| PERSUASIONS ON-LINE | V.22, NO.1 (Winter 2001) |
 | Laughing at Mr. Darcy: Wit and Sexuality in Pride and Prejudice |
Elvira Casal Elvira Casal (email: ecasal@frank.mtsu.edu) teaches English at the Middle Tennessee University at Murfreesboro.She has published on George Meredith as well as Jane Austen. Shelives in Nashville with her husband and two children. |
Earlyin Pride and Prejudice, Miss Bingley declares that she could not possiblytease or laugh at Mr. Darcy: “‘Teaze calmness of temper and presence of mind! No, no—I feel he may defy us there. And as to laughter, we will not expose ourselves,if you please, by attempting to laugh without a subject.’” Elizabeth’sresponse is significant: “‘Mr. Darcy is not to be laughed at!’ cried Elizabeth.‘That is an uncommon advantage, and uncommon I hope it will continue, for it would be a great loss to meto have many such acquaintance. I dearly love a laugh’” (57).
Implicit in Miss Bingley’s assertion that they cannot laugh at Darcy is the assumptionof Darcy’s social and intellectual superiority. Implicitin Elizabeth’s statement that she “dearly love[s] a laugh” is not onlyher refusal to be impressed by Mr. Darcy’s superiority but also her beliefin the power of laughter.
The role of laughter in Pride and Prejudice is an interesting one. Onthe one hand, the novel seems a celebration of laughter. From the famousfirst sentence, the reader is invited to laugh at the ironies of humanperception and expectations. On the other hand, the plot of the novel seemsto show the limitations of laughter as a response to human experience.Mr. Bennet’s laughter is closely linked to his abdication from responsibility,and the character in the novel who laughs the most is Lydia.1
By the end of the novel, when Elizabeth writes to her aunt, “‘I am happiereven than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh’” (383), Elizabeth’s laughter haschanged from the laughter of amusem*nt to the laughter of relief. Inthe process, Elizabeth has had to confront facts that she cannot laughaway, such as her parent’s inadequacies, Lydia’s elopement, and ultimatelyElizabeth’s own vulnerability as a woman in a patriarchal society. Shehas also had to redefine her opinion of Mr. Darcy and admit to herselfthat she would like to be his wife. However, what she has not done is giveup her idea that Mr. Darcy, like everyone else in society, is sometimesthe proper subject of laughter. In the final pages of the novel we hearof Georgiana Darcy’s surprise at the “lively, sportive manner” in whichElizabeth addresses Mr. Darcy (387-88). Butjust what does “laughing at Mr. Darcy” come to mean for Elizabeth?
One way of looking at the role of laughter in Pride and Prejudice isthat in the course of the novel Darcy has to learn to accept laughter andElizabeth has to learn to laugh wisely. But the role of laughter in theirrelationship is more complicated than that. For one thing, careful readingshows that Darcy is not as humorless and sober as he appears on the surface.He may not laugh, but in his own way he is as attuned to irony and incongruityas Elizabeth is. For another, laughter in Pride and Prejudice isclosely linked to the sexual tensions among the different characters. Furthermore,Elizabeth’s laughter and the delightful wit and energy that make her soappealing to modern audiences would have shocked some of Austen’s contemporariesand certainly could have been expected to shock Mr. Darcy.
Attitudes towards women’s laughter were very different in Jane Austen’s time fromwhat they are now. Many of Austen’s contemporaries saw laughter—in either men or women—as vulgar. Because laughterwas connected to irreverence towards authority and lack of proper self-control,even gentlemen were discouraged from laughing. Female laughter in particularwas associated with folly on the one hand or misplaced aggressiveness onthe other. Either way, too much laughter from a woman was indelicate.
A certain amount of raillery or good-humored ridicule might be part of socialintercourse, but the laughter that comes from wit was suspect in women.Unlike the gentler, more benevolent laughter associated with “humor,” thelaughter of “wit” is aggressive. Wit implies the ability to be critical.In her readiness to laugh at what she calls the “‘[f]ollies and nonsense,whims and inconsistencies’” of those around her (57), Elizabeth is defyingsocial conventions that linked femininity with passivity.2
In addition, by a complicated series of associations, wit in woman was oftenlinked to sexual license in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century thought.One possible explanation for this association is that wit is connectedto power and aggression. Another is that female chastity was presumedto be dependent on the woman's respect for male authority.3
When Mr. Bennet warns Elizabeth not to marry Mr. Darcy for his money, he states:“‘I know that you could be neither happy nor respectable, unless you trulyesteemed your husband. ... Your lively talents would place you in thegreatest danger in an unequal marriage. You could scarcely escape discreditand misery’” (376). A witty woman’s ability to see the “follies and nonsense,whims and inconsistencies” of those around her might result in her failureto respect her “partner in life,” and such a failure might lead her intoimproper behavior. Although Mr. Bennet’s warning may have meant no morethan that Elizabeth might become a cynical shrew who mocked her husbandin public, the choice of the words “respectable” and “discredit” suggestsa potential sexual connotation. In other words, not only was Elizabeth’s love of laughter, by the rules ofher society, bold and potentially subversive; it was also sexually charged. Thelaughing woman could also be the woman of uncontrolled sexuality whoseverbal license was linked to amorality and physical desire.
