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The 2005 Focus Features adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, directed by Joe
Wright, is an insightfully Romantic interpretation of Austen’s novel.
Wright’s Pride & Prejudice takes
as its central focus Austen’s concern with exploring the nature of the Romantic
self and the possibilities for women and men to achieve individual
self-fulfillment within an oppressive patriarchal social and economic
order. Pride & Prejudice
foregrounds this aspect of Austen’s novel in its narrative and thematic
concerns and in its representation of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy as
Romantic figures, presenting Austen’s novel as a Romantic text. Pride & Prejudice selectively
identifies and highlights the Romantic qualities of Elizabeth and Darcy’s
respective personalities and functions within the novel, particularly in terms
of their relationships as individuals to the social worlds in which they
operate. Wright also uses the capabilities of film in visualizing
Elizabeth’s character, and in the extensive use of natural settings and
landscapes, to present Austen’s treatment of the conflict between individual
desire and the social order in terms of Romanticism. Jane Austen’s relationship to
Romanticism—in terms of her treatment of elements of Romantic ideology in her
novels and her connection to the six male poets who were until recently
considered to constitute the entire literary movement in England—is an issue
which has challenged and often troubled scholars of Austen’s work.
Austen’s novels have predominantly been read in isolation from the works of her
Romantic contemporaries, and her novels have been interpreted as critiquing,
resisting or rejecting elements of Romantic ideology rather than as
participating in or endorsing it. Recent studies of Austen in relation to
Romanticism and her contemporaries have established more connections between
Austen and Romanticism than have hitherto been acknowledged.1 This essay considers Austen’s
exploration of the Romantic conception of the self in Pride and Prejudice, particularly as it is articulated through the
characterization of Elizabeth and Darcy, and how Joe Wright emphasizes this
aspect of the novel in his film adaptation. In Pride
& Prejudice, Wright characterizes Elizabeth and Darcy as Romantic
figures by presenting them in terms of the Romantic conception of the
self. Traditionally, Romanticism has been considered as reflecting and
endorsing a conceptualization of the individual self as autonomous,
all-consuming and socially detached or isolated. This approach to the
self is reflected in both the personalities of the male Romantic poets and in
the representation of individual characters within their poetry. Marlon
Ross, for example, has commented that “Romantic poets are driven to a quest for
self-creation, for self-comprehension, for self-positioning that is
unprecedented in literature” (26). Peter Thorslev has related the
Romantic poets’ concern with self-understanding to the role and function of the
artist: “one article of faith in every Romantic’s creed was that the
artist was solitary and superior, a hero and a leader above the common herd”
(18). This conception of a socially detached self was also represented in
the characters, usually men, who feature in Romantic poetry. Garber has
summarized constructions of the self, particularly in the figure of the
Romantic hero, in the following terms: “self-awareness, a recognition of
the demands and complexities of his own private being, is, as we know, basic to
the position assumed by the romantic hero” (321). Thorslev has similarly
explored the poetic representation of Romantic heroes, and argued that they
“stand firmly as individuals outside of society. Thoroughgoing rebels,
they invariably appeal to the reader’s sympathies against the unjust
restrictions of the social, moral, or even religious codes of the worlds in
which they find themselves” (22). Particularly focusing on the poetry and
personality of Lord Byron, Thorslev argues that Romantic heroes “are solitaries
. . . by
birth, by nature, or by breeding; because of the acuteness of their minds and
sensibilities—but most of them are solitaries also because of conscious moral
choice” (66). Frequently, the characters of Romantic poetry turn from the
social world to seek self-fulfillment in nature. In recent years, Anne Mellor and other
literary critics have persuasively argued that the traditional Romantic
conception of the self as individualistic, socially detached and autonomous is
a specifically masculine approach, and they have worked towards creating an
understanding of Romanticism which incorporates representations of the self
from women’s texts and constructions of femininity. Mellor has argued
that rather than viewing the self in terms of autonomy and social detachment,
women writers of the Romantic period instead embraced a “relational self,”
which “has no firm ego boundaries, and experiences its place in the world as an
entanglement in shifting relationships, with family members, friends, lovers”
(186). This relational self not only was more ideologically available to
women writers but also was a more accurate reflection of their lived experience
than the autonomous self endorsed by male Romantics. Throughout her
novels, Austen works to valorize a relational over a detached conception of the
self and demonstrates that both women and men benefit from developing a
relational rather than an isolated self. Pride and Prejudice, however, is exceptional in this regard:
rather than endorsing a relational model of the self, Austen is instead
concerned with exploring the traditional Romantic conception of the self as
solitary and socially detached, and the effect of gender difference on the
power of individuals to realize and fulfill the self through the autonomous
pursuit of individual desire. Austen’s treatment of the traditional
conception of the Romantic self and its gender complexities is the central
narrative and thematic focus of Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejudice. Wright’s film focuses on Elizabeth and
Darcy’s mutual struggles to achieve self-fulfillment through the pursuit of
individual desire within an oppressive patriarchal social order.
