Lizzie Receives from Mr Collins and Mr Darcy

Lizzie’s view of Mr Collins is that is a very proud and boastful man. He is more interested in his own position and success than the feelings of other people. She therefore does not like Mr Colllins, and would not consider marriage to him as a possibility. She is under pressure from her Mother to get married, but her feelings towards him are so negative so would not consider it. Her feelings for Mr Darcy are more complicated. He is attractive, but is vain and arrogant. She is put off by this, but also because he has acted in a manner which has affected many people in a negative way, such as: Mr Wickham, Jane and Mr Bingley.

If he was more benevolent and kind, she might consider trying to be friends but as he is not, she thinks very ‘ill of him’. The two proposals made to Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice are very similar as both insult Lizzie. As Mr Collins is a boorish character, he offends Lizzie by impulsively exclaiming that Lady Catherine de Bourgh had said his wife ‘must be active, a useful sort of person, not brought up high’ which is suggesting he picked her as she was born into a lower gentry family and she is useful to have because she can be told what to do and she will do it.

Lizzie is more ambitious than this stereotype and would not consider marriage to someone who thought that was the role of a wife. Mr Darcy also causes offense in his proposal as he refers to her lifestyle as ‘so decidedly beneath my own’. This gets Lizzie even angrier than she is already as he criticises her social status. In addition Mr Darcy damaged Mr Bingley and Jane’s relationship because the Bennet family were in a different social class. Lizzie also knows Jane is a timid person but Mr Darcy does not know this and takes this shyness as arrogance and superiority.

As a result of this Mr Darcy does not consider Jane as an appropriate match for Mr Bingley. Elizabeth believes that Mr Darcy did this out of spite and therefore she thinks she would not like to spend the rest of her life with this man. Lizzies reaction to both proposals are very alike, she rejects both and expresses to both men her opinion in a very straight forward manner, this is because in both proposals she feels disrespected and her social status is being questioned. However the proposals are quite different.

Mr Collins proposal was based on Lady Catherine’s order to Mr Collins to get a wife and the overall practicality of having a wife. Lady Catherine tells Mr Collins ‘A clergyman like you must marry’, because Austen uses the word must, it conveys to the reader it was compulsory to marry in The Regency Times, and as Mr Collins in almost a worshiper of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, he immediately searches for a woman to marry, which leads him to the Bennet family and then to Elizabeth. The proposal is an attempt by Mr Collins to get any wife rather than one he loves.

Because of this his proposal sounds business-like rather than romantic, Mr Collins outlines “My reasons for marriage” which makes the proposal almost sound like a legal document. And as a result of this she declines, but as he is a very self-loving person, he does not accept that answer and asks another four times for her answer, and after the final rejection she storms out of the door. Yet Mr Darcy’s proposal is more romantic, referring to his feelings rather than his reasons for wanting to marry. You must allow me to tell you, how ardently I admire and love you” It is a more heartfelt and earnest proposal, and truly reflects Mr Darcy’s feelings. But this heartfelt proposal suddenly ends with both people hating each other more than ever because of her answer. Still after this Lizzie weeps about having to reject it. Later after both proposals, Elizabeth’s thoughts are told through the narrator, expressing her feelings in free indirect discourse to convey that it is not just her that has them views.