It is no coincidence that among the characters who laugh in Pride and Prejudice,the one who laughs most is also the one who transgresses sexually. LydiaBennet’s laughter is a sign both of foolishness—of lack of reflection—andof rampant sexuality. This is shown most clearly in the letter that sheleaves behind when she elopes:
“You will laugh when you know where I am gone, and I cannot help laughing myself at yoursurprise to-morrow morning, as soon as I am missed. I am going to GretnaGreen, and if you cannot guess with who, I shall think you a simpleton,for there is but one man in the world I love, and he is an angel. I shouldnever be happy without him, so think it no harm to be off. You need notsend them word at Longbourn of my going, if you do not like it, for itwill make the surprise the greater when I write to them and sign my nameLydia Wickham. What a good joke it will be! I can hardly write for laughing....” ( 291, emphasis mine)
For Lydia, running off with a man is a huge joke. The letter expresses no regrets,no sensibility to the moral dimension of what she is doing, not even anawareness that her escapade might trouble or disappoint her friends andfamily—only delight at the gratification of her desire. “Untamed, unabashed,wild, noisy and fearless” (315), Lydia goes through life unreflectingly,eloping with a man who doesn’t intend to marry her because she thinks itwould be “‘very good fun’” (316) to be married before any of her sisters.
Although Elizabeth’s love of laughter is clearly of a different sort than Lydia’s,the presence of her wild, unreflecting, and sexually precocious sister inthe novel tells us something about Elizabeth and her laughter. Onthe most basic level, Lydia serves as a foil for Elizabeth. There are manyparallels between the sisters: Like Elizabeth, Lydia likes to laugh. LikeElizabeth, she is the favorite child of one of their parents. Like Elizabeth,she does not always observe convention. Like Elizabeth, she finds Wickhamattractive. There the resemblance seems to end, and the reader is usuallymore struck by the contrasts. Yet the only real contrast that matters isthat Elizabeth thinks and discriminates. If Lydia’s love of laughter isimplicitly linked to her sexuality, we may assume that Elizabeth’s is also,though Elizabeth will handle her sexuality with greater thought and discrimination.
Throughout the novel, the sexual tension between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth is evidencedin a series of witty exchanges in which Elizabeth’s implied laughter isset against Mr. Darcy’s solemnity. One of the earliest of these exchangesoccurs in the scene quoted at the beginning of this essay where Elizabethresponds with amusem*nt to Miss Bingley’s suggestion that “‘Mr. Darcy isnot to be laughed at.’” For Elizabeth,the idea of someone being somehow above laughter is itself laughable. WhenDarcy responds, “‘The wisest and the best of men, nay, the wisest and bestof their actions, may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first objectin life is a joke,’” Elizabeth counters that she is not one of thosepeople: “‘I hope I never ridicule what is wise or good’” (57), and goeson to confront Mr. Darcy with the suggestion that maybe he thinks he iswithout “‘follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies.’” Unfortunately,it seems that Darcy does think so. He admits that he has faults—“‘My temperwould perhaps be called resentful’”—but his faults, he implies, are notfunny. Elizabeth agrees, though notwithout a touch of irony: “‘Implacable resentment is a shade ina character. But you have chosen your fault well.—I really cannot laughat it; you are safe from me’” (58).
This dialogue is important because it sets forth what laughter means to Darcyand to Elizabeth. Darcy, at this point in the novel, links laughter tolack of respect. In contrast, Elizabeth, who has been raised by a fatherwhose philosophy is that “‘we live, but to make sport for our neighbours,and laugh at them in our turn’” (364), links laughter with closeness. WhenElizabeth says that she couldn’t laugh at Mr. Darcy’s fault, she is notonly suggesting that “implacable resentment” is not a laughable flaw. Sheis also expressing her lack of interest in becoming closer to Mr. Darcy.
