THE PERFECT FEMINIST ROMANTIC HERO -- UPDATED

I am disturbed by this old editorial in the Guardian, which I found when I was writing my last post on Austen.  Cherry Potter expresses concern that Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice remains straight women's "favourite fictional romantic icon." As she notes, he is the character 1,900 women across the generations most want to date, according to a recent poll by the Orange Prize for Fiction. Potter believes this predilection for Mr. Darcy, especially among "educated literary feminist women," reflects confusion about what women really want.  But Potter -- like Elizabeth Benet herself -- has utterly misread Mr. Darcy, assuming that he is the "epitome of the dominant patriarchal male," and that upon marriage he will turn out to be "rigid, dominating and controlling."

I myself sighed quite a few yearning sighs over Mr. Darcy when I first read Pride and Prejudice as a teenager.  But my fantasies had nothing to do with deep down wanting a patriarchal, dominating or controlling man.  They had to do with a desire for total admiration from someone worthy to give it. 

Mr. Darcy is sexy and compelling because he is a strong and powerful figure and also because he respects the strength and power of Elizabeth Bennet.  Despite the fact that Elizabeth Bennet is rather unglamorous (with very embarrassing relatives, looks not quite up to par with her sister's, and very little wealth), Mr. Darcy sees her true worth.  Elizabeth Bennet is Mr. Darcy's equal in intelligence, wit, sense, and character, and Mr. Darcy loves her for it. The fantasy is to win the utter respect, admiration and passion of a man of great intelligence and great character, especially a man who is not easily won. 

Far from being dominating or controlling, Mr. Darcy does not presume that he can dictate anything to Elizabeth Bennet.  When she rejects his first proposal, he is surprised (and angry at her uncivil manner in refusing him), but he takes "no" for an answer. He also later comes to understand why she was insulted by his proposal.  When changed circumstances lead him to propose a second time, he promises never to bother her again if she doesn't want him.  His behavior contrasts favorably with that of Mr. Collins who refuses to believe her when she tells him she doesn't want him. 

Mr. Darcy also compares favorably to other romantic literary heroes.  Gone With the Wind's Rhett Butler slaps Scarlett O'Hara around, and he ridicules and patronizes her throughout their relationship.  He loves her passionately but without any attendant respect or admiration.  Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights is a controlling "batterer" type, indulging in terrible cruelty when his obsessive, all-consuming love-hate relationship with Catherine is not satisfied. 

While Potter believes that "no wonder men are confused" by the modern-day Darcy fixation, in fact, Mr. Darcy is the perfect feminist romantic hero.  His example gives lie to the notion that feminism is about wanting a weak and malleable romantic partner.  His example also gives lie to the notion that even self-professed feminist women really want to be dominated by men.  It's really quite simple: the best romances are between strong people who appreciate each other's strength and Jane Austen recognized that truth two whole centuries ago.   

(NOTE:  In light of recent blogging against heteronormativity, I am trying to figure out how to make this post not so heteronormative.  On the one hand, I was thinking of qualifying the post by stating that Mr. Darcy is the perfect romantic hero for heterosexual feminist women.  On the other hand, I have no reason to assume that only straight women yearn for a partner like Mr. Darcy.  I say this as someone who once had a mad crush on a remote and mysterious woman who was rather like Mr. Darcy in many ways.)   

UPDATED:  I am feeling all embarrassed and shy and pleased by Amanda's post on this post.  How great to wake up first thing in the morning to find nice things about yourself on the internet! And this on the mark observation:

And the book makes the case that often the best personalities sometimes are initially the most caustic.  For feminist women, many of whom are used to threatening people all the time with our unwillingness to show female submission, that’s a very alluring message.

Do check out the great comments thread after her post about people's favorite romantic couples from books and film.

Comments

[MissPrism]

Well said!
Angel Clare treats Tess of the D'Urbervilles like crap too.

[Sarah]

A wonderful post.

I think Hardy meant Angel to be a hypocrite, the "not-so-nice-nice-guy" that's the counterpoint to "brutal rapist"; it was Tess' saintly forgiveness that enabled them to get back together after his abandonment. Impossibly saintly creations like Tess might not be seen as precisely feminist in the "placing unrealistic expectations on women" side of things, but the book at least drew attention to the sexual double standards of the time.

[anon]

You are so right! I hadn't quite been able to articulate Darcy's appeal, but you hit the nail on the head.

