David Bamber is Mr Collins, Pride and Prejudice 1995
This year marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice. When I was fourteen I read the novel in one sitting, choosing the book one summer in a quest to finish a list of classics. Like so many girls, I identified with Lizzy and wished that some modern Mr. Darcy would find my eyes strikingly beautiful. While P&P’s protagonists attracted me at first, it is the secondary, more imperfect characters who continue to fascinate me: Mrs. Bennet, Mr. Collins, Caroline Bingley, Mr. Bennet, Lydia, and Mr. Wickham, as well as those who played minor but crucial roles – Mary Bennet, Sir William Lucas, and Mr. Hurst. All are archetypes of people we have known in one way or another.
I have not forgotten Lady Catherine de Bourgh, or Lady CdeB, as she will be known henceforth in this narrative. In my opinion, Lady CdeB is in a class by herself and rises above the other sterling cast (although Mr. Collins is tough competition.) She’s a giant in the annals of literary supporting characters. My older self is astonished that a 19 year-old slip of a girl living in a quiet backwater village could have come up with such a magnificent creation. It boggles the mind.
It is quite telling that we are first introduced to Lady CdeB through Mr. Collins. That Jane Austen chose to announce the appearance of this proud, arrogant aristocrat through a fawning and obsequious bootlicker is genius, for we swiftly come to the conclusion that she is either as foolish as her empty-headed flatterer or is using him for some purpose. To the delight of Mr. Bennet, who has been bored out of his gourd since saying “I do” at the altar, Mr. Collins preens and swaggers at the very mention of his patron.
During dinner, Mr. Bennet scarcely spoke at all; but when the servants were withdrawn, he thought it time to have some conversation with his guest, and therefore started a subject in which he expected him to shine, by observing that he seemed very fortunate in his patroness.”
Mr Collins responds to Mr. Bennet’s question. Pride and Prejudice 1995
Like a marionette tugged on a string, Mr. Collins jumps at this prompt, much to Mr. Bennet’s delight. After years of suffering through banal dinner conversations with Mrs. Bennet and three of his five daughters, he now actively seeks relief from his ennui and his guest does not disappoint. The vicar boasts that:
he had never in his life witnessed such behaviour in a person of rank — such affability and condescension, as he had himself experienced from Lady Catherine. She had been graciously pleased to approve of both the discourses which he had already had the honour of preaching before her. She had also asked him twice to dine at Rosings, and had sent for him only the Saturday before, to make up her pool of quadrille in the evening. Lady Catherine was reckoned proud by many people he knew, but he had never seen any thing but affability in her.”
This effusive praise begs the question: if Lady CdeB had a lick of sense, why would she waste her precious time with this clown? Austen continues to dangle interesting glimpses of her in front of us, using Mr. Collins as her mouthpiece and building up our expectations of this nonpareil. During the most brilliantly ridiculous proposal written in English literature, Austen arranges to have Lady CdeB speak directly to us for the first time:
Mr Collins and Lizzy, by Brock. Image @Mollands
My reasons for marrying are, first, that I think it a right thing for every clergyman in easy circumstances (like myself) to set the example of matrimony in his parish. Secondly, that I am convinced it will add very greatly to my happiness; and thirdly — which perhaps I ought to have mentioned earlier, that it is the particular advice and recommendation of the very noble lady whom I have the honour of calling patroness. Twice has she condescended to give me her opinion (unasked too!) on this subject; and it was but the very Saturday night before I left Hunsford — between our pools at quadrille, while Mrs. Jenkinson was arranging Miss de Bourgh’s foot-stool, that she said, “Mr. Collins, you must marry. A clergyman like you must marry. — Chuse properly, chuse a gentlewoman for my sake; and for your own, let her be an active, useful sort of person, not brought up high, but able to make a small income go a good way. This is my advice. Find such a woman as soon as you can, bring her to Hunsford, and I will visit her.”
Such delicious dialogue! Lady CdeB has no higher hope for Mr. Collins’ happiness other than a wife who is active (can work her butt off) and can make a small income go a good way (is thrifty). The future Mrs. Collins must not be too high in the instep, but not so low of class that it would be impossible for Lady CdeB to be seen with her. In other words, Lady CdeB must be assured that those with whom she socializes are worthy of her attentions. (The more worthy, the better, for subjugating a strong person would give her a headier sense of power than lording it over a weakling.)
In rural Regency England, a grande dame’s social circle was restricted to the slim pickings in her community. Despite a lack of choice, there were standards to be maintained and Mr. Collins is as low down the status totem pole as Lady CdeB can go. Emma Woodhouse experiences a similar dearth of social connections in Highbury. Before easy travel became possible, one simply had to make do.