On the surface, Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth seem very wide apart, not only interms of gender and social position but in their essential attitudes towardsexperience. Elizabeth is playful; Mr. Darcy is solemn. She is tryingto make a joke, to tease. He is trying, earnestly, to explain himself:“‘There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particularevil, a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome.’” Yet when she tries to dismiss his earnest explanation with the flippant“‘And your defect is a propensity to hate every body,’”he is ready for her: “‘And yours,’ he replied with a smile, ‘is willfully to misunderstand them’” (58).
Darcy’s smiles are just as important as Elizabeth’s laughter. We never see Darcylaugh, but his smiles—which usually take place in the course of his exchangeswith Elizabeth—suggest both a mind that is as quick as hers and a growingreceptivity to Elizabeth’s love of laughter. Her initial attraction forhim is physical, but it is a physical attraction which is closely linkedto his appreciation of her personality. He is struck by the “beautifulexpression of her dark eyes” and the “intelligence” they give her face.Against his will he finds her figure “light and pleasing” and is attractedby the “easy playfulness” of her manners (23). That he confesses this attractionto, of all people, Miss Bingley suggests a certain playfulness of his own.
Darcy’s interaction with Miss Bingley is often overlooked by readers because itseems peripheral to the real matter of Darcy’s relationship with Elizabeth.Yet in many ways, Darcy’s interaction with Miss Bingley gives the firstglimpse of the true Darcy. Their conversation shows that his wit can beas ready as Elizabeth Bennet’s. For example, when Miss Bingley accusesElizabeth of being “‘one of those young ladies who seek to recommend themselvesto the other sex, by undervaluing their own,’” Mr. Darcy’s ironic responsethat “‘there is meanness in all the arts which ladies sometimescondescend to employ for captivation’” (40) indicates that he sees throughMiss Bingley’s own attempt to “recommend” herself to him by “undervaluing”Elizabeth.
An important point about Mr. Darcy’s relationship with Miss Bingley is thatalthough Miss Bingley asserts that she couldn’t possibly laugh at Mr. Darcy,she has, in fact, been laughing at him ever since he told her that he admiredElizabeth Bennet’s eyes. Much of her laughter falls into the category ofsocial raillery and, on one level, is a form of flirting. However, MissBingley’s raillery also has the purpose of trying to shame Darcy out ofhis admitted attraction for Elizabeth. Over and over, Miss Bingley mocksDarcy’s interest in Elizabeth by emphasizing Elizabeth’s low family connectionsand lack of breeding: “‘You will have a charming mother-in-law indeed,and ... she will be always at Pemberley with you’” (27), “‘I am afraid... that this adventure has rather affected your admiration of her fineeyes’” (36), and “‘Do let the portraits of your uncle and aunt Phillipsbe placed in the gallery at Pemberley’” (52-53).
Miss Bingley’s laughter is subtly aggressive; she uses raillery to assert herown superiority and she attempts to influence the actions of others throughher scorn. Her lack of success with Mr. Darcy notwithstanding, Miss Bingley’slaughter represents the perspective of “polite society,” the degree towhich derisive laughter is socially permissible, and the shallow, superficialjudgment it reflects. If Mr. Darcy, in the early parts of the novel, mistrustslaughter, it is not only because his patrician background leads him toassociate laughter with irreverence, foolishness and uncontrolled sexuality—asrepresented by Lydia—but also because social experience has taught himto connect laughter to the shallow malice that Miss Bingley displays.
Miss Bingley is another foil for Elizabeth. As with Lydia, the differences betweenthe two are most apparent, but the similarities are perhaps more interesting.Both are, in different ways, attracted by Darcy. Both can be witty—Elizabethis struck by how, when the men are out of the room, the Bingley sisters“could describe an entertainment with accuracy, relate an anecdote with humour, and laugh at their acquaintance with spirit” (54). And both aresensitive to social nuances and critical of those who do not live up totheir standards. The main difference,besides Elizabeth’s greater individuality of judgment, seems to be Elizabeth’slack of malice. Even Mr. Collins’s absurdities and Lady Catherine’s arrogancedo not provoke Elizabeth to snide remarks of the sort that Miss Bingleyis always making about the Bennet girls’ low connections.
The sexual tension underlying Darcy’s exchanges with Miss Bingley exists insharp contrast to the tension between him and Elizabeth, not only becauseMiss Bingley is chasing Darcy while Elizabeth is determined to show herindifference, but because Miss Bingley and Elizabeth employ laughter differently.Miss Bingley’s laughter creates a distance between her listeners and herself,even when her purpose is the opposite. Mr. Darcy may agree that the Bennetfamily behaves improperly and even join in Miss Bingley’s criticism, buthe does not seem to join in her laughter. For Miss Bingley, laughter isa weapon, a way of imposing her view of reality upon others. For Elizabeth,laughter is an invitation to fellowship. Because she connects shared laughterto closeness, she uses her laughter to reach out to those around her.
