#Elizabeth Bennet is a bitch (affectionate)

[sea-salted-wolverine]

@slightlyunderokayartist i made another post so I didn't hijack the other one. Because I basically paraphrased an entire novel.

I am going to make you appreciate Pride and Prejudice. It may at some point involve a PowerPoint full of comic sans and memes but I'm on my phone right now, so bear with me. Don't worry, I will remain nice about it.

The thing about Austen, is that she was one of the earliest means based feminists. (Yes, shes writing about landed gentry, but this is 180fuck and feminism is baby steps) Basically the thrust of alot of her work is that violence against women isn't always physical or even particularly violent. A lot of her contemporaries had stories about kidnapping and coercion and perfect pure heroines. In contrast Austen writes a character who is kinda a bitch and the primary antagonist is the fact that her life is entirely beholden to the decisions of the men around her.

So the book opens and you have lizzy. A bitch(affectionate). Shes got four sisters, no brothers and parents wealthy enough to own a country estate but not a London town house. So they're well-off but not fancy.

Lizzy is the second daughter and her dads favorite, because she's clever and cynical like he is. Her older sister is beautiful and sweet and shy and if Austen were anyone else she would be the main character. But Austen said 'nah, I wanna write about the messy one'. There are also 3 younger sisters who are various mixtures of spoiled bratty immature wild child girls.

If you can't tell, Mom and Dad have not been doing a ton of parenting. Specifically Dad, has not bothered to hire a tutor or send them to school so none of them has any marketable skills beyond being a socialite. And they're not even particularly good at it. Dad is less than motivated to take them anywhere they make connections and the entire family is pretty yikes as a result of his decisions. People see Jane (older sister) and go 'oh shes pretty and pleasant and her sister (lizzy) is fun to chat with, but yikes'

The issue is, there's no dowery for any of these girls. A dowery, if you don't already know is money set aside for a woman's married life that transfers to control of her husband when she leaves her family or if she doesn't marry, goes in a trust so she'll be supported when she doesn't have family to take her in. Its basically an insurance policy so she won't starve to death on the street because women can't legally own anything. Also it's a lot of money, that then goes to the new husband, so it makes woman in question more desirable. These girls don't have that, because dad never got around to it. Other issue, when dad dies all his stuff, including the house, goes to some cousin because women can't hold property. Cousin has never met this family and could decide to kick them all out when he owns the house.

Mom, looks at her daughters and goes, 'holy tits, you have got to get married. Preferably to someone rich enough to take care of his in-laws, but married, now.' So she's trying to marry her daughters off for money and different adaptions handle this differently but the original work is pretty forgiving because the other option is pretty grim.

In comes Mr Darcy and his buddy Mr Bingley. Bingley is very wealthy and has the personality of a golden retriever. Darcy is extremely wealthy and doesn't want to be there but his extrovert bestie is dragging him to parties because its good for him.

Mom goes 🤑🤑🤑 and shoves her daughters over there. Bingley and Jane are getting along immediately and Darcy is looking at Mom and going "uh dude..."

There is an overheard conversation that consists mostly of "eh, Jane seems nice but uh everything else? Yikes.😬 " to which Lizzy has the opinion of "what a dick, whatever, not like i ever have to see him again"

Except Mom sees JanexBingley happening and she's gotta lock that shit down. So she insists jane ride on over to his place for a visit tomorrow. In the rain.

"But momma we are fragile English gentry we can't get rained on, I will surely fall ill and die" says jane.

"Yeah, no shit, that's the point. Now go live your favorite hurt/comfort sick!fic and snag a husband"

Jane gets rained on, Jane gets sick. Lizzy says absolutely not and walks over to Bingley's house in the mud and busts down the door to get to Jane. (Lizzy has Plot Armour and/or a functional circulatory system)

Darcy, who's chilling at his bros house, looks at Lizzy and goes "oh, wow" Lizzy goes "you're a dick i don't care about your opinions"

Inside of Darcy head: ooooooh😳😳😳 pretty lady being mean to me? Flirting? 💘Maybe?🥰 oh no shes meeting all my standards

What actually comes out of his mouth: I'm not impressed

Lizzy: I don't feel bad about hating you, because as usual, I'm right

Then Mom shows up, because it can always be worse. Jane is in fact living and enjoying her hurt/comfort sick!fic and Lizzy is about to invent noise canceling headphones a couple centuries early so she doesn't have to make any more small talk. Mom wants to make sure that Jane is being slutty enough. The bratty little sisters are there. Bingley is shopping for rings. Darcy the hypocrite thinks maybe he should chill a little because the prospective inlaws are yikes.

A note: having unhinged in-laws was a big no-no that reflected badly on you as a person, un like today when its just assumed that everyone has a nightmare somewhere on the other side of the family. Like the toilet shotgun. We don't talk about the toilet shotgun.

