believing the words

Hubbel Palmer as Mr Collins in the 2003 film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, transposed to modern-day Utah

[Image source: http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol29no1/chan.html]


In Pride and Prejudice, Mr Collins proposes to his cousin Elizabeth Bennet and, of course, she turns him down. Collins, however, doesn't seem to understand the refusal, suggests that young ladies say No when they mean Yes, and ponders aloud: "perhaps you have even now said as much to encourage my suit as would be consistent with the true delicacy of the female character".


Collins is ridiculous, complacent, and utterly lacking in sensibility. But still, his difficulty is genuine. Since he possesses a theory that would fully account for why Elizabeth might refuse his proposal while still intending to marry him, in what sense should he understand her?


A bad situation, this lack of trust in a person's words, and it can lead to worse things than an unduly prolonged proposal.


Collins might have been helped if he had had a little insight into body language and other non-linguistic clues, but that was what not many men of his time did have. Indeed, the question of whether a woman liked a man was deliberately censored from thought. as being indelicate towards the woman as well as uncomfortable for the man to contemplate seriously.


But everyone, not just Mr Collins, is stupid and blind in some respects and to some degree. Collins' difficulty is our difficulty.


What if you believe in despite of the words, or (most likely) you don't know what to believe?


There's no safe advice. You cannot say, for instance:  If in doubt, abide by the words.


And the principle No-one ever got sacked for choosing IBM just doesn't apply when it comes to human relationships.


Cue for another Claes Andersson poem!




*


Nowadays I don't trust you any more
than I always trusted myself
As soon as I turn my back you deceive me
And right you are
I would do the same if I were I
Someways I'm not me anymore
I get extended bouts of faithfulness and caring
It's some kind of revenge
Now when there's nothing more to massacre
we could have it fairly good together, you and I
But you! You don't mean a word of what I say!
Go to hell but come back




(Trans. Lennart and Sonja Bruce, in Poems in Our Absence, Bonne Chance Press 1994)




*




Recent dramatizations of this scene have wanted to emphasize the force and conviction of Elizabeth's refusal. Collins' maddening refusal to understand her (in the novel) has tended to be underemphasized.












Jennifer Ehle and David Bamber (1995)







Keira Knightley and Tom Hollander (2005)




Recommended: An edit that combines the above two renderings along with the same scene from the 1940 film featuring Melville Cooper as Collins and Greer Garson as Elizabeth Bennet