We can see how Elizabeth reaches out to other with her laughter when we analyzeher response to Mr. Darcy’s notorious dismissal of her as “‘not handsomeenough to tempt’” him to dance. On the surface, her decision to “tellthe story ... with great spirit among her friends” (12) makes no sense.Why advertise a failure? Had Elizabeth not told the story, no one wouldhave known and she would have been spared both friendly teasing—“‘Myoverhearings were more to the purpose than yours Eliza,’” remarksCharlotte Lucas; “‘Poor Eliza!—to be only just tolerable’” (19)—andthe more critical gossip of such neighbors as Mrs. Long.
However, the point is that Elizabeth doesn’t want to be spared. The playfulteasing of friends like Charlotte Lucas is exactly what she needs at thismoment. By making Mr. Darcy’s rejection of her a joke, she is both denyingthe pain that it undoubtedly caused her and claiming the support and empathyof her community. With each person who laughs with her at Mr. Darcy’sarrogance, she is receiving confirmation that the fault lay not in herlack of desirability but in Mr. Darcy’s failure to make himself agreeable. Laughterallows her to take control over the incident and redefine it.
The power that laughter gives Elizabeth is further illustrated when, much later,at Rosings, she alludes to this incident as an example of the “shocking”things she can reveal about Mr. Darcy. “‘[P]repare yourself for somethingvery dreadful,’” she warns Colonel Fitzwilliam playfully. “‘The first timeof my ever seeing [Mr. Darcy] in Hertfordshire was at a ball—and at thisball, what do you think he did? He danced only four dances! I am sorryto pain you—but so it was. He danced only four dances, though gentlemenwere scarce; and, to my certain knowledge, more than one young lady wassitting down in want of a partner’”(175).
In joking with Colonel Fitzwilliam about Darcy’s failure to dance at the Merytonball, Elizabeth is reaching out to Darcy’s cousin, implicitly asking forhis validation of her view that Darcy was at fault. However, she is atthe same time laughing at herself and other women who might have the expectationof being asked to dance but are disappointed by the shortage of willingpartners. Furthermore, in bringing up the incident during a conversationwhich includes Mr. Darcy, she is giving him the opportunity to laugh withher at a situation in which neither shone to advantage. Albeit unconsciously,she is reaching out to him also.
This conversation, which takes place around the piano at Rosings, is a pivotalone in the novel. Although Elizabeth herself seems unaware of its significance,it illustrates for the reader the curious harmony of thought that has graduallydeveloped between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. Coming before the infamous firstproposal scene, it anticipates the perfect understanding that we don’tsee between them until after the second proposal.
Their exchange begins with Elizabeth’s playful—but on some level sincere—accusationthat he is trying to frighten her by “‘coming in all this state’” to listento her play. Darcy responds to the playfulness, but indicates uncertaintyabout her meaning: “‘[Y]ou could not really believe me to entertain anydesire of alarming you.’’ He proposes that she is, in fact, only joking.“‘I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance long enough to know thatyou find great enjoyment in occasionally professing opinions which in factare not your own’” (174). When she threatens that she will tell Colonel Fitzwilliam of his behavior in Hertfordshire, his reply is the encouraging “‘I am not afraid of you’” (174). He is smiling.
As stated earlier, Darcy’s smiles are as important in this novel as Elizabeth’slaughter. His smiles indicate the pleasure he finds in her company andconversation. They reflect how strongly attracted he is to her. One wayof reading his “I am not afraid of you” is as a response to Elizabeth’searlier “you are safe from me.” By this point in the novel, Darcy has begunto be open to Elizabeth’s laughter, recognizing both the sexual allureand the invitation to fellowship.
In its verbal brilliance, this scene anticipates a closeness between Elizabethand Darcy that is yet to come in the plot of the novel. Atthe beginning of the scene they are speaking directly: “‘[Y]ou mean tofrighten me,’” she accuses. “‘You could not really believe me to entertainany design of alarming you,’” he replies. But by the end of the exchange,when Darcy tells her, “‘You have employed your time much better. No oneadmitted to the privilege of hearing you, can think any thing wanting.We neither of us perform to strangers”’ (176), they are speaking metaphorically.Elizabeth has offered an analogy between the accomplishment of playingthe piano and the verbal, social skill that Darcy admits he lacks. He acceptsthe analogy—with its implied laughter at his expense—and turns it aroundso that instead of marking the difference between them—she is goodat social conversation; he is not—it focuses on a resemblance whichhe has come to recognize.