Carrying on

We meet a dude. His name is Wickham. Hes a bad dude but we don't know that yet. He is of the opinion that Darcy is a huge cunt and Lizzy decides this man has good opinions. There's drama, Darcy screwed me over, blah blah, he sucks and I'm broke but handsome and charming.

We also meet the cousin. Imagine the most obnoxious person you know with a connection to some random famous wealthy person and make sure they bring it up every chance they get. He's also aware he inherits the house.

Marrying your cousin was a thing back then, so he looks at the available choices and picks the pretty one. Jane is spoken for, says Mom but Lizzy is very lovely, I'm sure she would love to be not homeless. Cousin goes yea sure, acceptable. Hey Liza, sorry, Lizzy, I love you v. much, plz marry.

Lizzy, understandably, does not want. Says no. Will not marry into a miserable loveless marriage for comfort. Dad gets the final say, says yeah thats reasonable, favorite daughter gets what she wants. Mom goes "hey your options are miserable and married or miserable and homeless. And your entire family comes with you on the second one. Are you sure thats your final answer?"

Theres some plot, there's a party. Bingley cuts it off with Jane and she sad. Lizzy is pretty sure it's Darcy's fault.

The man himself shows up and asks her to marry him. It goes... poorly.

There is an adaption where she starts swinging a fire poker at him while spouting lines of dialog lifted straight from the book and its not out of place. She reads this man for filth, bringing up Wickham and how he's responsible for breaking her sisters heart and also in general a huge dick that she would not marry if he was the last man on earth. It does not help that he's not only admitting to the things she's accusing him of but defending it with stuff like "i didnt want my buddy marrying into your nightmare family" and "Wickham is an asshole who deserved it"

She knows shes fucked if she doesn't mary rich but she bitches this man out so hard he leaves town and goes back home to learn to be nicer.

A bit later she gets a long ass letter explaining how Darcy thought that Jane was getting shoved into marriage by their mother and didn't want her and Bingley to end up unhappy. And also how Wickham got a fuckload of money from Darcy's dead father and squandered it all because he's an asshole. The asshole also tried to marry his baby sister to weasel into the family fortune so they're not talking and there's the 1800s version of a restraining order out there. Ends with something like "I respect you and am a little scared of you which is why I wanted to marry you and if you never want to speak to me again thats fine"

Lizzy should really be allowed to say fuck here but she doesn't. She decides to get out of town herself and goes to chill with her aunt and uncle. They're touring the countryside and Darcy has a house big enough for tours so they end up touring the house. (Ugh, rich people)

The household staff who work for this guy are all of high opinions. The cleaning lady knows your shit. She knows. And they all like the guy.

Lizzy does not say fuck.

Darcy is not supposed to be there in his own house but he shows up in his own house and sees the love of his life with whom he monumentally blew it. In his own house.

Darcy doesn't get to say fuck either.

Lizzy gets a letter and she really really should be allowed to say fuck because Wickham has run off with her baby sister.

Not married. Run off. Sister has had no supervision or parenting and just knows she needs to get a man so she did. Kinda. And tanked her whole family's reputation in doing so. No no one will marry any of the sisters and they're all fucked.

Darcy realizes this is partly his fault and hes also the only one who can really fix it. So he, without telling anyone, runs down Wickham and threatens/blackmails/bribes him into marrying baby sister and saving everyone's reputation. He makes sure little sister and Wickham have enough money to live comfortably regardless of how shit that relationship turns out to be.

Then he goes over to his sad golden retriever friend who has been moping about the pretty lady who didn't love him and point out that now he has spent all that money and effort rehabilitating the Bennet reputation Bingley might as well marry Jane. So Bingley prances off to go propose to Jane and Mom realizes her family is secure and quits double fisting ye old anxiety meds.

He doesn't tell anyone this. Lizzys family still thinks she hates him. He shows up and goes "hey hope you're happy and okay with this, my feelings haven't changed since last time I asked, I'm hoping yours have."

Lizzy would love to marry this guy because he was never really an asshole from the start and her family is indeed kinda a mess.

Her dad reassures her she doesn't have to marry the rich dude she hates for his money, Jane already did that. Lizzy explains that no actually she loves him and also he saved their ass with respect to the Wickham debacle. Dad decides that Darcy must be a good dude if thats the case and says yep go get married.

Blah blah blah happily ever after.

Lizzy overcomes her prejudices against Darcy and unbends her pride enough to admit she was wrong.

#pride and prejudice #i did not intend to summarize the whole thing im sorry #its good #Elizabeth Bennet is a bitch (affectionate) #sitting over here with my dunce cap that barely fits over my enormous brain