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PRIDE_AND_PREJUDICE


                                             November 6, 2020       
                                                                    
All the girls were excited by the somewhat bland                    
and pleasant Bingley, but my money went down                        
early on the social awkward, arrogant Darcy, and                    
he is indeed male lead number one.                                  
                                                                    
This remains part of the familiar formula to this                   
day: the male lead is a rude jerk, and the female                   
lead initially wants nothing to do with him.                        
                                                                    
The viewpoint character is a woman who is supposed                  
to have some intelligence and discernment, plus a                   
somewhat caustic wit-- the second female is her                     
sister, who is incredibly nicey-nice-- I mean,                      
*literally* incredible-- and unwilling to believe                   
ill of anyone-- and this one, I think is a                          
conventional figure that one would've hoped was                     
"Gone with the Wind".                                               
                                                                    
What has not changed very much, is what the female                  
lead does to win over the male lead: absolutely                     
nothing.  She just does her thing here and there, and               
she gradually makes an impression without trying to.                
                                                                    
She also becomes incredibly dense, refusing to                      
credit the obvious implication behind the fact                      
that he's hanging around her more-and-more often.                   
                                                                    
At one point, she's Told Things by a clearly                            
self-interested character, and she believes          "Winter Sonata"    
all of it uncritically without checking it.                             
That's a convention that *might* be dying            "Skip Beat"        
out now, but it was really tremendously                                 
common: a manipulative third party poisons                              
some rather gullible minds with lies.                               
                                                                    
Unsurprisingly there are some objections to the
high born males getting it on with women who are
merely middle class, but the central objection
is not so much lack of status or money or some
issue with the woman's own behavior, but rather
the behavior of her family members.  Both the
mother and youngest sister exhibit a "lack of
propriety", and the upper class males are
reluctant to adopt a family connection to them.
                                                                    
That was an angle of the story that I didn't see coming             
at all, being an American raised in a hypothetically                
egalitarianism society: I expect individuals to be                  
treated primarily as individuals.                                   
                                                                    
There are some shifts in perception of character that               
are interesting: the mother initially seems silly and               
somewhat embarassing and not very intelligent, but she              
gradually begins to seem positively delusional.                     
                                                                    
The youngest sisters seem flightly and amusing in their             
obsession with the latest gossip about the officers in              
locally stationed military, but eventually seem insanely            
reckless. 
                                                                    
The redemption of Darcy on the other hand strikes me as             
rather prefunctory-- they go with the idea that he's been           
concealing a streak of kindness (to servants and                    
animals-- which says it all about that era).  That's                
certainly not impossible, and possibly even believable,             
but somehow not what I would expect from that character.            
More likely would be something like a reputation for                
being tough, but more-or-less fair (but you'd expect that           
even that would be only grudgingly conceded).                       
                                                                    
                                                                    
"Pride an Prejudice" has a number of virtues:                       
                                                                    
The characters are mostly believable...                                 
                                                                    
Even relatively minor characters, like, the adopted                 
poor relation who likes to spread damaging stories                  
seems psychological plausible-- perhaps to some extent              
he psyches himself up to believe these smears?                      
                                                                    
The title suggests the main characters are to be taken              
as studies in "pride"-- the secondary "prejudice" may be            
the one I care about, the worries about lack of decorum             
in the heroine's family...                                          
                                                                    
         I wonder if, to this day, the back-biting                  
         whispering campaign remains a standard tool                
         of the normies to enforce normality.                       
                                                                    
                                                                    
         The damning sin of "lack of propriety":                    
         could it be it's making a come-back?                       
                                                                    
             The guardians of normality may                         
             still be with us, quitely ruling                       
             the lands of corporate hiring...                       
                                                                    




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