[Morgana]

Not sure I can quite agree-- one reason that Mr Darcy is considered such a good match for Elizabeth is because she can respect him as a superior (see the part where Elizabeth talks to her father after Darcy has asked permission for her hand), not as an equal. I guess you could argue that this is simply Mr Bennet's take on it, but I don't think that there's much to suggest that Elizabeth or the narrator of the text disagrees with Mr Bennet's point of view in this instance.

[Mickle]

Morgana, I dunno, I may be relying too heavily on everyone's favorite screen adaptation, but Elizabeth's initial rejection of Darcy's proposal makes it quite clear that she refuses to marry someone who doesn't value her. That she sees Darcy as the master of the house feels like window dressing after everything that has already happened. Considering that this is Jane Austen, the fact that it is Mr. Bennet who is saying this and not Elizabeth does bring up the question of the author's agreement. Maybe it's just me but Jane Austen always seems to do a fantastic job of making her characters seem just conventional enough to create controversy but not widespread condemnation from the polite society she wrote about, and she does this at times by being ambiguous.

Besides, even if I am relying on BBC's adaptation, most (modern) people's impression of Darcy is through this same lens, so Happy's explanation as to why modern women still love Darcy still holds. Most of us have read the book (several times), but more of us have watched the mini-series several times.

[Lanoire]

Regardless of what Mr. Bennett says, or what Lizzie may think, the fact is that Mr. Darcy never behaves like Lizzie's his inferior--and Lizzie certainly never behaves like Darcy's her superior. Actions speak louder than words.

[The Huntress]

True. I find it much more disturbing when women tell me how much they love Mr Rochester. Urgh.

[Jesurgislac]

I dunno - one of the things I like about Mr Rochester is that he recognises Jane Eyre's quality. (Though Jane Eyre herself is much more of a feminist heroine: a woman of principle and conviction.)

[Deborah]

The difference between Elizabeth Bennet and Scarlett O'Hara is that Elizabeth is honest with herself about who she is. Rhett Butler respects and admires Scarlett when she is being herself, and despises her when she pretends that she fits in with the social norm. Rhett believes he can persuade Scarlett to be herself, and damn the social norm, but he cannot and he ultimately gives up.

The difference between Rhett Butler and Mr. Darcy has as much to do with the women as with the men. Mutual respect requires self-respect.

[The Happy Feminist]

Oooh -- good point. I never thought of it quite that way.

[Tapir]

Oh, thank you, thank you for bringing up Heathcliff, possibly my most hated fictional character of all time, as a point of comparison. No matter how many times I hear it, I'm always surprised when people describe Wuthering Heights as a romance and Heathcliff as a sympathetic character. To some extent, yes, he is a victim of societal expectations and gender roles, wherein it's assumed that men and women can only interact in a romantic relationship with the man as the dominant, controlling force to the exclusion of all other influence. But no matter how pervasive that model was in the culture around him, he still accepted and embraced it of his own accord, and at some point, I think it becomes his own problem, not one for which I have any sympathy.

To me, the only way Wuthering Heights works is as an indictment of that type of relationship, but many other people read it differently, and I suspect their viewpoint is more in line with the author's intentions. It just doesn't work for me.

To be fair, it's been years since I read the book, and maybe I should give it another try. Given how much I hated it as a high school student, though, I think I'd have even more problems with it now. But if anybody has a thoroughly different reading of it that they'd like to share, I'm all ears - I'd love to at least understand the appeal, even if it doesn't change my mind!

[Gwen]

one reason that Mr Darcy is considered such a good match for Elizabeth is because she can respect him as a superior (see the part where Elizabeth talks to her father after Darcy has asked permission for her hand), not as an equal.

