth differ in their interpretation of Caroline’s motive in sharing these hopes.
\n
\nChapter 22:<\/b> The Bennets dine with the Lucas family, and once again Charlotte takes the brunt of conversation with Mr Collins upon herself. Elizabeth thinks Charlotte is doing her a favor, but not in the way she expects. Charlotte’s plan works better than she hopes — Mr Collins sneaks out early the very next morning and proposes. Charlotte accepts, but asks Mr Collins not to tell the Bennets. Mr Collins is about ready to pop with pride, but he keeps the secret. The next day, after Mr Collins has returned to Hunsford, Charlotte calls on the Bennets and breaks the news to Elizabeth in person. Elizabeth is shocked, as Charlotte knew she would be.
\nChapter 23:<\/b> That evening, Sir William Lucas shares his happy news with the rest of the astonished Bennet family. They each digest the news in their own way. Elizabeth is still stunned at Charlotte’s decision. The family receives Mr Collins’s thank-you letter, written with all the grace and delicacy they have come to expect from him. Meanwhile, Jane is saddened by Bingley’s continued absence. Elizabeth is suspicious of the Bingley sisters. Two weeks later, Mr Collins is back in town and stays with the Bennets, although he spends almost all his time with the Lucases.
\nChapter 24:<\/b> The news is confirmed: Bingley will not be returning at all for the winter. Jane concludes that Bingley had never really liked her, and consoles herself with the thought that she had not risked exposing her own feelings for Bingley. Jane and Elizabeth talk over human nature in general; Elizabeth confesses her growing cynicism, fueled in part by Charlotte’s marriage to Mr Collins. Mr Bennet shares his own sardonic take on the matter. Meanwhile they see a good bit of Mr Wickham, who cheers them all up. His tale of woe at the hands of Mr Darcy is now general knowledge in the community. Only Jane continues to insist that there must <\/i>be some kind of extenuating circumstances somewhere<\/i>.<\/p>\n
\nChapter 22: being presented at St James<\/i> — being presented to the royal family. Sir William perhaps overestimates the value of his knighthood, which looms large in the small pond of Meryton but is guppy-sized compared to the rest of the nobility.
\nAt the end of Chapter 24, the narrator speaks of Jane’s “mild and steady candour.” Candour here means not truthfulness, but generosity and good-will — the willingness to look for the good in others. Dr Johnson defined it as being “free from malice; not desirous to find faults.”
\nChapter 19:<\/b> Mr Collins’s lethal combination of vanity and density is on full display. Gotta love the way he takes pains to point out that if she hadn’t been so “modest” she would have lost points in his eyes. And doesn’t his laborious outline of his Reasons for Matrimony make you think that Mr Collins was truly ahead of his time — that this man was born for PowerPoint? I’m also tickled that Elizabeth’s earlier thought about making a fourth for quadrille at Rosings was proved absolutely correct.
\nMr Collins’s proposal has a great deal to say about money, property and connections, but little to say on another topic usually connected with marriage. He is completely unconcerned with Elizabeth’s feelings, but he also has little to say about his own. He offers her nothing in his proposal except financial security.
\nAm I the only one, though, who thinks that his idea of seeing if there is a bride for him among the ladies of Longbourn has at least a glimmer of decency to it? Although that decency is completely lost in his approach.
\nIt seems to me that Elizabeth permits herself only the faintest flick of teasing and otherwise is pretty gentle (though firm) with Mr Collins. But to no avail — that lethal combination prevents him from seeing that Elizabeth is perfectly serious in his refusal.
\nChapter 20:<\/b> I’m amused that even Mrs Bennet is surprised at Mr Collins’s ability to hear wedding bells in a flat refusal. Gotta love Mr Bennet’s approach to conflict resolution.
\nChapter 21:<\/b> Do you think that Jane is being too “candid” in how she reads the letter from Netherfield — too quick to attribute kind motives to Caroline? Or is Lizzy’s more distrustful analysis correct?
\nChapter 22:<\/b> Mr Collins certainly wasn’t long in moping around, was he? Charlotte’s reflections really struck me. She knows perfectly well what she’s doing and what she’s getting into. But to her, that hard part isn’t marrying Mr Collins, it’s facing Elizabeth, knowing that Elizabeth will despise her for her choice. And, when she tells Elizabeth, that is exactly what happens.
\nChapter 23:<\/b> Sir William calls to tell the Bennets the news: Good old Lydia! You can always count on her to mind her manners and say the right thing.
\nEven after she’s had time to digest Charlotte’s news, Elizabeth is still disappointed with her — so disappointed that it casts a shadow on her friendship, and Elizabeth turns to Jane as her confidante instead of Charlotte. Is Elizabeth being too hard on Charlotte?
\nChapter 24: <\/b> Jane and Elizabeth talk over their recent disappointments. Elizabeth admires Jane’s efforts to give others the benefit of the doubt, but she can’t quite do it herself: “There are few people whom I really love, and even fewer of whom I think well… (does this imply that there are those she loves but does not think well of?)<\/i> The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of either merit or sense.”
\nThis chapter strikes me as one where we really get to take a look at the contrasting outlooks of Elizabeth and Jane. Jane prefers to think that the Bingley sisters have good motives in wanting their brother to choose Miss Darcy — they’ve known her a long time, they like her; Elizabeth is less optimistic, and thinks they like Miss Darcy’s social position and wealth. Jane cannot believe that the Bingley sisters would act against their brother’s wishes and happiness; Elizabeth has no problem at all believing such a thing. I get the impression that Jane is making a conscious effort <\/b>to choose <\/b>the optimistic view, the most generous interpretation of others’ actions and motives. Is Jane just extending kindness in situation where one can’t <\/b>know the truth? Is she just trying to protect her own mental health — trying not to eat her heart out over things she can’t know and can’t control? Or is she just being an ostrich? Is Elizabeth being too quick to judge, to read base motives into others’ actions?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The next Group Read will be next Monday, on Chapters 25-32. This week, we’re discussing Chapters 19-24. We eagerly await your comments and discussion! (We are avoiding spoilers.) Chapter 19: Mr Collins proposes to Elizabeth. Elizabeth declines, but Mr Collins does not believe she is serious. Chapter 20: Mrs Bennet tries to settle the situation… Continue reading Pride and Prejudice, Chapters 19-24<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-group-read","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1242\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}