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Sadie Stein on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

Episode 6

Don't Feel Sorry for Him

Featuring Sadie Stein

Audio episode · 18 min

Sadie Stein on Pride and Prejudice

The next houseguest at Longbourn, in Austen's Pride and Prejudice, announces himself by letter: a clergyman none of them has met, apologetic about an old quarrel, and, in one aside, heir to everything they have. Enter Mr. Collins. Sadie Stein starts with laughter: who in this cramped world gets to laugh, and what the laughing lets Mr. Bennet avoid. Then the demolition the title promises. Every time you start to pity Mr. Collins, Austen steps in to stop you, and Stein wants to know what a clergyman is even for in a book where this man is the one on offer. Her answer takes in religion, the marriage market, and poor Mary Bennet.

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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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