Dramatized using Romantic natural settings and landscapes, the journey of
Elizabeth and Darcy is presented in Wright’s film as the struggle of two
Romantic heroes to achieve self-realization independent of the social world
they inhabit. Wright’s interpretation is, I argue, firmly grounded in
Austen’s novel, particularly with regard to the representation of the two
protagonists and their functions within Austen’s broader commentary on the
nature of the Romantic self; however, the film’s concern with promoting a
Romantic interpretation of Austen’s novel overshadows other available
readings. Additionally, Wright’s use of the visual capabilities of film
attributes to Austen a greater investment in Romantic imagery than can be
supported by the novel itself (which does not, for example, celebrate
Elizabeth’s desire for individualism by positioning her atop a windswept cliff
face in the Derbyshire landscape). Although the film does at times depart
from Pride and Prejudice in its use
of Romantic imagery to reinforce its interpretation, Pride & Prejudice remains true to Austen’s novel in its
treatment of the conflict between individual self-realization and the demands
of society. Further, its characterization of Elizabeth and Darcy
accurately reflects the novel’s concern with the complicating factor of gender
in the pursuit of Romantic individualism. “‘What are men to rocks and mountains?’”
asks Elizabeth Bennet, anticipating with delight her tour of the “‘[l]akes,
mountains, and rivers’” of the Lake District with her aunt and uncle Gardiner,
and expressing her intention to absorb the landscape authentically and unlike
“‘the generality of travellers’” (154). Elizabeth’s inquiry into the
comparative value of men, rocks and mountains can be interpreted in two
different ways which turn on her use of the word “men.” If we read
Elizabeth’s use of “men” as relating to humankind generally, her question
engages with the contemporary Romantic inquiry into the value of the social and
natural worlds and their respective capacities to enable the realization of the
individual self. The fact that her question occurs during a discussion of
a tour to the symbolically Romantic landscape of the Lake District lends
support to this interpretation. As it proceeds from her conversation with
Mrs. Gardiner regarding the recent deficient behavior of Mr. Bingley and Mr.
Darcy, however, Elizabeth’s use of the word “men” can also be read as
specifically applying to the male sex, an interpretation which reflects her
disillusionment with these representatives of contemporary masculinity. Elizabeth’s inquiry “‘[w]hat are men to
rocks and mountains?’” recurs in Wright’s Pride
& Prejudice (once spoken by Mary Bennet, and once by Mr. Gardiner), and
the dual interpretations of the question inform this adaptation of the
novel. Pride & Prejudice is
deeply concerned with Austen’s treatment of the tension between the pursuit of
individual happiness and fulfillment, celebrated by her Romantic
contemporaries, and its potential to rupture the social order. This
conflict is evident from the film’s selective foregrounding of this issue
within the narrative; its use of the visual capabilities of film to construct
Elizabeth and Darcy as social outsiders; and its extensive use of natural
settings, which are presented as fundamentally in opposition to the social
world in which Elizabeth and Darcy operate. On another level, however,
Wright’s Pride & Prejudice
responds to Elizabeth’s disillusionment with the male sex by constructing Darcy
in the image of masculinity embodied or endorsed by male Romantic poets and
their poetic heroes, one aspect of a public debate on the nature of ideal or
appropriate English masculinity which dominated the Regency period. Wright’s characterization of Darcy
particularly draws on the image of masculinity associated with Lord Byron, in
both his personality and his poetry, which not only stressed the autonomous and
socially alienated conception of the self but also developed a particular
masculine type which has become known as the “Byronic hero” or “Byronic
masculinity” (Lutz 7, MacCarthy 558, Thorslev 10-12). The Byronic hero,
as Atara Stein has argued, is characterized by “ambition, aspiration and
aggressive individualism” (1); he is arrogant, contemptuous of others and
bad-tempered, and “lacks social skills and an ability to relate to other
people” (10). According to both Stein
and Lutz, however, the Byronic hero achieves redemption through the strength
and fidelity of his love, often a love “for one who is perpetually
inaccessible to him” (Stein 10). As Lutz has commented, “in the Regency,
true Byronism lies in the man who, although failed and deeply wounded, can be
redeemed by love” (Lutz 19-20). Several
critics have recently noted these Byronic aspects of Darcy’s personality.
