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Sadie Stein on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

Episode 9

A Rational Creature

Featuring Sadie Stein

Audio episode · 15 min

Sadie Stein on Pride and Prejudice

The morning after the worst party of her life, Elizabeth Bennet wakes to a marriage proposal. Sadie Stein opens with the argument nobody makes: the sincere case for saying yes to Mr. Collins, the house it would save, because the refusal is only worth what the offer costs. Then the scene itself, maybe the funniest in the book, with something under it that is not funny at all: a woman asking in plain words to be believed, and a suitor so certain of the rules that he cannot hear her. Both parents deliver a judgment on what a daughter owes. Only one of them will make you cheer.

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I Couldn't Have Given You Up to Anyone Less

Sadie Stein weeps at Mr. Bennet's half-sentence goodbye. Garth Greenwell reads a whole novel about a father who can't say it, so the daughter must.

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Why Darcy Falls for Elizabeth in Spite of Himself

Darcy falls for Elizabeth because she alone does not perform for him, Stein argues — her wit is character, not strategy, and he falls in spite of himself.

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Was Charlotte Lucas Right to Marry Mr. Collins?

Stein reads Charlotte Lucas's marriage as clear-eyed and defensible: in Austen's marriage market, Elizabeth's freedom to refuse was the exception, not the rule.

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Marriage, Money, and the Village Religion of Pride and Prejudice

Stein argues the romance sits on hard economics: a village credo of marriage, too few men, and a good match as the difference between security and ruin.

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