Chapters 2-6

Chapter Two

I love the Bennets here.  Mr. Bennet reminds me a little of my dad--he'll ask a question that sounds serious, and I'll be listening to him like he's serious, and then all of a sudden there's a punchline and I realize the whole thing has been a big joke.  It's both fun and occasionally frustrating, which I think is how most of the Bennet women feel about Mr. B.    

Also, Ch. 2 has a great example of Austen's sense of humor.  In the middle of p. 10, when Mr. Bennet is teasing Mary about the big books she's always reading, there's a one-sentence paragraph:

"Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how."  

I sometimes think Austen was a screenwriter before the screen was invented.  Pieces of the novel read more like a screenplay with really great stage directions than a novel, and this is one of those times.  This line, dropped in as its own paragraph, makes me stop and picture what it would look like--how would I show that if I were directing the movie version?  I imagine Mary looking pretty silly.  (The novel is not kind to Mary--and the miniseries is even less so.)  

Chapter Three

Dunh dunh dunh...Mr. Darcy!  Man, what a jerk he is in this chapter.  This whole chapter starts to feel very high-school-ish (which makes sense when you realize the Bennet girls range from what would be a high school sophomore to a college senior today).  From early on when it talks about the girls looking out the upstairs window at Mr. Bingley to see how he's dressed to the awful comments Mr. Darcy makes at the ball, it's easy to imagine all of this taking place in a modern high school.  

Are you following all the business about introductions and manners and everything?  That's definitely a piece that you need to kind of assimilate to.  The biggest rule is basically that women need to be introduced to new people or they can't talk to them without it being really scandalous.  

Chapter Four

I love the chat between Lizzy and Jane.  Their relationship is really great, because it's so sweet but not sickly sweet.  Austen uses an interesting trick to designate Lizzy as our protagonist even as Jane is such a dear: for all everyone is always talking about how sweet and pretty Jane is, we actually get to see examples of Elizabeth being pretty cool (laughing off Mr. Darcy's insult and making fun of the guys Jane likes.)  For me, the specifics win out--I would guess that Austen did that on purpose, to make the reader like Elizabeth the best while still feeling a sort of generic warmth toward Jane.

I also think it's interesting that there is a bit more narration than we've had so far in order to give us some real info about the men.  Up until this point, everything we've heard about them has come from other characters, sometimes third- or fourth-hand, and is often biased at best and plain wrong at worst (like the news about how many people Bingley was bringing to that dance!)    It's considered poor form in literary analysis to assume that the narrator is one and the same with the author, but I have a hard time separating Austen's narrators from her own real personality in my head, because she writes like she's telling a friend about things and just making some witty/sarcastic observations as she does.  

Chapter Five

In which we start to see the failings of several of the Bennet women.  First of all: Thanks, Mary, for spewing out that paragraph about pride and vanity.  Do you remember those Bing commercials where someone asks their friend a question and the friend just starts saying random pieces of information about one of the words in the sentence while the person who asked the question just stands there shaking their head?  Yeah.  Mary is kind of like that.  And second of all, the chapter ends with a "Would not!"/"Would too!" argument between Mrs. B and a little boy.  Yikes.  And in the mean time, Jane tries to find the good in even the insufferable Mr. Darcy.  Dear, sweet Jane.  Sometimes, a jerk is just a jerk.  (Of course, this being the mother of all romantic comedies, you can probably guess that we have not heard the last of Mr. Darcy, but for now, all signs point to "Ugh.")

Oh, and Charlotte Lucas shows up.  I like her a lot.  She's 27, which makes her pretty washed up in terms of marriage prospects.  She's cynical and jaded in a way that Elizabeth isn't, but she's not bitter.  This is her saving grace.  She calls it like she sees it but doesn't waste any time feeling sorry for herself.  I guess it's kind of freeing, being so dreadfully old and still unmarried.  

Chapter Six

One of the big crowd scenes.  There are a lot of these--try to keep track of who's insulting whom.  The standouts here are Sir William Lucas, who thinks quite highly of himself because he managed to get knighted (a bump up in society, since he made his money in trade, which was looked down upon) and Miss Bingley, who appears at the end just to be obnoxious to Mr. Darcy.  I picture Sir William as one of those people who is always putting his foot in it--making things awkward for everyone around him and being totally oblivious to it, as he does here trying to get Elizabeth to dance with Mr. Darcy.  (Having him for a dad must have helped Charlotte Lucas become so cynical and resigned..she's always having to deal with his awkward messes.)   And Miss Bingley is fun because she's so totally the mean girl who is desperate to get the cutest guy in school to notice her.  Hence her reaction when Darcy says he likes Elizabeth's eyes--basically "Have a nice life with Mrs. Bennet as your mother-in-law!"  (If you haven't noticed by now, Mrs. B does have a tendency to go on and on and on, and exaggerate, and generally freak out at the drop of a hat.  This is not that pleasant now and was not then, as well as being somewhat less than genteel.)