Lutz has commented that Darcy “influenced
the creation of many later dangerous lover figures in his powerfully aloof
stance as the rich misanthrope who stands apart, sneering at the vanity and
silly folly of those around him” (43) and argues that his redemption lies in
“love overpowering considerations of class” (44). Sarah Wootton has
extensively examined Darcy as well as Captain Wentworth of Persuasion in terms of Byronic masculinity, arguing that Darcy’s
pride, demeanor, and “Romantic need for self-expression” reflect distinct
aspects of the Byronic hero (35-36). In Pride & Prejudice, Wright similarly
foregrounds the Byronic features of Darcy’s personality, as he is constructed
in Austen’s novel, to present him as a Byronic hero who is driven solely by his
love for Elizabeth and whose love can enable Elizabeth to achieve the
independent selfhood she so desperately seeks. Austen’s treatment of the tension between
the desire for self-realization and the difficulties of achieving it within a
social order is central to Pride and
Prejudice and recurs throughout her work. Scholarly readings of Pride and Prejudice frequently focus on
Elizabeth, an intellectually independent heroine who needs to find a path for
herself within the restrictive social and economic order that confronts her,
and tend to conclude that Elizabeth’s marriage to Darcy signals Austen’s
endorsement of the establishment over the potentially disruptive individualism
associated with Romanticism, Jacobinism, and the culture of sensibility.2 Such readings, however, simplify
Austen’s treatment of Romantic individualism, which is much more complex with
respect to Elizabeth and which also strongly influences her characterization of
Darcy. Throughout Pride and
Prejudice, Elizabeth faces the real possibility of social isolation, and
while Austen frames such an outcome as disastrous for a woman in Elizabeth’s
socio-economic position, she clearly privileges Elizabeth’s individualist
stance over the contrary approach adopted, for example, by Charlotte
Lucas. With regard to Elizabeth, Austen leaves this tension
unresolved: while Elizabeth’s assertions about marriage for love and not
for financial security are authentic, her pursuit of her own individual
happiness eventually leads her to the most eligible man in the novel.
Elizabeth is ultimately not forced to pursue individual desire despite social
and economic obstacles, so her assertions regarding the rights of the
individual at the expense of social cohesion go untested. Unable to wholly endorse the pursuit of
Romantic individualism by women such as Elizabeth, who are so vulnerable to the
vagaries of patriarchal society, Austen instead uses her heroine to highlight
the difficulties for women in realizing the autonomous and socially detached
self celebrated by traditional Romanticism. Rather than endorsing a
relational approach to the self for her heroine, however, Austen constructs the
relationship between Elizabeth and Darcy as in fact enabling Elizabeth’s
individuality and self-fulfillment. With regard to her heroine, Austen
can effectively have her cake and eat it too, and Wright’s Pride & Prejudice effectively and convincingly captures this
complexity in Elizabeth’s character. While Austen leaves the tension between
individualism and social harmony unresolved in Elizabeth’s character, however,
through Darcy she decisively endorses the pursuit of individual desire and the
realization of an autonomous self, even at the expense of social rupture.
