Miss Bennett On Humor

[Meta Blog]

Originally posted by Diana from NoodleFood,

I am more than a bit reluctant to post on humor again, given the unpleasant debate in the comments on my last post on the topic. However, I cannot resist. While listening to Pride and Prejudice two nights ago, I came across this delightful comment from Elizabeth Bennett about laughter at virtue.

"Miss Bingley," said [Mr. Darcy], "has given me credit for more than can be. The wisest and the best of men, nay, the wisest and best of their actions, may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in life is a joke."

"Certainly," replied Elizabeth -- "there are such people, but I hope I am not one of them. I hope I never ridicule what is wise or good. Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can. -- But these, I suppose, are precisely what you are without."

So now we have Plato, Elizabeth Bennett, and Ayn Rand all in agreement! As the awful Miss Bingley says in that very scene "Oh! shocking!"

Edited December 9, 2005 by softwareNerd

[A.West]

Pride & Prejudice is really a delightful work, and Austen was good at respecting virtue and ridiculing vice. It's fresh in my mind thanks to my catching the FANTASTIC 1995 BBC series on TV last week.(I wish Atlas Shrugged could get such a treatment.) It's interesting that there are some characters at whom Austen guides you to laugh at their moderate folly (Mr. Collins, Mrs. Bennett), while she treats the vices of others more seriously (Wickam).

Has anyone heard of Ayn Rand reading P&P? On one hand, in the context of her situation and times, the heroine Elizabeth Bennett exhibits numerous virtues. But she's certainly no Dagny Taggart, and seems to have little life outside of social relations. And the climactic catastrophe in the novel related to how a family would be seen by society if one of its women had premarital sex.

SPOILER

Here's my favorite exchange from P&P:

[Elizabeth:] "I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me."

[Lady Catherine]:``It is well. You refuse, then, to oblige me. You refuse to obey the claims of duty, honour, and gratitude. You are determined to ruin him in the opinion of all his friends, and make him the contempt of the world.''

``Neither duty, nor honour, nor gratitude,'' replied Elizabeth, ``have any possible claim on me, in the present instance. No principle of either would be violated by my marriage with Mr. Darcy. And with regard to the resentment of his family, or the indignation of the world, if the former were excited by his marrying me, it would not give me one moment's concern -- and the world in general would have too much sense to join in the scorn.''