Yearning and Suffering: Love in Pride and Prejudice.

Contains spoilers from Pride and Prejudice.

Let me start with the fact that I don’t like Jane Austen, in fact, I refused to read any of her work until I was forced to read Sense and Sensibility in my freshman year of college. Avoiding Austen at all costs probably had something to do with internalized misogyny(re: my article about YA Romance), but I also have/had legitimate qualms with her writing style.
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I found and still find Austen’s sentence structure to be annoying and grammar overworked. But there’s no getting around that because Pride and Prejudice was written over 200 years ago! Don’t you think it would be weird if her writing didn’t sound weird to modern tastes? Now that I’ve read more than one Jane Austen book, I now believe that Jane Austen doesn’t entirely suck. We love character growth.

Pride and Prejudice is a better book than Sense and Sensibility. It’s less wordy and the plot is quicker—though it still took me almost a month to get through it. And, if you want to get any of the aforementioned  yearning and suffering from our main character, you have to fight through the first two volumes of the book(~260 pages). It is only after the truth comes out about Mr. Wickham that Mr. Darcy’s favor can be restored in Elizabeth’s eyes. Then the games begin.

In the end, Mr. (Fitzwilliam) Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet are married, but how did they go from enemies to lovers? Here is a short guide to get the girl, according to Pride and Prejudice:
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1. Insult her when you meet her. Refusing to dance is a particularly good way to add to your suit. Not only will this make her despise you, but it sets your relationship up perfectly for the transformation of her loathing  into love.
2. Ignore her for months. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, of course. Try to stay out of her way for almost a year and her feelings of loathing might settle into mere dislike and forgetfulness. 
3. Catch her off guard.  It’s best to find a way to interrupt her daily routine. A place where she goes for a walk, for example. She is certainty least expecting you when she is most relaxed. Meeting her in this way will shock her back to her senses, you hope. However, do not say anything of importance when you do. You must maintain a mysterious and slightly infuriating air. 
4. Propose unexpectedly. Now that you have given the woman of your desire adequate time to fester, it’s time to pop the question. Enter her home when she is alone so you two can have the upmost privacy. When she refuses you, know that this will all pay off in the end, and a little heartbreak never killed anybody.
5. Write an apology. Now is your opportunity to clear away any misgivings she may have against you. This could be towards separating her older sister from her love—which you did with the purest ignorance of there being any attachment. Also clear up that what your enemy told her isn’t true. The swifter you can deliver this letter to her, the better. You must give her the letter and walk away.
6. Be nice to her. This may sound like the last resort when courting a lady, but you’d be surprised the wonder a little kindness can do.
7. Save her sister’s honor by blackmailing your enemy to marry her. Of course, you will reveal in the end that you did all of this for her and not for her sister’s sake. You may also need to pay her sister’s dowry.
8. Ignore her again. Trust me, this is crucial.
9. Go out walking with her. Be vague and stroke up a conversation over the past year’s events. The two of you will ultimately come to the conclusion that your feelings are mutual and that her father’s permission should be asked for later that afternoon. Congratulations, bachelor.
   
   

And that, is how you get the girl.
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In all seriousness, I don’t believe Mr. Darcy had this plan to marry Elizabeth, but it is quite interesting, the winding road Austen walks the reader through. If you haven’t read Pride and Prejudice, or have seen the movie and not the book, I recommend you give it a go. You’re sure to find it online from your local library or at a used book store.
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​Grayson Yount

is a writer based in North Carolina. She attends writing classes of all kinds at UNC Chapel Hill and has a particular fondness for sharp imagery. In her free time, she drafts her own novels.
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