Social circles are small in a rural village. Pride and Prejudice 1995
In these early scenes with Mr. Collins, Austen builds up our expectations. Knowing what priceless enjoyment is in store for us, she makes us wait for a few more chapters before Lady CdeB’s grand entrance, and so, during Lizzy’s visit to Hunsford, she continues to pique our curiosity.
Yes, Miss Elizabeth, you will have the honour of seeing Lady Catherine de Bourgh on the ensuing Sunday at church, and I need not say you will be delighted with her. She is all affability and condescension, and I doubt not but you will be honoured with some portion of her notice when service is over. I have scarcely any hesitation in saying that she will include you and my sister Maria in every invitation with which she honours us during your stay here. Her behaviour to my dear Charlotte is charming. We dine at Rosings twice every week, and are never allowed to walk home. Her ladyship’s carriage is regularly ordered for us. I should say, one of her ladyship’s carriages, for she has several.”
We are so entranced with Mr. Collins’s banal utterances that we nearly miss Charlotte’s quiet opinion of the patroness. Until she married Mr. Collins, Charlotte seemed a sensible sort, but now we are coming to understand why Lizzy’s respect for her old friend has cooled so dramatically. Aside from willingly marrying a buffoon, it turns out that Charlotte has inherited some of her father’s capacity for groveling.
Lady Catherine is a very respectable, sensible woman indeed,” added Charlotte, “and a most attentive neighbour.”
What? Where’s the irony in that statement? When Mr. Collins answers,”Very true, my dear, that is exactly what I say. She is the sort of woman whom one cannot regard with too much deference,” Charlotte remains silent. Her lack of rejoinder is damning – to us and surely to Lizzy – for she is becoming a toady.
Charlotte, Lizzy, Maria Lucas, and Sir William Lucas. Pride and Prejudice 1995
Observe Charlotte’s behavior somewhat later when Anne deB, Lady CdeB’s daughter, commands her driver to halt her phaeton at the parsonage’s garden gate. This non-event starts a rube goldberg chain of events in which Mr. Collins stops dead in his tracks to go rushing to the gate, Charlotte tosses aside her women’s work to chase after him and stand by his side, Sir William Lucas parks his carcass in the doorway to bask in all that reflected greatness, and Maria Lucas clomps noisily up the stairs to broadcast the GRAND EVENT and drag Lizzy to the window to SEE for herself!
Charlotte at the window. Pride and Prejudice 2005
Lizzy, who had been busy searching for an instrument with which to catch pigs, thinking that only a herd of swine on the loose could cause such a commotion, looks in astonishment at an anemic woman with a scowling face and her companion. Suddenly it dawns on her that THIS is the cousin intended for Mr. Darcy! And here is when we discover that Miss Elizabeth has the makings of a mean girl, for she is pleased as punch to know that this sallow creature is destined to be Mr. Darcy’s bride.
At the parsonage gate with Lady Anne her companion and the Collinses.
In this farcical scene Austen has provides us with foreshadowing of how things will be at Rosings and how these characters will conduct themselves in the presence of Lady CdeB. Their reaction to her daughter, a nonentity, is extraordinary, with the Collinses bobbing like two plastic dunking birds and the star-struck Lucases re-enacting the Regency version of a Kim Kardashian fan club.
Next: Lady CdeB
Only Lizzy remains untouched, for she’s not easily awed by the trappings of title and position. Anne’s visit had a real purpose it seems, for Charlotte informs them that they are invited to dine at Rosings the next day. As Mr. Collins whirlygigs himself into a tizzy, Miss Elizabeth Bennet of Longbourn House, and the daughter of a gentleman, girds her loins in anticipation of meeting the dragon lady. Jane Austen, meanwhile, has us readers chomping at the bit.
Next: Lady Catherine de Bourgh in all her glory.
More posts on this blog regarding Pride and Prejudice 200 year anniversary.
Jane Austen's World 
Excellent post Vic! – however DID Jane Austen create such a living, breathing character?!
Great post (as usual) but ‘damn you auto-correct!’ :). ‘Rubric goldberg
Drat. I didn’t catch that!! Thanks.
Great post, and very timely, as I’ve just found myself rereading P&P and enjoying it all over again, if possible even more. But do you truly think Charlotte’s comment quoted above is totally devoid of irony?