Unlike Elizabeth, Darcy does have to
choose between individual happiness—fulfillment of his sexual and emotional
love for Elizabeth through marriage—and maintaining the social and familial
order. Darcy’s choice to privilege his individual happiness despite this
disruption embodies Austen’s endorsement of Romantic individualism, and the
pursuit of personal desire even where it causes social rupture, and reflects
the Byronic nature of his personality. In contrast, Claudia Johnson
argues that Darcy reflects the essential conservatism of the novel and its
privileging of the social order over the individual: Pride and Prejudice corroborates conservative myths which
had argued that established forms cherished rather than prohibited true
liberty, sustained rather than disrupted real happiness, and safe-guarded
rather than repressed individual merit. Its hero accordingly is a
sober-minded exemplar of the great gentry, a dutiful son and affectionate
brother. (74) Johnson
states that “Darcy may conform to conservative requirements for one of his rank
and sex, but Elizabeth emphatically does not” (75) and suggests that the
reader’s pleasure in the story lies in the fact that it is this “sober-minded
exemplar of the great gentry” who “secures the happiness the novel celebrates”
(73). According to Johnson, then, the world of Pride and Prejudice allows men simultaneously to support the
establishment and pursue their individual happiness. Johnson’s analysis of Darcy’s role in the
novel’s exploration of this issue, however, rests on two assumptions:
first, that because Darcy is a man within a patriarchal social order, external
pressures such as social and family expectations do not affect him; and second,
that his choice to pursue individual happiness instead of bowing to such
pressures cannot by definition be disruptive of the social order because, as a
man, he embodies it. These assumptions are unsustainable either within
Austen’s novel or the broader context of early nineteenth-century gentry
masculinity. Of all Austen’s protagonists, Darcy is the only one whose
marital choice is allegedly bespoken and whose marriage causes a social and
familial rift. Rather than advocating the maintenance of the social
order, Austen uses Darcy to assert the individual’s right to pursue happiness
according to his or her own free will. Clearly, the fact that Darcy is
male (and is therefore endowed with the power of choice) and wealthy (and
therefore can afford his choice) makes possible his marriage to
Elizabeth: a poor woman of lower social rank (Elizabeth Bennet, in fact)
would certainly face considerably more obstacles to pursuing this kind of
individualism. But the patriarchal economic and social structures of
Austen’s world not only affected women: they also had a profound impact
on the lives of men, and to suggest otherwise is to ignore a fundamental aspect
of gender relations that historians of masculinities are gradually bringing to
light as well as one of Austen’s central concerns in Pride and Prejudice. The first section of Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejudice establishes
Elizabeth and Darcy as Romantic figures through their individual isolation in
an uncongenial social world. Elizabeth is presented as socially isolated
through her repeated associations with the natural world and her depiction
alone within social settings, and Darcy through his inept social
performance. The film opens with the sun rising over a glistening
landscape and cuts to the viewer’s first image of Elizabeth. She is
reading a book, a solitary task that symbolizes both her intellectualism and
her desire for self-sufficiency, and she is walking through a rural landscape,
immediately signaling her connection with the natural world. Elizabeth’s
position as a Romantic figure is particularly strongly emphasized by her walk
from Longbourn to Netherfield when Jane is ill. Wright uses a distant
shot to silhouette Elizabeth against a white sky: she and a solitary tree
are the only two figures in a rural landscape. The fundamental opposition
between the natural and the social worlds, and Elizabeth’s association with the
natural world, become starkly clear when she arrives at Netherfield: the
highly formal and ornate interior of the Netherfield breakfast room visually
clashes with the natural world outside, and Elizabeth, with her muddy boots and
hemline, her unfashionable brown coat and her long hair blown about, is plainly
incongruous within this social space. Miss Bingley’s comment that “she
looked positively medieval” highlights Elizabeth’s disregard for modern social
forms and practices, emphasizing her association with Romantic individualism. Elizabeth’s incongruity within the social
world is presented not only through her association with the natural world but
also through the film’s visualization of her within social settings.
After she verbally disarms Darcy at the Meryton assembly, she walks alone down
the center of the assembly hall and out the door: the camera focuses
exclusively on Elizabeth and blurs the other figures in the shot, visualizing
her separation from the society in which she lives. Wright also uses the
camera to this effect at the Netherfield ball, using long camera shots which
move between rooms, focusing on different characters, to privilege Elizabeth’s
visual perspective and present her as an external social observer rather than a
social participant. The image at the end of this sequence of Elizabeth
alone, leaning against a wall in a darkened room, having apparently escaped the
party and especially her family, strongly and sensitively conveys to the viewer
her incompatibility within this social world and the complexity of her
position, particularly in relation to the possibility of her long-term social
exclusion. In contrast to Elizabeth’s association
with the natural world and her visual separation within social settings, the
first part of the film establishes Darcy’s position as a social outsider
through his social performance. Initially, Wright’s representation of
Darcy departs from Austen’s method of constructing his character in the novel,
as the viewer learns about Darcy only as Elizabeth’s knowledge and experience
of him increases. Jennifer Preston Wilson has identified this process of
verisimilitude as operating in the novel; I argue, by contrast, that the
process of verisimilitude does not
operate in the novel (the reader’s access to Darcy’s interiority provides the
reader with information about him that is unknown to Elizabeth, particularly
regarding his attraction to her), but that it does operate within the opening scenes of Wright’s film.
