Deception and Love in Pride and Prejudice

                Plato’s Phaedrus, covers two main issues, love and speeches. While reading, I started to make connections to Pride and Prejudice. (Please note that while I have read P&P and seen the A&E version, my references will relate to the 2005 movie starring Keira Knightley.)

                While Phaedrus and Socrates focus their discussion of rhetoric on speeches that occur in the courts and assemblies, Socrates characterizes that “the rhetorical art taken as a whole be a certain leading of the soul through speeches, not only in law courts and whatever other public gatherings, but also in private ones, the same concerning both small and great things.” (261a, 68) The two go on to discuss that deception occurs “in things differing little.” (262a, 69) The speaker, or rhetor, knows the differences between the truth and the lies and leads their audience to the lie without the listeners becoming aware of the deception. They can trick the listeners because the lies have been made to look like the truth. It is “slipped in through certain likenesses.” (262b 69)

                Mr. Wickham uses this trick of deception consistently throughout the film. First, he uses fanciful words to enchant Elizabeth which causes her to like him. After they run into Mr. Darcy, Wickham asks Elizabeth about her relationship with him in order to gather information to see if his lies will be believed. He then tells her that he was bequeathed the rectory living from the former Mr. Darcy but was refused the living because Darcy was jealous of him. Because this lie is similar to the truth and can explain how Darcy and Wickham were friends as boys and how they disagreed over the rectory living, it seems very believable. And even though Wickham tells Elizabeth the lie in private, she then spreads the news to her family members and acquaintances. This in turn taints the character and reputation of Mr. Darcy in the eyes of the main characters until Mr. Darcy explains the truth to her later in the movie.

                Love is also a theme that exists in both works. In the beginning, Elizabeth is wooed by Mr. Collins. In the terms of the Phaedrus, Elizabeth is the beloved and Mr. Collins the lover. Mr. Collins speaks at length to Elizabeth about his proposal but he completely misses the mark. Socrates states that if one “is going to be rhetorical [he must] know how many forms the soul has.” (271d, 81) Mr. Collins does not understand Elizabeth’s soul and nature and therefore fails to present the right speech to persuade her. He doesn’t know that while some might be persuaded by his words (like Charlotte), “people of another sort are difficult to persuade.” (271d, 81)

                There is also the love that blooms between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. When Darcy first proposes to Elizabeth, he uses language that reminds me of the Phaedrus. Darcy claims to have been tormented by her, that he must be with her despite his better judgment and that he has traveled here for the only reason of seeing with her. Socrates uses similar language when describing the reaction in the lover when viewing/meeting the beloved – “it is sorely troubled by the strangeness of the experience and, at a loss, is in a frenzy…it runs yearning wherever it think it will see the one who possesses beauty.” (251e, 56) Darcy believes marrying Elizabeth will cure him of his torment and Socrates states that the lover is “the only doctor for the greatest painful toils.” (252b, 57) And while Elizabeth does reject his initial offer, she in turn falls in love with him. 

(The link below will take you to a video with the proposal scene where Mr. Darcy describes his love to Elizabeth – as described above.) 

http://youtu.be/BJX5_rj2lZg