Every Woman Loves Mr. Darcy

Last Sunday the women in my dinner club gathered together for a Pride and Prejudice tea party. After an hour of sipping from garage sale china and pretending to be British, we caravanned down to the Esquire theater where we watched the new film adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel, a story beloved by women and misunderstood by men everywhere. As we left the theater, I wiped the tears and snot from my face, turned to my friends and blubbered, “How on earth are we going to survive until this comes out on DVD?” Then I insisted on being called “Mrs. Darcy” all the way home.

Pride and Prejudice was an awesome movie-going experience, comprised of the perfect balance of sighs, giggles, and tears that disillusioned, overly-sentimental viewers expect for nine dollars. At least, that was the case for all the women in the audience. Several boyfriends and husbands were forced (at gunpoint) to attend the show as well. As the credits rolled and the women dabbed their eyes, the men were glancing about frantically, looking for the nearest escape route. Those who were awake at the end of the movie acted like they had just sat through the Nuremberg trials. I overheard several of these men claim that it was "boring" and "torturous" possibly because none of the Bennett girls set fire to an oil tanker or held up a spear while screaming "Freeedooommm!"

Despite their claims, I think most men dislike Pride and Prejudice not because they think it’s boring, but because they are secretly threatened and/or confused by our love for Mr. Darcy. In fact, there are probably millions of men out there who are seeking a deeper understanding of Jane Austen, whether it be to trick women into having sex with them or, possibly, to get an audition for a gay men’s choir. Whatever the case may be, I feel it is my duty to explain our infatuation with Mr. Darcy as best I can.

Basically, Mr. Darcy is the type of man we would create if we could make a man into a woman – but not. Mr. Darcy transcends the boundaries of reality, consistency, space, time, and all other scientific principles. You can both control him and not control him. He is emotional, and emotionless. He is intelligent, yet stupid; protective, yet vulnerable; passionate and aloof; handsome and available all at the same time.

Let me explain. One of the most gushed-over scenes in Pride and Prejudice is the part where Mr. Darcy finally confesses his love for Elizabeth. Throughout the story he is fighting against his better judgment, knowing he cannot marry below his station. Yet, he is unable to resist this woman's beguiling wit and intelligence, and his emotions take over. Finally, overwhelmed with passion, he bursts into Elizabeth’s sitting room (where she is busily reading, completely unaware of his agony). He refuses to sit down then blurts out something like, “In vain I have struggled, it will not do . . . I love you . . . please . . . if you have any sense of decency . . . put me out of my misery, and consent to be my wife.” After he flatters and insults her at the same time, Elizabeth refuses his proposal. She emphatically explains that he is the last man she could ever love, which clearly means that she loves him very deeply.

In this scenario, Mr. Darcy is giving women what we have been longing for ever since Eve bit into that apple: control. It is every woman’s secret dream to cause a man this kind of torment. Here we have one of the most refined, distinguished gentlemen in all of England, but after he meets Elizabeth he turns into a puddle of goo that is completely incapable of being reasonable. Mr. Darcy could turn his nose up at even the highest society, but as soon as Elizabeth walks into the room he drops his keys, craps his pants, and forgets his name. (Of course, Austen’s description is exceedingly more romantic – and less crude. Plus, Mr. Darcy never had keys.)

In addition to allowing a woman to control him completely, Mr. Darcy does not allow himself to be controlled in any way. He takes the lead in the relationship. He pursues Elizabeth with a type of manliness and chivalry that is unheard of today. His behavior ranges from small expressions of respect (such as bowing when he enters a room), to enormous displays of gallantry (such as hunting down the man who seduced her sister, shelling out millions of dollars, forcing the villain into marriage, restoring the Bennett family name, completely redeeming himself in Elizabeth’s eyes by refusing to take credit, claiming he “thought only of her,” and then – after finally making himself worthy of her love – he RE-PROPOSES in the RIGHT way, and makes her the mistress of his enormous estate at Pemberly. Oh, and he kisses her.)

Finally, and most importantly, Mr. Darcy allows Elizabeth to be known and unknown at the same time. In his eyes, she manages to maintain both the mystery that attracts him and the intimacy that captivates him. He does not love her in spite of all her female-schitzo-45-emotions-per-second-judgemental-socio-emotional-freakish-turmoil. No. He loves her because of everything that makes her a woman. He is in awe of her and, as he says in the movie, she has “bewitched him, body and soul.”

At the beginning of the film Elizabeth tells her sister that “only the deepest passion” could convince her to marry, and because of that she will most likely "die a maid.” So, not only are her standards excruciatingly high from the get-go, but Elizabeth adds insult to injury with her firey, witty, authentic personality. Instead of behaving in a superficial and subservient manner, she “acts out” in front of everybody and shows up unannounced with (dare I say) mud on the hem of her dress! Despite all conventional wisdom and stereotypes about what makes an “accomplished” woman, and despite the fact that refusing a marriage proposal was (at that time) like signing one’s own death warrant, Elizabeth holds out for her ideal love and, in the end, wins it – with her identity still intact.

