I have lots to say but will post it later. I only have my phone with me now.
In the meantime, let me just say that I found it interesting that people assumed their letters would remain private. I suppose there was a convention that one didn’t snoop.
Jumping in as a first time P&P reader. (And really, I went to a pretty decent HS – somehow it just never showed up in the curriculum.) I really had no idea what to expect. Initially I kept thinking the book dragged and could we just get on with the story? But, as I got into it, I enjoyed it more and more. There were still plenty of places where the wording seemed overly verbose, and places where I had to go back to reread a passage to be sure I understood what was going on, but I was definitely sucked in by the story. All in all I loved it!
I think of it as our modern day “He’s just not that into you” - only “she” rather than “he.” Charlotte’s warning re Jane’s demeanor and Darcy’s advice to Bingley stem from a “she’s just not that into you” frame of mind. Today someone would hand that book to poor Bingley thinking he needed to read it.
^^^ But that is how the book gets its name. Jane, Darcy, and even Lizzie to an extent, are too proud to really let the others know how they feel. Darcy and Jane are both very introverted. Even in today’s world, introverts are perceived as proud and haughty to the extroverts around them. In short, introverts just really aren’t understood.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I really think she does. Not as “Wow, this guy is loaded. I’m so in love.” But more of “OK, this really explains a lot.” Once Lizzie visits Pemberley, she sees the magnitude of the estate, meets the staff who adore him, and meets Georgiana. Through this visit, she is finally able to understand Darcy - and ultimately, start to fall in love with the real person and disregard her initial prejudices.
The Lucases would already be delighted to see any respectable match for Charlotte. She’s 28, on the shelf. Also, she is right to accept the obsequious ninny Collins, instead of living a dreary life as a penurious maiden aunt to her siblings’ children.
As others in P&P fandom have pointed out, Charlotte is the practical one, and all the advice she gives Elizabeth is good advice.
I am a first time P&P reader and I loved it. It was delightful! I read and listened and thought the audible version was great. I also watched the PBS series and really enjoyed it.
What does passion mean in this question? Is it sexual interest in another? If so, the passion is just sort of off-stage. Mr. Bennett married someone not his intellectual equal because he was smitten by her beauty. That could be described as passion. Georginana is on the verge of eloping with Wickham; Lydia does elope with him. Jane received love poems from an impassioned admirer while still a teen. We may have to read between the lines these days; I doubt her original readers had any difficulty understanding what was going on.
It lets us experience the story from a variety of points of view. Lady Susan,( maybe Austen’s first novel), is an epistolary novel. It is much racier than P&P, so interesting to think about with regard to theat passion question.
One thing that always strikes me when I re-read Austen is how she accepts the social class stratification of the time.
For example, in one of my favorite scenes in the book Elizabeth stands up to Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Lady Catherine sniffily tells Elizabeth that she is not good enough for Darcy and sneering at “the upstart pretensions of a woman without family, connections or fortune” who in marrying Darcy would be “quitting the social sphere in which you have been brought up.”
Elizabeth does not say what an American egalitarian would say: “I reject your class divisions; I’m good enough for any man.” Instead, she says that she is in the same social class as Darcy: “He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman’s daughter; so far we are equal.” She’s admitting that many women would not be social equals of Darcy-- e.g. dairymaids, daughters of merchants, daughters of tenant farmers-- but she is his social equal and is therefore an eligible wife.
Mr Collins in going to inherit the Bennett’s estate, so Charlotte will end up back close to her family but in her own establishment. What is there for the Lucases not to like?? I like Charlotte. She waits till Lizzie turns Mr. Collins down and then scoops him up. If Mrs. Bennett had been a more intelligent woman, she would have secured him for Mary from the beginning. That would also have been a sensible match, especially for the Bennett daughters who now will have to hope Charlotte lets them stay in their childhood home… until of course their elder sisters marry so unexpectedly well. Of course, Mr. Collins doesn’t deserve Charlotte, but I’m glad she married him. She is doing the best she can to make a life for herself with the opportunities available to her.