Oh, hm, interesting. I don't have my copy and don't remember the exact phrasing, but I seem to remember Mr Bennet saying something along the lines of "don't marry someone you can't respect" - or, more specificially, "you, Elizabeth, of all people, should not marry someone you don't (can't) respect and admire." I read that as a clear reference to Mr B.'s own unsatisfactory marriage to a woman who - in part because of her determined embrace of stereotypical femininity - he couldn't respect. And as a general comment that caustic, clever, sarcastic types are most likely to be unhappy when they marry the sort of people they mock, rather than the sort of people they admire. I didn't see that as a gender thing at all - the reference to Mr B. himself cuts across that line - and I don't read the "not as an equal" bit of your statement in there. It's more a "not as an inferior" thing - because one element of Elizabeth's characterisation (as with Darcy's; they both form a neat contrast to Jane and Bingley in that respect) is a very clear-sighted ability to perceive and criticise 'inferiority', in one sense or the other. That's always been my image of one of the fundamental themes of the book - the presentation of the ideal/happy marriage, any variation thereof (the Gardiners, Jane/Bingley, Elizabeth/Darcy, and, satirically I think, even Lydia/Wickham) as the equal marriage. All these perfect, symmetrical pairs. :) As opposed to the "bad" marriages - the Bennets, Charlotte Lucas/Mr Collins - which are all about massive, wince-inducing inequalities, particularly in intelligence.

[Hogan]

I dunno - one of the things I like about Mr Rochester is that he recognises Jane Eyre's quality.

But he still has to be blinded and maimed before he's a suitable partner for Jane.

[Gwen]

I dunno - one of the things I like about Mr Rochester is that he recognises Jane Eyre's quality.

But he still has to be blinded and maimed before he's a suitable partner for Jane.

Oh. Yes. Charlotte Bronte. Issues. On the one hand, Rochester is this crazed domineering somewhat-callous and possessive ("I'll wear you on my watch-chain", anyone?) "master" type, and on the other she tries to posit him as the "equals! yay!" hero who Sees Jane As She Really Is. It's kind of a schizophrenic effect, and contributes to that bizarre half-monster-demi-god vibe Rochester gives off all through JE. I think I like the solution she reaches in Villette of cutting the two in half - so that the somewhat sadistic sexy macho guy is one person, and the ultimately unrealistic romantic choice, and the fantastic "I see you for who you are" teasing-friendly soul-mate guy is another. And they both come off as real people as well, as opposed to Id Monsters.

[Hogan]

On the one hand, Rochester is this crazed domineering somewhat-callous and possessive ("I'll wear you on my watch-chain", anyone?) "master" type, and on the other she tries to posit him as the "equals! yay!" hero who Sees Jane As She Really Is. It's kind of a schizophrenic effect, and contributes to that bizarre half-monster-demi-god vibe Rochester gives off all through JE.

C. Bronte seems to have absorbed the Byronic version of Gothic pretty early, and had to fight her way out of it. (Literally, or at least literarily literally--with the maiming and the splitting and all. Killing her father.) Austen never bought into that nonsense in the first place; she was old enough to know better by the time she was exposed to it.

[The Happy Feminist]

Ooh-- I feel as though I am hosting a fabulous literary salon.

With regard to Morgana and Gwen's discussion as to Mr. Bennet's statement, Mr. Bennet's exact words were:

I know your disposition, Lizzy. I know that you could be neither happy nor respectable, unless you truly esteemed your husband; unless you looked up to him as a superior.

The whole chapter can be found here.

I have to say that the phrasing is a bit disappointing, but it doesn't seem to be necessarily tied to gender but rather to Lizzie's personality, as Gwen pointed out, and it doesn't necessarily reflect anyone's view but Mr. Bennet's, as Morgana pointed out. Even if it does, there is no evidence anywhere else that Lizzie views Darcy as her superior -- or more importantly that Darcy does.

On the other hand, there probably was an assumption that a woman should always marry someone who is a superior. My father used to always say that I would have to marry a very dominant person because he was worried that I worried that I would marry someone less dominant than I. I am sure this concern of his was tied to gender.

[bacca]

Re: Wuthering Heights. I always liked it because I read the romance as pure metaphor/fairytale: Heathcliff is the wildness and brutality within Catherine that can't be restrained, the shadow self you get when you try to transform "human" into "feminine", the physical embodiment of the destructive resentment that women who are forced into passive feminine roles against their will secretly feel, wreaking destructive havoc on the "gentility" which created it. I think if you try to think of Heathcliff as a real character and not as some kind of fairytale-ogre metaphor, you're going to hate that book.