Wright’s use of verisimilitude—through which the viewer learns about Darcy
through Elizabeth’s increasing knowledge of him—is a result of the film’s
almost exclusive focus on Elizabeth’s subjectivity and its privileging of her
visual perspective. The process of learning about Darcy through Elizabeth’s
subjectivity proves particularly effective later in the film when the viewer
comes to understand Darcy’s characterization in terms of Byronic masculinity. Wright’s introduction of Darcy to both
the Meryton neighborhood and the viewer cleverly reflects Austen’s concern with
the commodification of men in the early nineteenth-century marriage
market. Following the “truth universally acknowledged” of her famous
first sentence, Austen states that “[h]owever little known the feelings or
views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is
so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered
as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters” (3), clearly
establishing that men, as well as women, are vulnerable to the power of the
socio-economic order in the world of Pride
and Prejudice. When Mr. Darcy, Mr. Bingley and Miss Bingley arrive at
the Meryton assembly in Wright’s film, the dancing and music stop immediately
and the company turns to stare at the newcomers; the assembly parts as they
walk to the other end of the hall; and they continued to be observed in silence
by the neighborhood gentry until the music begins, and the dancing
recommences. The scene strikingly dramatizes the Meryton neighborhood’s
response to the arrival of these two eligible men, emphasizing the social
perception of men as marriage commodities and highlighting the fact that men,
as well as women, are subject to social and family expectations and pressures
in their marital choices. It immediately becomes clear that Darcy,
like Elizabeth, is not a social performer and only a reluctant social
participant. Whereas the novel attributes Darcy’s social
reluctance—particularly to make conversation and to dance—to his snobbery, the
film presents it as a result of his dislike of social forms and
practices. This aspect of his personality is present but not prioritized
within the novel, and Wright’s decision to foreground it reflects his desire to
construct Darcy in terms of Byronic masculinity. During the Meryton
assembly, Elizabeth comments that “he looks miserable, poor soul,” and his body
language and facial expressions suggest discomfort and unhappiness rather than
hauteur or disdain. Miss Bingley, rather than Darcy, takes on the role of
elitist snob at the Meryton assembly, in her attempts to embarrass Elizabeth at
Netherfield, and at the Netherfield ball: on each of these occasions,
Darcy pointedly refuses to participate in her criticism of Elizabeth, her
family and her neighborhood (indeed, his reluctance to criticize the Bennets
also reflects his isolation even within his own social class). It is not
that Darcy does not hold these proud and prejudicial views—his conduct in
separating Bingley and Jane, and his insulting behavior toward Elizabeth during
his first proposal, both remain essential parts of the narrative. Rather,
the film does not foreground these aspects of his personality because it is
more concerned with presenting him as a socially alienated Romantic figure.
