Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 9

Jane Austen · Mountaineers 10th–12th

Teaching Companion Print Adapt for your student

Copywork

“I wish I might take this for a compliment; but to be so easily seen through, I am afraid, is pitiful.” “That is as it happens. It does not necessarily follow that a deep, intricate character is more or less estimable than such a one as yours.”

“The country,” said Darcy, “can in general supply but few subjects for such a study. In a country neighbourhood you move in a very confined and unvarying society.” “But people themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be observed in them for ever.”

Read both passages aloud. Elizabeth answers Bingley, and then Darcy. Which answer is kinder?

For the educator Two passages, six sentences: the chapter’s own argument about reading people, in two exchanges, each a man’s claim and Elizabeth’s answer. Bingley’s sentence opens on a wish, turns on a semicolon and “but”, and holds its verdict back behind the aside “I am afraid” until the last word, “pitiful”. Elizabeth answers with a short hedge (“That is as it happens.”), neither yes nor no, and then one long, balanced sentence in the language of logic (“It does not necessarily follow”). It sets “a deep, intricate character” against “such a one as yours”, and its “more or less” refuses to rank either above the other. Notice that it never names what Bingley’s character is. In the second passage Darcy’s claim is split by its speech tag and hedged (“in general”, “but few”), and it closes on a doubled pair of adjectives, “confined and unvarying”. Elizabeth’s reply begins with “But”, runs into a result clause (“so much, that”), and ends on “for ever”, the opposite of “unvarying”. For mechanics, notice the commas inside the closing marks when a tag breaks a speech (“The country,” said Darcy, “can”), the semicolon in Bingley’s sentence, the commas around “I am afraid”, and the closing mark that ends a speech of two sentences only after the second. For the talk prompt, listen for a student who hears Elizabeth reassuring Bingley, one who hears that “more or less” takes away as much as it gives, and one who finds her answer to Darcy the kinder, since it is generous to people in general even while it contradicts him.

Discussion

Narration Tell the chapter back in order, from Elizabeth’s night in Jane’s room to her return to Jane at the end.

Elizabeth tells Bingley she understands him “perfectly”. Is he as easy to read as she thinks? Character
Mrs. Bennet scolds Lizzy for running on “in the wild manner” she is allowed at home. What in Lizzy’s words to Bingley could sound wild to her mother? Inference
When Mrs. Bennet takes offence at Darcy’s remark about the country, he turns “silently away”. Was that the politest answer he could give, or the rudest? Moral reasoning
Mrs. Bennet tells the story of the man who wrote verses on Jane, to show how much Jane is admired. Then Elizabeth and Darcy argue about what poetry does to love. When they have finished, what does her story prove? Theme
Elizabeth has had an answer for everyone all visit. In the pause after the poetry, she “could think of nothing to say”. Why does she run dry just then? Character

Make a Connection Think of someone you know, or someone in a book, who seemed easy to read until they surprised you. What had you missed?

Vocabulary

estimable: It does not necessarily follow that a deep, intricate character is more or less estimable than such a one as yours. Worthy of respect; deserving to be valued (from Latin aestimare, to value, the root of esteem and estimate). Elizabeth tells Bingley that a deep, intricate character is not “more or less estimable” than his. The word keeps apart two things the chapter keeps testing: how interesting a person is to study, and how much that person is worth.
unvarying: In a country neighbourhood you move in a very confined and unvarying society. Never changing; always the same (un- and varying, from vary, as in variety and various). Darcy calls country society “confined and unvarying”, and Elizabeth answers with the opposite verb: people “alter so much”. When she restates his point to her mother, she keeps his root: there is not “such a variety of people” in the country as in town.
efficacy: I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love! The power to produce the effect wanted (from Latin efficere, to bring about, as in effective and efficient). Elizabeth speaks of the “efficacy” of poetry as if it were a medicine tested for a cure. The word’s grave, scientific sound is the joke: what poetry is good at, she says, is driving love away.
self-consequence: She had high animal spirits, and a sort of natural self-consequence, which the attentions of the officers, to whom her uncle’s good dinners and her own easy manners recommended her, had increased into assurance. A sense of one’s own importance (self and consequence in its older sense of importance, as in a person of consequence). The narrator calls Lydia’s self-consequence “natural”, then says the officers’ attentions “increased” it “into assurance”. The word explains her boldness with Bingley as something she was born with and others have fed.

Critical thinking

Mrs. Bennet would have been “very miserable” to find Jane in danger, but she is in no hurry for Jane to get well. What kind of love is that?
The only person in this chapter who talks about shame is Lydia, when she asks for a ball. What does she understand about shame?
Elizabeth blushes for her mother and even speaks up for Darcy. Is she standing up for what is true, or protecting herself from shame?