Mr. Darcy’s Breeding Problem

A Regency era gentleman was a man who knew his place in the world. He guarded his reputation; dressed elegantly; and treated lords, servants, and lowly commoners with great civility.¹ By these criteria, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pride and Prejudice fame was every bit a Regency gentleman—except when he wasn’t. In his dealings with his fellow characters in Jane Austen’s novel, Mr. Darcy did not always play the gentleman. He possessed a knack for offending others and at times failed to please in company. In other words, he seemed to lack good breeding. Here are three examples of his breeding problem.

The Meryton Assembly in Pride and Prejudice might have looked like this engraving of Almack’s Assembly Rooms in London, c. 1821. (Source: Wikimedia Commons PD-1923)

1. Darcy Behaved Badly at the Meryton Assembly

The entire Meryton Assembly was agog on beholding Mr. Bingley and his elegant party. Mr. Bingley’s friend Fitzwilliam Darcy was much admired in the beginning, especially when word that he enjoyed a handsome annual income of £10,000 ran like wildfire among the attendees. Later he was thought disagreeable for wandering about the room, declining to be introduced to anybody, and speaking to no one but his friends.² Meryton resident Mrs. Bennet was particularly vexed with him for slighting her daughter Elizabeth by not asking her to dance. “So high and so conceited that there was no enduring him!” Mrs. Bennet told her husband.³ No surprise. Mr. Darcy stood aloof, insulted a pretty young lady who lacked a dancing partner, irritated Mrs. Bennet, and was generally uncivil by refusing to participate in the local doings. In short, he failed to be considerate of others.

2. Darcy Was Snippy with Sir William Lucas

When in company at Lucas Lodge Mr. Darcy stood in “silent indignation” at having to listen to the somewhat paltry piano playing and watch the rough dancing. At one point Sir William Lucas, standing next to his elegant guest, expressed admiration for the evening’s pleasures by saying, “There is nothing like dancing after all. I consider it as one of the first refinements of polished society.” To which comment Mr. Darcy expressed his opinion that dancing is also popular in more rustic, less genteel societies. “Every savage can dance,” he told Sir William.⁴ Whenever I read this line I hear Colin Firth’s voice, see his disgust, sense his displeasure. Here again, Mr. Darcy’s snippy retort hints at ill-breeding, for a true gentleman would never speak unkindly to his host.

For all his faults, Mr. Darcy would not be as clumsy on the dance floor as this gentleman! Note: The artist shows the ladies’ skirts higher than they would have been–an old caricaturist’s trick, apparently. The image is an 1817 engraving by George Cruikshank titled “Dos à Dos: Accidents in Quadrille-dancing.” (Source: Wikimedia Commons PD-1923)

3. Darcy Offended Mrs. Bennet…Yet Again

At Mr. Bingley’s estate, Netherfield, Elizabeth Bennet sat with her sister Jane, who was staying at Netherfield while she recovered from a violent cold. One day Mrs. Bennet visited Jane to check on her progress. Finding her well looked after and not in danger, Mrs. Bennet chatted with Mr. Bingley, Miss Bingley and Mr. Darcy. On hearing Mr. Darcy’s opinion that country villages are confined with little varying society, Mrs. Bennet felt the insult and told him the Bennets dined with four and twenty families. “So there!” she seemed to say. Elizabeth stepped in to defend Mr. Darcy, but Mrs. Bennet was having none of it. She lobbed an insult at him by admiring Sir William Lucas, saying,

“What an agreeable man Sir William is, Mr. Bingley—is not he? so much the man of fashion! so genteel and so easy!—He has always something to say to every body.—That is my idea of good breeding; and those persons who fancy themselves very important and never open their mouths, quite mistake the matter.”⁵

Mrs. Bennet is bang on for throwing a dart at Mr. Darcy, for he seemed not to care whether he offended her. After all, he was a guest in Mr. Bingley’s house and should take care to be agreeable to all of Mr. Bingley’s acquaintances, whether he liked them or not. In Mrs. Bennet’s case, perhaps it wasn’t so much what Mr. Darcy said as how he said it. Regardless, Mrs. Bennet looked on the tall, handsome Mr. Darcy as being not quite a gentleman, despite his £10,000.

Mr. Darcy Is a True Gentleman at the End

Numerous examples of Mr. Darcy’s bad behavior are scattered throughout Pride and Prejudice. In fact, many novels in the Jane Austen Fan Fiction (JAFF) category draw on these situations to observe Mr. Darcy’s evolution from disinterested boor to thoughtful gentleman. Jane Austen herself does not show how he came to change, but we hear him express his new self to Elizabeth after they agree to become engaged:

“The recollection of what I said then, of my conduct, my manners, my expressions during the whole of it, is now … inexpressibly painful to me. Your reproof, so well applied, I shall never forget: ‘had you behaved in a more gentleman like manner.’ Those were your words. You know not, you can scarcely conceive, how they have tortured me;—though it was some time, I confess, before I was reasonable enough to allow their justice.”⁶

At last! Mr. Darcy confessed his understanding that he was devoid of every proper feeling. He had not, in truth, behaved as a gentleman in the beginning, but in the end he possessed a true gentleman’s spirit.

Sources:
¹Mason, Philip. The English Gentleman: The Rise and Fall of an Ideal. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1982, pp. 12, 16, 66.
²Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. London: Penguin Books, 1813/1996, pp. 11-15 (Chapter 3).
³Ibid., p. 15.
⁴Ibid., p. 26.
⁵Ibid., p. 43.
⁶Ibid., p. 347.