In an earlier conversation, at the Netherfield ball, Elizabeth had said toMr. Darcy, “‘I have always seen a great similarity in the turn of our minds.’”Although she was being ironic—she goes on to claim that they are both“‘of an unsocial, taciturn disposition’” (91)—she was more right than sherealized. Elizabeth’s quick mind and ready wit are more than matched byMr. Darcy’s intelligence, though her lively spirits are not.
It is this “great similarity in the turn of [their] minds” that makes therelationship between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy an exciting one. “We neitherof us perform to strangers” becomes Darcy’s way of telling Elizabeth thathe sees the private person beneath the witty verbal performer, and thathe is able to appreciate her as “strangers” could not. At the same timehe suggests to her that there is more to him also than the surface appearanceand asserts a recognition of similarities between them that Elizabeth herselfhas not discovered yet. It is an invitation to intimacy.
No increase in intimacy results from this conversation because both Darcyand Elizabeth still have much to learn about themselves. Only after theconfrontation following Darcy’s first proposal and Darcy’s letter explainingto Elizabeth the real details of his relationship with Wickham can bothof them come together as the equals that they are. Darcy has to admit tohimself that his pride has been arrogant and ungentlemanlike; Elizabethhas to recognize that she has been mistaken in her judgment and misusedher wit. “‘I meant to be uncommonly clever in taking so decided a disliketo [Mr. Darcy], without any reason,’” she admits to Jane. “‘It is sucha spur to one’s genius, such an opening for wit to have a dislike of thatkind. One may be continually abusive without saying any thing just; butone cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling onsomething witty’” (225-26).
All this self-knowledge would be irrelevant, however, without the powerfulsexual attraction and growing sense of harmony suggested by scenes likethe one around the piano at Rosings. The battle of wits between witty heroineand hero may be seen as a type of foreplay. Within the world of romanticcomedy, laughter reaffirms life and promises sexual gratification. Asa virginal, early nineteenth-century heroine, Elizabeth is not consciouslyaware of the sexual reverberations of laughter—her conscious focus is onfellowship and community—but the potential for sexual union implicit inher openness to laughter underlies much of her interaction with Mr. Darcy.
When Elizabeth reminds herself that Mr. Darcy “had yet to learn to be laughtat” she is looking forward to a time of greater intimacy even as she recognizesthat “it was rather too early to begin” (371). Significantly, when thetime comes to laugh at Mr. Darcy, it is linked to the intimacy of marriage.Elizabeth’s famous instruction to her younger sister-in-law, “that a womanmay take liberties with her husband which a brother will not always allowin a sister more than ten years younger than himself” (388), not only letsus know that Elizabeth has succeeded in teaching Mr. Darcy to accept laughterof himself but also provides a context for that laughter. Theverbal “liberties” that are permissible from a wife are suggestively connectedto the physical “liberties” of matrimonial relations. Thus, in the end,laughing at Mr. Darcy becomes a kind of making love.
Notes
1.For an analysis of some of the ways in which laughter works in Pride and Prejudice,see Spacks 72-76. See also Stewart’s discussion of the oppositionbetween “wit” and “judgment” andthe relationship of Pride and Prejudice to early wit comedy (42-67).
2. For an account of shifting attitudes towards wit, laughter and comedy in theeighteenth and early nineteen centuries, see Tave. For summariesof late eighteenth-/early nineteenth-century attitudes towards laughter,especially as they affected women, see Bilger 15-24 and Castellanos 54-56.
3.See Stewart’s discussion of the connections between wit, power and sexuality (70-71). See also Bilger on how female laughter is linked to “an abandonment to pleasure” (24).
Works Cited
Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice.Ed. R. W. Chapman. 3rd ed. Oxford: OUP, 1933-69.
Bilger, Audrey. Laughing Feminism: Subversive Comedy in Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth and Jane Austen.Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1998.
Castellanos, Gabriela.Laughter, War and Feminism: Elements of Carnival in Three of Jane Austen’s Novels.New York: Peter Lang, 1994.
Spacks, Patricia Meyer. “Austen’s Laughter.” Women’s Studies 15 (1988): 71-85.
Stewart, Maaja A. Domestic Realities and Imperial Fictions: Jane Austen’s Novels in Eighteenth-Century Contexts.Athens: U of Georgia P, 1993.
Tave, Stuart M.The Amiable Humorist: A Study in the Comic Theory of the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1960.
