Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 56

Jane Austen · Mountaineers 10th–12th

Teaching Companion Print Adapt for your student

Copywork

“Because honour, decorum, prudence--nay, interest--forbid it. Yes, Miss Bennet, interest; for do not expect to be noticed by his family or friends, if you wilfully act against the inclinations of all. You will be censured, slighted, and despised, by everyone connected with him. Your alliance will be a disgrace; your name will never even be mentioned by any of us.”

“In marrying your nephew, I should not consider myself as quitting that sphere. He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman’s daughter; so far we are equal.”

Read both passages aloud. Lady Catherine takes four sentences, and Elizabeth takes two. Which speech sounds more sure of itself?

For the educator Two passages, six sentences: Lady Catherine’s case at its bluntest, and the two sentences Elizabeth gives a few speeches later, when Lady Catherine says she would be leaving her “sphere.” The first passage is a list that corrects itself. The list “honour, decorum, prudence” climbs from duty to manners to good sense; then the double hyphen and “nay” break the list to add the word Lady Catherine thinks will weigh most, “interest.” She repeats it at once (“Yes, Miss Bennet, interest”) and explains it with a threat inside a condition (“if you wilfully act against the inclinations of all”). The third sentence is a triple, “censured, slighted, and despised,” each word harsher than the last. The fourth balances two clauses on a semicolon and ends on the coldest promise, that Elizabeth’s name will never be spoken. The second passage answers in another key: a plain denial, then three clauses held by semicolons, two of them parallel (“He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman’s daughter”) and a short conclusion that sets its own limit, “so far.” Side by side, the passages show two ways of arguing: one piles up weight, the other draws a line. For mechanics, students practise the edition’s double hyphens around an interruption, which they copy as dashes; a semicolon before a clause that explains (“interest; for”); the comma before the last item of a triple; semicolons between parallel clauses; and the closing quotation mark after the full stop. For the talk prompt, some students hear Lady Catherine as the surer speaker: each sentence adds weight, and she ends on the one threat she can carry out. Others hear strain in her: she needs four sentences, and she breaks her own list with “nay” to find a stronger word, while Elizabeth answers in two short, balanced sentences. Some hear “so far” as a doubt and others as certainty. Leave “so far” and Lady Catherine’s “True” to the third discussion question, and the merit of “interest” to the first written question. Leave the question of why Elizabeth will not promise alone here; the last written question asks it.

Discussion

Narration Tell the chapter back in a few sentences, from the strange carriage on the lawn to the little lie upstairs. Then pick the one moment that matters most, and say what Austen uses it to show.

Before she says why she has come, Lady Catherine calls the park “very small,” finds fault with windows that face “full west,” and looks over two more rooms. What is she looking for? Inference
Lady Catherine boasts that her character is “celebrated for its sincerity and frankness.” Later Elizabeth says she does not “pretend to possess equal frankness.” Which of them is more honest in the copse? Character
Lady Catherine says that on his father’s side, Darcy comes from families that are “ancient, though untitled.” Soon after, Elizabeth tells her, “He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman’s daughter; so far we are equal.” Lady Catherine answers, “True.” Why does she agree? Theme
Elizabeth has an answer for every charge until Lady Catherine brings up Lydia’s marriage. Then she stops arguing and says, “You have insulted me, in every possible method.” What, if anything, does that answer admit? Moral reasoning

Make a Connection Think of a story, or a time you know of, when a family tried to choose whom one of its members would marry. How much say should a family have?

Vocabulary

equipage: It was too early in the morning for visitors; and besides, the equipage did not answer to that of any of their neighbours. A carriage with its horses, servants and fittings, kept as a show of rank (from French équiper, to fit out, the root of equip). The chapter announces Lady Catherine by her equipage before it names her: a chaise and four, post horses, a strange livery. Rank arrives at Longbourn before the person does.
allurements: But your arts and allurements may, in a moment of infatuation, have made him forget what he owes to himself and to all his family. Charms used to tempt someone or draw them in (from lure, the bait a falconer swung to call a hawk back). Lady Catherine pairs “arts and allurements”: she cannot picture a match with Elizabeth as a free choice, so she pictures a trap. The word shows how she thinks of marriage more than anything Elizabeth has done.
propriety: Are you lost to every feeling of propriety and delicacy? The sense of what is fitting and correct, above all for one’s place in society (from Latin proprius, one’s own, the root of proper and property). Lady Catherine treats propriety as a feeling Elizabeth has lost. Its root points to the question under the whole quarrel: what belongs to whom, and who decides.
decorum: “Because honour, decorum, prudence--nay, interest--forbid it. Behaviour that suits what polite society expects; good form (from Latin decorus, fitting; related to decent and decorate). Lady Catherine sets “decorum” second in her list of what forbids the match. To her, a marriage across rank is a breach of good form, a social mistake made in public.
wilfully: Yes, Miss Bennet, interest; for do not expect to be noticed by his family or friends, if you wilfully act against the inclinations of all. On purpose, by one’s own will, against the wishes of others (from will and full; American spelling willfully). Lady Catherine’s word makes a choice a fault in itself: to act “wilfully” is to set one person’s will against “the inclinations of all.” Elizabeth later claims the right to act for her own happiness, and the reader must decide whether that is wilfulness.

Critical thinking

Lady Catherine says Elizabeth’s own “interest” forbids the match: Darcy’s family will shun her. Leave Lady Catherine’s rudeness out of it. How strong is that argument?
Upstairs, Mrs. Bennet decides the visit was “prodigiously civil.” The narrator says Elizabeth is “forced to give in to a little falsehood.” What forces her?
Elizabeth is not engaged to Darcy, yet she will not promise never to accept him. Why does she hold back that promise?