So there you have it. That is our Mr. Darcy and an honest, albeit insufficient, explanation of why we love him. He is undoubtedly the most paradoxical, beloved man in all literature. And for the men out there who were hoping to gain some sort of insight into womankind, perhaps this blog has confirmed what you already suspected: you can never hope to understand us, not at all, not even a little bit. My sincere apologies.

And for all you ladies out there I regret to say, as far as Mr. Darcy is concerned, we must content ourselves with fiction. Much like Elizabeth, Jane Austen was committed to holding out for true love and refused several proposals that failed to meet her standards. And then she died. Unmarried. Still, though Jane’s maiden bones have long since disintegrated, her heroines live on and grow stronger with time. And it is my firm belief that, every time we read them, so do we.

Never Been Worn

The other day I was sitting in the teacher’s lounge with my friend, Cindy, who was thumbing through the classified ads, asking if anyone wanted to go in on a wiener dog. After flipping through a few more pages she got to the used clothing section. “You know, every time I see an ad for a wedding dress with the phrase ‘Never Been Worn’ above it I can’t help but wonder about that woman’s story,” she said. I glanced over the ads. It was truly depressing. Every day there were thousands, maybe millions of women across the country who were selling their unworn wedding dresses. Every day there was another woman whose dream got crushed and left hanging in her closet.

It seems like the concept of “dreams” has been coming up a lot lately. Yesterday I was reading Romeo and Juliet with my freshmen and we got to the section where Mercutio makes a speech about Queen Mab, the fairy who runs across people’s noses while they sleep and tells them what to dream. After a long monologue about how women always dream about kisses and lawyers only dream about fees, Romeo finally tells Meructio to shut up because he “talk’est of nothing.” Mercutio replies, “True, I talk of dreams, which are the children of an idle brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy, which is as thin of substance as the air and more inconstant than the wind.”

In our early years we’re never concerned about the vanity or the constancy of our dreams. For example, when I was 12 years old I dreamed about going to mime school, which makes absolutely no sense because I’ve never been able to keep my mouth shut for more than 30 seconds at a time. Then, when I was 18, I dreamed about going to New York and becoming and advertising executive. I pictured myself in a gray suit and black stilettos clicking along Madison Avenue while I shouted into a cell phone and hailed a cab at the same time. My father told me that I could go to New York as long as I got a gun and a dog. Suddenly my vision changed to an image of me being pulled along 42nd street by a snarling Doberman Pinscher. I’d be wearing baggy sweatpants and a puffy orange ski jacket with reflectors, pointing mace and a hand gun at anyone who came within 20 feet of me. At that point I decided it would be better to go to college in Colorado. I didn’t want my dad to worry himself to death, it was too expensive, and it didn’t matter anyway in the long run because I ended up teaching high school, and I sure as hell wouldn’t do that in New York even if I had a machine gun and a pack of wolves.

After I graduated college all I could dream about was getting married, and I invested a great deal of time in fantasy planning. I pictured a really romantic proposal, sharing the happy news, picking out the dress, who would be in my wedding party, the first dance at the reception, and of course the wedding night when we would play Scrabble into the wee hours of the morning. (Hey, my parents are reading this, people.) Of course I never allowed myself to think beyond the wedding and the fact that I would have this husband sitting around farting, leaving his socks all over the place and folding the towels the wrong way (that is IF he folded them at all). But it didn’t matter. I still enjoyed dreaming about my wedding. One time when I was getting fitted for a bridesmaid’s dress I almost bought a wedding dress for myself. It was exactly what I had pictured, with the perfect balance of white satin and sparkley things, and it was on sale for $400.00. “Should I buy this?” I asked my friend. “I mean, I know I’m not dating anybody right now, but what are the chances that I will cross paths with a dress like this again? And on SALE!” She looked at me with a mixture of pity and amusement and asked, “What’s a guy going to think when he comes to your house for a first date and you have this wedding dress hanging there?” Perhaps it was going a little too far. I guess pre-printed wedding invitations with the words “INSERT GROOM’S NAME HERE” were definitely out of the question.

Now that I’m almost 30 I have pretty much stopped dreaming for myself. I didn’t notice it until the other day. I woke up, stretched, stared at the wall for a second, and realized that there was definitely something missing from the closet of my soul. As it turns out, Mercutio was wrong. A dream is still worth something, even if it’s never been worn. You can just try it on now and then. You can run your hands over the fabric and appreciate its beauty. Then you can put it back in the closet, confident that it’s safe and available whenever you need it.