Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 8

Jane Austen · Mountaineers 10th–12th

Teaching Companion Print Adapt for your student

Copywork

“I never saw such a woman. I never saw such capacity, and taste, and application, and elegance, as you describe, united.” Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley both cried out against the injustice of her implied doubt, and were both protesting that they knew many women who answered this description, when Mr. Hurst called them to order, with bitter complaints of their inattention to what was going forward.

“Eliza Bennet,” said Miss Bingley, when the door was closed on her, “is one of those young ladies who seek to recommend themselves to the other sex by undervaluing their own; and with many men, I daresay, it succeeds; but, in my opinion, it is a paltry device, a very mean art.” “Undoubtedly,” replied Darcy, to whom this remark was chiefly addressed, “there is meanness in all the arts which ladies sometimes condescend to employ for captivation. Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable.”

Read both passages aloud. Which way of speaking is harder to argue with, Elizabeth’s or Darcy’s?

For the educator Two passages, six sentences: the doubt that ends the debate, and the verdict passed on it once the door has closed. The first passage opens with anaphora. Elizabeth begins both sentences “_I_ never saw”, and the edition’s italics put the stress on the speaker: she reports her own experience, not a rule about women. The second sentence piles up four nouns with repeated “and” (“capacity, and taste, and application, and elegance”), slows down with “as you describe”, and saves its point for the last word, “united”: she doubts that all of it meets in one person. The narrator’s sentence that follows is long and holds its turn back. Two protests run on (“cried out”, “were both protesting”) until “when” turns it, and Mr. Hurst’s “bitter complaints” about the game cut it short. The second passage is Miss Bingley’s charge, built on a near-mirror (“recommend themselves to the other sex by undervaluing their own”). A concession sits between semicolons (“and with many men, I daresay, it succeeds”), and the charge ends on a doubled insult, “a paltry device, a very mean art”. Darcy grants it in one word and then widens it: the italic “_all_” takes in every lady, and he closes on a short general maxim. For mechanics, notice the speech split by its tag and a clause (“replied Darcy, to whom this remark was chiefly addressed,”), the semicolons that carry Miss Bingley’s sentence, the edition’s “daresay” as one word, and the italics, which the student underlines. For the talk prompt, listen for a student who hears Elizabeth’s repetition as honest emphasis, one who hears it as a performance, and one who finds Darcy’s short maxim hard to answer because it names no one.

Discussion

Narration Tell the evening back in order, from Elizabeth’s report on Jane at dinner to the duets after supper.

Darcy says “Certainly not” when asked if he would want his sister to walk the way Elizabeth did. Yet he says Elizabeth’s eyes “were brightened by the exercise”. Which answer is closer to what he really thinks? Character
After laughing at Jane’s “vulgar relations”, the sisters go up to her room with “a renewal of tenderness”. Had their tenderness gone while they laughed, or was it there all along? Author's choice
Elizabeth turns down the card game because she suspects they are “playing high”, but she makes her sister the excuse. Why keep her real reason to herself? Character
Miss Bingley tells her brother to take Pemberley “for a kind of model”, and he says he would sooner buy it than copy it. Who is the joke on? Tone
After dinner Miss Bingley mocks Elizabeth for “scampering about the country”. Later she says a truly accomplished woman needs “a certain something in her air and manner of walking”. What kind of walking does she have in mind? Theme
Darcy hears Miss Bingley’s list and answers, “All this she must possess”. Then he adds “extensive reading”. Is the list better for it, or only longer? Moral reasoning
Once Elizabeth has gone, Darcy tells Miss Bingley she is right, and then finds meanness in “_all_” the arts ladies use to win a man. Yet she drops the subject. What did she hear in his reply? Inference

Make a Connection Think of a story, or a time you saw it happen, when a group changed its talk as soon as someone left the room. Why do people do that?

Vocabulary

solicitude: To the civil inquiries which then poured in, and amongst which she had the pleasure of distinguishing the much superior solicitude of Mr. Bingley, she could not make a very favourable answer. Anxious care for someone’s welfare (from Latin sollicitus, troubled, the root of solicitous). The household’s “civil inquiries” pour in, but Elizabeth picks out “the much superior solicitude of Mr. Bingley”: his asking is worried, not merely polite. The word marks the chapter’s first test of the difference between care and the show of it.
decorum: It seems to me to show an abominable sort of conceited independence, a most country-town indifference to decorum. Behaviour that fits what polite society expects; propriety (from Latin decorus, fitting, as in decorous). Miss Bingley charges Elizabeth with “a most country-town indifference to decorum”: to walk three miles alone is, to her, a failure of manners. The word sums up her measure of a woman, and “country-town” adds that only someone from a small town would ignore it.
implied: Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley both cried out against the injustice of her implied doubt, and were both protesting that they knew many women who answered this description, when Mr. Hurst called them to order, with bitter complaints of their inattention to what was going forward. Suggested without being said outright (from Latin implicare, to fold in, as in implication). The sisters cry out against “the injustice of her implied doubt”. Elizabeth never says that no such woman exists, only that she never saw one, and the sisters hear the doubt folded inside. The word asks the reader to weigh what was said against what was heard.
undervaluing: “Eliza Bennet,” said Miss Bingley, when the door was closed on her, “is one of those young ladies who seek to recommend themselves to the other sex by undervaluing their own; and with many men, I daresay, it succeeds; but, in my opinion, it is a paltry device, a very mean art.” Rating something below its true worth (under plus value, as in overvalue and evaluate). Miss Bingley says Elizabeth is one of those who “seek to recommend themselves to the other sex by undervaluing their own”: to her, the doubt runs women down to win men. The word is a charge about worth, the very thing the evening has been measuring.

Critical thinking

Bingley says Elizabeth’s dirty petticoat “quite escaped my notice”. Is that a failure to see, or a choice about what to look at?
The sisters laugh heartily at the uncle near Cheapside. Darcy says that such relations must hurt the girls’ chances of marrying well. Which is harder on the Bennets, the sisters’ laughter or Darcy’s remark?
Miss Bingley lists everything an accomplished woman must have, and Elizabeth says she never saw such a woman. Is Elizabeth's doubt a fair point, or a way of running down her own sex?