I always wonder Lizzie didn’t feel some familial responsibility to at least consider marrying Collins. At least for a few minutes. She is living in a fantasy. Charlotte is living in reality.
imho
Of course, if Lizzie had a huge dowry it wouldn’t have mattered. Bingley isn’t a gentleman’s son. Colonel Fitzwilliams is, but can only marry someone with money as he explains to Lizzie on their walk. (I sort of imagine there was at least the possibility of bit of passion between those two)
There are novels of that period where people marry outside their class. Isn’t money usually the motivation?
In Fay Weldon’s “Letters to Alice” , she writes the aristocracy occasionally marries the landed gentry to keep the bloodline healthy. She gave a table dividing the population into classes. Austen is writing about a very small part of the population. She also seems to believe Austen was constrained in her writing by the expectations of family and society.
A little later in time the aristocracy is marrying rich Americans, of no particular family. That is what those young women say. And their parents. Trollope writes that story.
okay - now I’ll be quiet and let someone else write. sorry to run on and on
Isn’t Coronel Fitzwilliam the “younger” son of an Earl? Therefore, he is in as dire straights as the Bennett girls as to finding a suitable spouse. He inherits essentially nothing from his father as his father’s estate will be entailed to his older brother.
His best bet would be to marry Georgianna or Lady Catherine’s daughter. They both have fortunes in their own name.
The model marriage in the book is that of Elizabeth’s aunt and uncle Gardiner. Although he is a lawyer, rather than a gentleman, they are both intelligent, sensible, well-bred in behavior and manner, and kind. And they respect one another.
Elizabeth was clearly attracted to Darcy quite against her will earlier, but when she visits Pemberley and sees how genuinely fond of him everyone there is, she begins to think there is more to him than she previously thought. She has also had time to think about how the behavior of her mother and sisters has demeaned her family, and in reality SHE would not wish to ally herself to them either. Jane being the exception of course, and her father. Then Mr. Darcy arrives and is kind and welcoming not only to her, but to her uncle and aunt, who are technically of a lower social strata. Clearly HE can see and value their worth. This is not at all what she had expected of him. He even introduces his sister to them. This is not the arrogant snob she thought she knew.
I agree with the comments above that seeing the grandeur of Pemberley also increases her understanding of him.
Regarding Mr. Collins and Mary, it was actually customary for sisters to be married in birth order. Ideally, the next in line would not come out until the eldest was married, or at least spoken for. If you recall, one of the ways in which the Bennett girls are a bit marginal in polite society is that they are ALL out. Really, the younger 3 shouldn’t be. But Mrs. Bennett is frantic to marry them all off, and who can blame her, since that is the only way to ensure their futures. But she is hopelessly declasse.
Oh, I had the enormous pleasure a few years ago of visiting the Rauner rare book library at Dartmouth, and the librarian brought me a first edition of P&P (two volumes, btw). It was just a huge thrill to open it and read that famous first line, just like whoever originally owned it in 1813 seeing it for the first time. Fan girl! 
Mrs. Bennett is not a gentleman’s daughter. And she had no money as far as we know. It is a love match that didn’t work out, because Mr. Bennett was blinded by love, or lust.
They keep having children in hopes of a son, but the number of daughters just makes the long term situation more dire. I agree Mrs. Bennett is hopelessly declasses, but the fact she is panicked about the situation seems pretty rational to me. She just isn’t as intelligent as Charlotte and works against her own self-interest.
Letting Mr. Collins leave her house was a HUGE mistake on her part. He came intending to marry one of the girls. He was happy to shift his attention to Lizzie when told Jane was unavailable. If he had been told Lizzie would make a horrible wife for someone in the Clergy (and would surely not be agreeable to Lady Catherine because of her sharp tongue) I think he could have been persuaded Mary was just the thing. Or even Kitty. They are younger, but they are out. And running around with soldiers.
eta: of course I’m writing a different story now 
Of course Lizzie fell in love when she saw Pemberly. She is like Charlotte in that respect. She can see what life is offering her. Colonel Fitzwilliams is not available. Willoughy turned out to be a villain (though he had already engaged himself to someone whose guardians rescue her in time) Lizzie knows Wickham can’t ever marry her, before she knows he is a villain. Darcy just keeps getting more and more attractive. There isn’t anyone else in the story. Unless we write a tale that includes the decent tenant farmers in the area. I can imagine a story where she finds a Robert Martin of her own, like Emma’s friend Harriet. Robert Martin always seemed like good husband material to me. He has his own farm. Cardinal Fang has me imagining that story.
eta: he has his own farm as long as Knightly doesn’t change the status quo. Knightly owns that farm.