Darcy’s unhappiness throughout his time in Hertfordshire indicates that, like
the Romantic hero, he finds the forms and practices of social interaction
offered by his society unfulfilling, laying the foundation for his later
characterization as a Byronic hero. Darcy and Elizabeth’s dance at the
Netherfield ball visually encapsulates both their respective determination to
maintain the integrity of their individuality, even from each other, and their
mutual positions as social outsiders. At the climax of their heated
discussion about Mr. Wickham, they stop in the middle of the dance and closely
face each other. The camera focuses exclusively on them, and the other
couples disappear from the shot. This moment visualizes Darcy and Elizabeth’s
isolation from their social world, both as individuals and as a couple, and
forecasts the film’s resolution by suggesting that it is this social isolation
that will ultimately unite them. The fact that they recommence the dance
alone indicates that they genuinely are just going through the motions of
social performance. The film’s narrative becomes a question of how these
two Romantic figures will maintain their individual integrity and also achieve
personal happiness and fulfillment within a fundamentally incompatible and
highly regulated social world. Elizabeth and Darcy’s next meeting at
Rosings provides greater insight to the viewer, if not to Elizabeth, of the
difficulty of Darcy’s social position. His love for Elizabeth becomes
obvious in his conversation with her at dinner when he is drawn to her playing
the piano and in his awkward and apparently pointless visit to her at Hunsford. Lady Catherine de
Bourgh, her daughter, and the interior of
Rosings represent the social expectation of marriage for wealth and status, and
the pressure on men’s marital choices within a patriarchal social order, which
Darcy himself has internalized and will need to overcome to achieve personal
happiness. When we first see Darcy at Rosings, he is framed by a window
and standing adjacent to a caged bird, signifying his enclosure within a social
order which seeks to control not only women but also men. The potential
of this social order to subjugate men is reflected in the murals on the wall
behind Lady Catherine. These scenes were shot in Burghley House, and
while in their totality the murals may assume a different meaning, the
paintings that form the backdrop to these scenes feature men laboring under
tyrannical conditions, symbolizing the oppression of the social order that Lady
Catherine represents as well as its capacity to repress individual men as well
as women. By depicting Darcy within this interior, Pride & Prejudice represents the conflict between the pursuit
of men’s individual desires, particularly in terms of their sexual and
emotional feelings, and the roles and responsibilities which are imposed upon
them by a patriarchal social order. The episode at Rosings continues the
film’s earlier use of contrasting interior and outdoor settings, emphasizing
that not only Elizabeth but also Darcy finds self-realization in the natural
world. In contrast to the beginning, and the end, of the film, virtually
all of the scenes at Rosings and Hunsford are shot indoors, reflecting the
uncomfortable social confinement of Darcy and Elizabeth. The notable
exception to this pattern is Elizabeth’s use of the natural world as a means of
escape and emotional release after she learns of Darcy’s role in separating
Jane and Bingley: she
runs alone through the park in the soaking rain, indicating the strength of her
emotions and the impossibility of physically containing them within a social
setting. This outdoor scene culminates in Darcy’s first proposal,
suggesting that the natural world similarly provides him with escape and freedom
from the oppressive Rosings interior. Darcy’s first proposal strongly reflects
his own personal torment resulting from the tension between marrying in
accordance with the social and economic pressures that have colored his view of
the world and acting on his sexual and emotional love for Elizabeth.
While he insultingly elaborates on the social and economic barriers between
them, his passion for her is clear when he says, “I came to Rosings for the
single object of seeing you. I had to see you.” This statement from
Darcy—that he traveled to Rosings for the sole purpose of seeing Elizabeth—is
an important departure from Austen’s novel, which presents Darcy’s visit to Rosings
as a routine family event. Wright uses this change to present Darcy in
pursuit of Elizabeth, and driven specifically by his love for her, which
reinforces his characterization as a Byronic hero. Darcy’s passion for
Elizabeth is further dramatized by their physical intimacy even after she has
rejected him. For the first time in the film, Darcy’s physical appearance
during the first proposal scene suggests that he is more than a stiff upright
gentleman: he is soaking wet and disheveled, reflecting the strength of
his love for Elizabeth and his (albeit reluctant) willingness to shirk social
forms to fulfill it. This scene allows the viewer to see Darcy as a man
driven by passionate love who is fundamentally alienated from his social world,
an embodiment of the Byronic hero, in fact. This new understanding of
Darcy as a man of flesh and blood and, above all, passionate feeling is
reinforced when he later delivers his letter to Elizabeth and swiftly rides out
the gates and through the forest, escape into the natural world similarly
providing him with an emotional release.
While it effectively utilizes contrasts
between interior and outdoor settings, Wright’s film also draws distinctions
between different landscape and gardening styles, which are sensitive to
aesthetic developments throughout the eighteenth-century and Romantic periods.