[stacy]

i never quite had a crush on darcy,
but i think he's a great character,
and i think you're right about him...

and did you notice that bridget jones' diary
was pretty much pride and prejudice?

the guy's name was darcy, even...
:)

[h sofia]

I like Jane Austen's works - in particular Mansfield Park, which was very funny. I loved Pride and Prejudice as done by BBC, but I never fancied Mr. Darcy myself. I am not attracted to those difficult-to-love types. The fellow in Jane Eyre was too aged and had some serious emotional problems! My favorite romantic male character in literature is from the simple Little Women series. Professor Baer (sp?)! He was intelligent, intellectual, academic, hard working, and truly saw Jo as his equal and confident. He was not disturbed or rude or unkind. He was kind of shy but honest. For years it was my dream to find my Professor and live in a big teaching house with him and our 13 adopted, homeschooled children. =) He was older than Jo but not creepy.

[ballgame]

First, some disclaimers: I've never read Austen, and am relying solely on the recent P&P movie for my comment. And I liked the movie a lot; thought it was smart, funny, touching, and really almost impossible not to root for the (perfectly cast) leads.

But my question is, how can the "perfect feminist romantic hero" be Darcy, when he also happens to be the penultimate patriarch? The man is stinkin' rich, at the top of what was an extremely brutal economic pyramid. It's almost like the attitude is, "I like patriarchs, as long as they treat me well," which has a certain sleazy hypocrisy to it, no? And I will tend to view any protestations of, "we don't care about his money, we only care about his character" with a great deal of skepticism, given that the man's wealth seems to play a pretty critical role in his identity and in the plot. Frankly, I didn't see a lot of strength in Darcy. I saw a lot of intelligence, a fair amount of emotional reserve/repression (not unusual for men of the time or most times, for that matter), sensitivity, a certain smoldering anger/passion. The only thing I could see which you could construe as strength was a certain unwillingness to be blown about by the winds of fate, which frankly he was able to do mainly because he was rich.

Now I don't begrudge anyone their fantasies. And I wouldn't mind being Darcy; hell, if you're going to have to put up with all the crap that comes from being a guy, it's a whole lot easier to deal with it when you're at the top than when you're at the bottom. But you didn't say Darcy was the (not-quite-PC) romantic ideal of a feminist, you specifically said he was a feminist romantic ideal. And to that I just have to say, WTF?

[h sofia]

I'm so glad you brought that up, ballgame. That was the one thing I balked at in P&P - the fact that he was SOOOOO rich. I remember at one point being slightly uncomfortable that he had so much stuff he wasn't making any use of. Maybe I am just suspicious of people who are rich. It probably didn't help that I had seen a few years before the most recent version of Mansfield Park (which Austen purists seem to despise). While it wasn't as funny or good as the book, that adaptation depicted aspects of the source of wealth of these rich people - plantations in the West Indies and Americas. There was chatter on the Internet about this "liberty" the director (a woman I believe) took; people were seriously outraged that she would besmirch these characters by talking about slavery.

Anyway, stuff like that has always been problem for me in reading these kinds of books and even watching these kinds of movies: as much as I love them, where would I as a black latina woman have possibly fit into such a society? I can't really have a nostalgia for that era; it was not really mine and it probably would not have been so grand for me. Maybe that is why my favorite male hero is a broke, German immigrant professor who weds into a Transcendentalist abolitionist family of waning means.

[The Happy Feminist]

Well, ballgame, when you put it that way . . .

I admit my analysis (and romantic sighing) is based solely on the relationship between Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy without reference to the larger question of the unjust exploitation of others necessarily entailed by Darcy's wealth-- mainly because Jane Austen didn't reference it and I am judging the characters within the framework Austen provides.

I agree that Darcy is the ultimate patriarchal male in the sense that he is privileged by the hierarchical, patriarchal system in which he lives. And, of necessity, given the strictures in which Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet live, Darcy is always going to be more powerful than she is. But when you look at just the relationship between Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, it is a relationship between equals regardless of what their external circumstances mandate. It's that interaction between their personalities that is compelling and that one imagines transferring to the modern world.

I want to stress that my romantic sighing has NOTHING to do with romanticizing the dreadful era in which Austen lived. I made the point in my prior Austen post that it is foolish to romanticize this time and place because despite all the pretty manners and pretty clothes, it was awful for women except perhaps for those rare few of independent wealth. And it was certainly a brutal era for black men and women.

Unfortunately, most of the classic European literature we're stuck with tells stories within the confines of a patriarchal and racist system. But I don't believe in throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but rather in picking out those positive aspects that we can identify with and carry into the modern world.

[Kelly]

You hit it exactly. Good job! And also you get special props for nodding to the fact that some lesbians (like me) might love Mr. Darcy too (like me!)

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