“Pride and Prejudice”: Love cannot be “self-righteous”, love needs expression and courage

In “Pride and Prejudice,” the author Jane Austen wrote more about two happy marriages: one is Elizabeth and Darcy, the other is Jane and Bentley. However, they also experienced certain “ups and downs” in the process of obtaining happiness, which were hindered by objective and realistic reasons, as well as troubles caused by personal subjective thoughts. This article is based on Jane’s marriage and love with Bentley, and explores the individual. The perplexity that subjective thinking can bring to marriage and love.

“Pride and Prejudice”, as one of the rare treasures in the world’s library, has been acclaimed after more than two hundred years of time inspection.

As a novel that uses marriage and love as the plot to advance the clues, the author Jane Austen has two marriages in his works: one is Elizabeth and Darcy, the other is Jane and Bentley. These two marriages are based on love in the author’s heart, and they are truly a happy marriage.

But even a beautiful marriage has experienced certain “ups and downs” in the process, hindered by objective and realistic reasons, and also troubled by personal subjective thoughts. This article is based on the marriage and love between Jane and Bentley. , To explore the troubles that personal subjective thoughts can bring to marriage and love.

Pride and Prejudice
Excessive reserve puts love to the test

As one of the protagonists of the novel “Pride and Prejudice”, Jane is the eldest daughter of the Bennetts and the most beautiful of the five daughters. At the ball held at Netherfield Manor, Jane met Bentley, the owner of the manor. Bentley is a rich young man in the north of England. His father passed away and left an inheritance of 100,000 pounds. He has an income of four to five thousand pounds every year. He originally wanted to buy a real estate in a certain county (to fulfill his father’s wish), but his personality was easy to come by. After seeing Netherfield Manor, he decided to rent it temporarily.

Bentley’s move in made the wives in the small village of Longbourne alive, and they expected him to be their son-in-law. On the day of the ball, Bentley’s actions dispelled many people’s thoughts: “In the entire ballroom, only she ( Jane) was invited by him (Bentley) for the second time.”

The symbolic meaning of this is well known to people with a discerning eye. After the prom, Jane also told her sister Elizabeth about her feelings for Bentley: “He is a typical good young man. He is knowledgeable, good-tempered, and lively. I have never seen such a likable manner! — so dignified and so educated.” “The second time he asked me to dance, I was so happy. I didn’t expect him to praise me like that.”

However, although Jane told her sister about her concerns, she never gave back to Bentley’s love, and only showed that she did not refuse.

For Jane’s approach, sister Elizabeth understands and agrees with her. She sees Bentley’s admiration for Jane and also feels Jane’s inability to extricate herself from Bentley: “This matter is generally not noticed by outsiders, because Jane is passionate, but He has a demure temperament, always happy in appearance, and will not arouse the suspicion of reckless people.”

As for the meaning of doing this, it is to show the reserved and shyness of women’s unique personality; or to protect themselves in love, not to express their attitude easily, no matter whether they are happy or sad, they are easy to get away; or it is a way for some women to get love The means of “catch it and let it go” is unknown, but in Elizabeth’s mind, it is more to praise Jane’s reservedness and prudent self-preservation.

After all, in Elizabeth’s opinion, the attitude of not showing lightly in love is correct: “Now she is still not sure how much she loves Bentley, whether she loves it properly. She has only known him for two weeks in Meriton. I danced four tunes with him, and met him at his house one morning, and later ate dinner with him four times.”

For Elizabeth’s point of view, her best friend Charlotte took the opposite view: “It may be interesting to hide this matter from everyone, but sometimes it is not worth it. If a woman uses this technique to hide herself from her sweetheart His love, then there may not be a chance to win his favor.”

Charlotte feels that she is too reserved in love, so that the other party can’t feel her own heart, and it is easy to die the fragile goodwill. The subsequent events between Jane and Bentley proved the correctness of Charlotte’s views to a certain extent.

Although the reservedness in love is only due to Jane’s character, the impact is unimaginable. After all, not everyone can accurately understand each other’s character, can they?

Pride and Prejudice
Cowardice and lack of courage make love tend to die

During the interaction between Jane and Bentley at the Netherfield Manor, the initial state of restraint has always been continued. It seems that love is gestating healthy, but in fact it is about to fall into a storm. Soon after a prom, Bentley informed Mrs. Bennett that he would go to London for a few days. What happened after leaving this time dispelled Mrs. Bennett’s original dream. She initially thought: “Just be prepared. With her dowry, new carriage and wedding gown, within three or four months, her daughter will definitely find a home in Netherfield.”