Lizzie is too independent and too much of a romantic of marry without love or a semblance of it. She also has her father’s example of whom not to marry before her, he married for youthful passion(somewhat excusable) whereas her reasons would be considered expedient. A large part of JA’s critique of marrying for social considerations is that without feelings of mutual respect a marriage would not be successful.
Every time I read the part of the book dealing with Mr.Collins, I’m always thankful that Jane was secure from the expectation of marrying him because of the imagined success with Mr. Bingley. There is no doubt in my mind that she would’ve made the sacrifice for the sake of her family.
Agreed! There were so evenly matched — he would read from Fordyce’s sermons and she would be happy to study it further in his company.
I think if Mrs. B had paused to think, she would’ve given up Lizzie as a hopeless cause and concentrated on putting Mary in his way.
Regarding Lizzie’s change of heart about Mr. Darcy - I think while she was primed to like him better after she read his letter, his subsequent behavior towards her and her relatives at Pemberley made her more sympathetic to his suit. In the end though, I do wonder if some of Charlotte’s practical advice percolated and her mind intelligently(the possibility of becoming mistress of Pemberley)guided her heart to find love and thus happiness where respect and gratitude already existed.
I’ve read P & P numerous times and on every read I’m happy to find something new that piques my interest. From the first time I read it in 9th grade as one of the books for my English class, when my questions dealt with simple things like why Mr. Darcy signed his letter as Fitzwilliam Darcy. My teacher inaccurately explained this as ‘the letter was signed by Colonel Fitzwilliam as well as Mr. Darcy so as to vouch for its veracity’. The later explanation I got from an older friend is probably the correct one, Darcy is named after his mother’s family name of Fitzwilliam.
This read, I was wondering why the romance between Mr. Bingley and Georgiana didn’t flourish despite the encouragement it got from his sisters and perhaps Darcy’s tacit acceptance that it would be a good thing.
I also wondered why Lady Catherine didn’t push for her daughter’s marriage with Colonel Fitzwilliam, a more likely scenario. As a younger son making his own way in the world, he needs money, and she is an heiress in addition to being socially his equal.
My impression of Georgiana is that she isn’t “out” yet. She is not going off to house parties at the Bingley’s etc. To Mr Bingley, she would have still been a child and not part of society. She is just now learning how to be a hostess in her home with many prompts from her brother and her companion. She is a sheltered 16.
Contrast that with Lydia who is about the same age. She goes to balls, flirts up a storm, is permitted to go to Brighton without family and with a very new acquaintance.
Mrs. Bennett didn’t have access to birth control even if she wanted to use it.
Very true. Mr. Bennet wouldn’t have liked it, but Jane would have gently convinced him that it was for the best (thereby ignoring her own advice to Elizabeth: “Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than marry without affection.”)
Elizabeth, on the other hand, is close enough to her father to know that such a sacrifice would be most unwelcome in his eyes. I always smile at his lines to her:
Cardinal Fang: I think many couples at that period of time controlled their fertility, not that they didn’t have “oops” babies just like we do today, and that the Bennets had that large family on purpose. My reading may be incorrect.
I tried to post a link to an article on birth control in the 18th century but now my comment is held up for approval. The link isn’t really necessary. Anyone interested can just google. They understood how to prevent conception and used a variety of methods. Obviously it weren’t always as effective as what we have today, and not every woman had access, especially since some methods require her partner’s cooperation.
eta: what sort of power women have had to control their fertility throughout history is a huge topic, and one in which I’ve always been interested. In all ages, some women always controlled their fertility and the number of children born. That interest does definitely impact my reading of this story. Many (most?) scholars would say I’m flat out wrong.
I have to say I’m not much of a Mr. Bennet fan - even less so this particular reread. It seems to me that he’s almost as awful as Mrs. Bennet in his own way - or maybe his way partly makes Mrs. Bennet awful. Certainly he exists at as much a remove from his family as possible - surfacing to let them know he thinks little of them.