The first proposal scene was shot at the Temple of Apollo in the garden at
Stourhead, now considered a masterpiece of eighteenth-century English garden
design, the taste and aesthetic principles of which the Romantics sought to
debunk in preference for wilder, more natural and rugged landscapes. It
is appropriate that Darcy’s unsuccessful marriage proposal should occur in a
setting that symbolizes the social and aesthetic order that both characters
clearly find so oppressive. The fundamental incongruity between Darcy and
Elizabeth, and the interior and grounds at Rosings, is particularly striking in
comparison with their later meeting in Derbyshire. Wright’s extensive use
of landscape throughout this section of the film highlights an aspect of Austen’s
novel that is frequently overlooked by scholarship: her decision to
locate Pemberley in Derbyshire not only indicates its parity with estates such
as Chatsworth, but also characterizes Darcy in terms of the symbolically
Romantic landscape of the Peak district. Wright uses a long camera shot
to depict Elizabeth standing atop a cliff, placing her as part of this wild and
rugged landscape; the film then cuts to a close-up of her face to allow the
viewer to see her emotional response. Later she sits on the gnarled and
moss-coated roots of a tree, an image which could have been drawn directly from
a Romantic landscape painting.
As she approaches Pemberley, deer run through the open spaces of the Derbyshire
countryside, reminiscent of her own physical freedom in nature. Darcy’s
connection with this Romantic landscape, and his characterization as a Romantic
hero, is consolidated through Elizabeth’s visit to Pemberley. As in Austen’s novel, in Pride & Prejudice Elizabeth’s visit
to Pemberley is central to her understanding of Darcy’s character.
Throughout this section of the film, Wright represents Elizabeth’s changed view
by privileging her visual perspective and by specifically focusing on her
eyes. As she travels into Derbyshire, the camera presents Elizabeth’s
gaze into the sun through her closed eyelids. It later follows her visual
perspective around the murals of the Pemberley interior, which contrast with
the murals at Rosings by depicting men and women in pastoral, almost utopian
settings. Elizabeth’s tour of the gallery, so significant to her
understanding of Darcy in the novel, is reconfigured in the film as a walk
through a sculpture gallery, which features works of classical Greek sculpture,
reflecting the interest of several Romantic poets, including Byron, in ancient
and modern Greek culture and mythology (Graver 42-43). Elizabeth’s gaze
falls first on a sculpture of Achilles, another figure of flawed yet heroic
masculinity, before reaching Darcy’s portrait, here presented as a Grecian-style
sculpture rather than a painting. This substitution specifically
associates Darcy with the image of the Romantic hero developed by the Romantic
poets, and particularly with Byronic masculinity. The camera again takes
Elizabeth’s visual perspective as she looks out the window at the Pemberley
gardens: the change in focus from translucent to clear glass reflects her
new clarity of understanding of Darcy’s character. In its extensive use
of Elizabeth’s visual perspective, Wright’s film reflects the visual nature of
Elizabeth’s visit to Pemberley in Austen’s novel, and, like Elizabeth, the
viewer increasingly comes to see Darcy as a Byronic hero. The Pemberley
estate, within the Derbyshire landscape, is presented in the film as a Romantic
oasis from an alienating social world, which can provide these two social
outsiders with a means of coexisting while also retaining their individual
integrity. Such a resolution seems impossible, of
course, after the absconsion and then marriage of Wickham and Lydia.
Darcy’s psychological development throughout the narrative—which enables him to
mend this situation—and his changed views about the importance of class,
wealth, status and the pressure of social expectations are clear from the
encouragement and assistance he provides to Bingley in proposing to Jane.
After their engagement, Elizabeth sits alone under a tree, and Darcy walks
across a field by himself: both the characters, and the viewer, wonder
whether such an outcome will be possible for these solitary individuals.