But in fact, Bentley did not return to Netherfield Manor to meet Jane for a long time after leaving this time. At first, Bentley’s sister Caroline wrote to Jane, telling her that she would not return to Netherfield Manor this winter, and also hinted that Bentley might have fallen in love with his friend Darcy’s sister Georgiana.

However, Elizabeth believes that Bentley’s sister had a strategy to pursue Darcy, because a marriage between Bentley and Darcy’s sister helped promote the second marriage between Caroline and Darcy, and Caroline was Like Darcy’s. In this state, Elizabeth pushed all the mistakes to Caroline and Darcy to comfort Jane, but Elizabeth also had certain opinions on Bentley in her heart: “Although she (Elizabeth) has always liked Bentley very much. Sir, now that he is so obedient and lacking in opinion, she is blindly succumbing to those scheming relatives and friends, sacrificing her own happiness and letting them do whatever they want. When she thinks of this, she can’t help but feel a little angry and even despise him.”

However, Elizabeth’s speculation did not alleviate Jane’s distress. Instead, as time changed, Jane began to suspect that she had misunderstood Bentley’s behavior at first, because Bentley had not clearly expressed her affection. Jane believed that women often love love. His guess is not accurate enough: “We often let vanity be fascinated by our hearts. Women have unrealistic fantasies about love.”

But Elizabeth does not think that she feels that Bentley’s affection for Jane is false, because she has certain opinions on Bentley’s approach and is also based on her belief that Bentley loves Jane. Regarding Bentley’s love for Jane, Elizabeth had added to her aunt. Mrs. Dana described: “I have never seen someone as affectionate as he is. He ignores others at all and just thinks about Jane. Every time they meet, things become clearer and more explicit. He is in himself. At the dance party, two or three young ladies were offended for not inviting them to dance. I told him twice, but he ignored me. Is there a more obvious sign than this? I neglect everyone for the sake of one person. , Isn’t this the true meaning of love?”

Mrs. Gardner did not refute this, but just to relieve Jane, she decided to take her to London for some relaxation, and that was the city Bentley went to after leaving Netherfield Manor. It was just that the aunt would take Jane to the place and Bentley is not in the same city, but because he is not far away, by chance, Jane decided to visit Bentley’s sister Caroline when she accompanied her aunt to work in the city where Bentley lived. Expect to see Bentley. However, not only did Bentley not be seen during this visit, but three bad messages were obtained:

Bentley’s younger sister Caroline has always been false to her (in the initial relationship, Jane has always thought Caroline is a good friend who can make a good relationship). Bentley decided not to return to Netherfield Manor. Bentley shouldn’t love her anymore (because Jane learned from Bentley’s sister that Bentley had learned that she was in London, and would have met if she had the intention).

This love gradually died. Although Jane could not get the facts from Bentley, she had given up her heart. Even if Elizabeth accepted this reality, she still believed that Bentley was not without feelings for Jane. As for why this result occurred, she Always firmly believe that the error stems from two aspects. One is that Bentley has no opinion, and the other is that Caroline and Darcy are in the middle of it. In the work, Elizabeth met Darcy on the way to visit Charlotte, which also confirmed her guess. The correctness.

But at the time, she had not considered one of the key issues: Even if it is true, if Bentley’s love for Jane is firm enough, will Bentley really be disturbed by others because of lack of opinion? At the same time, even if others want to interfere with this love, where did they start to extinguish the love in Bentley’s heart?

Of course, Jane never considered this question, because she later firmly believed that she had misunderstood Bentley’s friendship, and Elizabeth, who had the closest guess to the truth, never considered this aspect because of prejudice. Then what is the answer to this question? Darcy’s letter to Elizabeth solved the mystery.

Pride and Prejudice
Courage and honesty are the propellant and guarantee of love

In the meeting between Elizabeth and Darcy, Darcy confessed everything frankly. At that time, Elizabeth, who was emotionally excited when she learned the truth, did not leave Darcy a chance to explain (the dialogue was also interspersed with Darcy’s confession to Elizabeth) .

But afterwards, Darcy wrote to Elizabeth, explaining all the reasons. Darcy admitted that he was the main force and Caroline blocked the love between Bentley and Jane, but the reason for blocking was only because of her responsibility to her friend Bentley, just as Elizabeth learned that Jane loves Bentley, and Darcy also I discovered Bentley’s admiration for Jane, but did not find Jane’s admiration: “Since then, I have been watching my friend’s behavior closely, and I can see that he has a deep affection for Miss Bennett (Jane), and I have seen him in the past. The situation is very different. I also pay attention to Sister Ling (Jane). Her expression and behavior are still as cheerful, lively and charming as usual, but there is no sign of anyone who is in love… Although Sister Ling is willing to accept Bentley He’s courteous, but she didn’t come to tease him affectionately.”