Elizabeth’s social alienation, even at Longbourn, is heightened toward the end
of the film: after her confrontation with Lady Catherine, she yells, “for
once can you just leave me alone,” as she runs upstairs to escape her
ever-present family. As viewers, we realize that only Darcy and Pemberley
can safely resolve the conflict between Elizabeth’s desire to maintain her
individual integrity and the demands of her social world: as a woman
deprived of economic and political power, she cannot achieve it on her own. Darcy’s second proposal, appropriately,
occurs where the film begins: in the countryside around Longbourn at
dawn. That proposal, particularly his statement that “you have bewitched
me body and soul,” affirms Darcy’s characterization as a Byronic hero: he
is a man driven by passionate feeling, whose love is eternal and who pursues
his desire for Elizabeth despite its disruption of the social and familial
order. That neither Darcy nor Elizabeth is properly dressed and that this
meeting would be socially considered as clandestine reinforce the fact that
their relationship has been negotiated exclusively on their terms, largely in
separation from social forms and practices. Wright presents the union of
Darcy and Elizabeth as enabling these two Romantic figures to co-exist as
individuals in a society with which they are both fundamentally incompatible. Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejudice is an essentially Romantic interpretation of
Austen’s novel. Pride &
Prejudice is narratively and thematically focused on the capacities for men
and women to achieve self-realization within a social and economic order and on
the demands that order places upon them. Wright uses the visual
capabilities of film as well as natural settings and landscapes to position Elizabeth
and Darcy as Romantic figures and present their relationship as a union of
individuals that enables mutual self-fulfillment rather than as a social
integration. Although Wright’s use of visual imagery moves beyond
Austen’s novel, the basis of his interpretation of Elizabeth and Darcy as
Romantic figures—in terms of their defiant individuality, their social
isolation, and the nature of their relationship—lies in Pride and Prejudice itself, in Austen’s endorsement of the pursuit
of individual desire and happiness despite social rupture. NOTES 1. On feminist revisions of the Romantic
canon which address Austen’s works, see Anne Mellor Romanticism and Gender (New York: Routledge, 1993) and Elizabeth
Fay A Feminist Introduction to
Romanticism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998). Deresiewicz, Lau,
and Tuite have recently
established new links between Austen and Romanticism. 2. See for example Duckworth (115-43), Johnson (73-78), Monaghan (64-92), and Tanner (125-40). Works cited Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Ed. R. W. Chapman. 3rd
ed. Oxford: OUP, 1959. Deresiewicz,
William. Jane Austen and the Romantic Poets.
New York: Columbia UP, 2004. Duckworth, Alistair M. The Improvement of the Estate.
Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 1971. Fay, Elizabeth. A Feminist Introduction to Romanticism.
Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. Garber, Frederick. “Self, Society,
Value and the Romantic Hero.” Comparative
Literature 19 (1967): 321-33. Graver, Bruce E. “Classical
Inheritances.” Romanticism.
Ed. Nicholas Roe. Oxford: OUP, 2005. 38-48. Johnson, Claudia
L. Jane Austen: Women, Politics and
the Novel. Chicago: UCP, 1988. Lau, Beth. “Placing Jane Austen in
the Romantic Period: Self and Solitude in the Works of Austen and the Male
Romantic Poets.” European Romantic Review
15 (2004): 255-67. Lutz, Deborah. The Dangerous Lover: Gothic Villains, Byronism, and the
Nineteenth-Century Seduction Narrative. Columbus: Ohio State UP,
2006. MacCarthy,
Fiona. Byron: Life and Legend.
New York: Farrar, 2002. Mellor, Anne K. “Feminism.” Romanticism. Ed. Nicholas
Roe. Oxford: OUP, 2005. 182-98. _____. Romanticism and Gender. New York: Routledge, 1993. Monaghan, David. Jane Austen: Structure and Social Vision.
Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1980. Pride
& Prejudice.
Dir. Joe Wright. Focus Features, 2005. Ross, Marlon B. “Romantic Quest and
Conquest: Troping Masculine Power in the Crisis of Poetic Identity.” Romanticism and Feminism. Ed. Anne
Mellor. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1988. 26-51. Stein, Atara. “Immortals and Vampires
and Ghosts, Oh My!: Byronic Heroes in Popular Culture.” Romanticism & Contemporary Culture.
Ed. Laura Mandell and Michael Eberle-Sinatra. Romantic Circles Praxis Series Feb. 2002. 3 May 2007 http://www.rc.umd.edu/praxis/contemporary/stein/stein.html. Tanner, Tony. Jane Austen. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1986. Thorslev, Peter. The Byronic Hero: Types and Prototypes.
Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1962. Tuite, Clara. Romantic Austen: Sexual Politics and the Literary Canon.
Cambridge: CUP, 2002. Wilson, Jennifer Preston. “‘One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it’: The Development of Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.” Persuasions On-Line 25.1 (2004). Wootton, Sarah. “The Byronic in Jane Austen’s Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice.” Modern Language Review 102 (2007): 26-39. |