Especially the last sentence, which vividly summarized Jane’s attitude towards Bentley, and since then deepened Darcy’s heart to prevent this love from continuing to develop. Originally, Jane’s family situation was not “decent” (mainly aimed at Jane’s mother Bennet). Mrs. Te and the three sisters of Jane and Elizabeth were extremely improper in their words and deeds, and economic factors were second. Subjectively, Darcy did not agree with this love, and then his observation of Jane made him make up his mind.

The reason why Bentley would listen to Darcy and others’ opinions on this love is also because Bentley had some doubts in his relationship with Jane, because he did not receive any emotional feedback from Jane. At that time, he thought: “Even if I didn’t answer him with the same heartfelt information, at least I was looking forward to him earnestly”, but it was not until Darcy told Bentley of his inference (Jane doesn’t love Bentley) that Bentley was allowed to suppress his emotions. .

At this point, why Jane and Bentley’s love developed to this point, the reason is clear at a glance. Because of Jane’s reservedness, Bentley never felt the emotional feedback it deserved. And because of lack of courage, both Jane and Bentley didn’t dare to express their feelings to each other clearly. As a result, the two people’s dim love came to an end in their respective guesses and misunderstandings.

As for the role played by other people in this love is not important, after all, as long as the two parties are clear and firm in love, how can they interfere with their own judgment due to other people’s words? It stems from the fact that each other is not firm enough in love-Xu is not firm enough in himself, Xu is not firm enough in the other party.

Elizabeth, who calmed down, thought of the conversation between Jane and Bentley in the early days of her relationship with Bentley (a discussion about Jane’s attitude in love). At that time, Charlotte pointed out this problem, and Charlotte also said about it at the time. “Most male and female loves contain elements of gratitude and admiration for vanity, so it is not safe to listen to them. It may be casual at the beginning-a little favoritism is a natural thing, but few people can not receive encouragement from each other. Dare to fall in love with each other.”

In other words, it is very easy for two people to have a good feeling in the early stage of love, but if you want to maintain this good feeling and nurture it into a beautiful love, at least one needs to be able to take the initiative. Because the active party (the confessor) can let the passive party (the confessed) satisfy the inner “love and vanity” (psychological state), so that the passive party will be better able to respond to the active party after receiving the confession. Carrying out a “grateful pictorial” is the process by which most love is born and bred. Of course, if both of them are active, love will be bred very quickly, and if they are not active, the result is easy to be like Jane and Bentley.

In the work, Charlotte also suggested that when expressing her feelings to the other party, she suggested that “the affection should be expressed more than the feeling in the heart”. It is true that this kind of suggestion can promote the birth of love to a certain extent, but it also It is necessary to control the limits. It is too hypocritical, and it is a kind of harm to people and already. After all, it is not a good thing to “pull up the seedlings and promote the growth”. It is better to seek truth from facts in love.

Here, some people may have a misunderstanding, which is the rhetorical question raised by Elizabeth during the discussion with Charlotte: “A woman falls in love with a man, as long as the woman does not intentionally conceal it, the man can definitely see it.”

Many people think that in love, although one party has no clear expression, if they love each other deeply, this kind of emotion should also be felt. But in fact, this view only exists in an ideal state. On the one hand, people and people Different, some people are not very sensitive to emotions, how to ensure that the other party will be able to feel it? On the other hand, once one of the characters is too inferior, even if he perceives the other’s subtle emotional expression (hidden hint), it is easy to think that it is an illusion, just like Jane and Bentley in the work (in the work of the two characters It has been described, and there is a certain inferiority component). Moreover, sometimes the two sides may not have enough opportunities to get along alone, so how to detect it? Therefore, instead of choosing brave confession in love, you choose hidden hints, expecting the other party to be aware that the risk factor is very high.

Of course, in the work, the love between Jane and Bentley was not completely aborted under the indirect help of Darcy. When the “misunderstanding” was resolved, the two achieved a beautiful marriage.

In real life, it is impossible for everyone to be as lucky as the artistically processed characters in the work. For us, love does not need to prove its beauty through ups and downs. Therefore, we have to obtain inspiration from the works to reduce the risk that love may encounter in reality. The inspiration from Jane and Bentley is: Love requires courage.