“…and a most attentive neighbor” is at least open to multiple interpretations. I can imagine it being delivered with a slight eye-roll, too subtle to be noticed by anyone but Elizabeth, for whom it is intended. If Charlotte had indeed become a complete toad-eater I think she would not have been so eager for Elizabeth to come and visit her and witness her degradation. That Charlotte is not all one thing or the other makes her so interesting: she’s plain and 27, she’s married a respectable buffoon in her disinterested desire for an establishment, and now she’s got to live with that as best she can. That doesn’t mean she’s not quietly squirming inside.
However, this is the sort of thing that is so great about P&P, and Jane Austen in general, how the works withstand multiple readings, for there is always so much going on in each scene, so many layers of irony, so many possible ways to understand things.
Compared to her ironic statement of why she chose her sitting room and how Mr Collins is preoccupied for hours on end in the garden at the opposite side of the parsonage – yes.
I agree with the poster above. Every time I have read that, and probably remembering it from the movie as Charlotte makes that reply, I totally believe it is a gently sarcastic comment about CdeB being very attentive, but having to say it very subtly as Mr. Collins is probably right there. I picture her speaking to Elizabeth in the way the two were used to doing before Charlotte married Mr. Collins and moved away. And, as Vic said above, I think the same tone was used to indicate her sitting room as being away from Mr. Collins’ most likely interruptions. I don’t think she’s a toad eater, but has learned that if she doesn’t follow certain ridiculous protocol, both she and Mr. Collins will experience the results so she kowtows in order to not rock the boat. That’s my take on things.
Great article! I’ve just started re-reading P&P myself. I would disagree with you about Charlotte though, I think she’s just made the best of a bad situation and is probably aware that life is easier if she acts interested in Lady CdeB!
Yes, she’s making the best of a situation.
I always love reading your posts. It seems that just when I have a P&P or Regency question, you happen to come up with the perfect answer. Thanks so much for all you do! ~jen red~
The great joy of Pride and Prejudice is the realization that people have not changed very much in two hundred years and how very funny Jane Austen is. I would love to meet Lady C as much as I’d love to meet Lizzy. They are both such strong women and they both end up loving the same man, but for different reasons. As you know I get a huge kick out of Lady C, I find her reactions to Lizzy completely reasonable – she’s looking out for her nephew and suspicious of the very odd Bennet’s
The way Kitty peers through the window during Mr. Collins’ visit (to see if he was still tormenting her sisters) and then runs away remains one of the best non-verbal cues involving Mr. Collins’ character in the 1995 adaptation.
I tend to agree that Charlotte is making the best of a bad situation. A toady would have echoed Mr. Collins extravagant praise. Sometimes prudence is the better part of valor. I suspect she bit her tongue a lot around her husband.
Besides, being an arrogant busy body didn’t mean LdB wasn’t respectable and sensible (She didn’t sleep around or squander her fortune), it just meant she wasn’t nice person or good company, but given how boring her husband was, and how limited Charlotte’s social circle, even a chat with de Bourghs was a break in the tedium.
Oh, but Charlotte has choice. Had Lady CdeB herself stopped at the gate, she would have been obligated to go outside and greet her patroness. But Lady Anne? She could have let Mr. Collins scrape and bow all he wanted, and stayed inside the house with Lizzy to share some double entendre observances. She did not.
My younger self would have agreed with you, for I have liked Charlotte for many a year, but my jaded older self is starting to see her in a slightly different light.
Still, you make a good point, as do all my readers, and I shall agree to disagree with you – gently.
In my opinion she is turning into a toady, and perhaps for self-preservation, but she caves in to Lady CdeBs ego, nevertheless. The whole situation sticks in Lizzy’s craw, as in mine, and I suspect that Charlotte throughout her marriage to Mr. Collins will be required to make many decisions that has her deferring to this domineering woman. Still, you touched upon some good points.
I didn’t think Charlotte changed into a toady after her marriage. I thought she continued to see the world, and her husband & Lady CdeB especially, through a satirical lens, & to know them for what they were. But to survive in their world, of course she had to parrot the greasy compliments dished up by her toadying husband, and convince Lady CdeB of her obsequiousness. Remember the scene where she tells Lizzy that Mr. Collins spends a great deal of his time in the garden, while she stays in the house sewing or other wifey chores. The look of quiet satisfaction on her face at this state of affairs says exactly what she thinks of Mr. Collins, & Lady CdeB by extension.
Oh, but Charlotte has choice. Had Lady CdeB herself stopped at the gate, she would have been obligated to go outside and greet her patroness. But Lady Anne? She could have let Mr. Collins scrape and bow all he wanted, and stayed inside the house with Lizzy to share some double entendre observances. She did not.
My younger self would have agreed with you, for I have liked Charlotte for many a year, but my jaded older self is starting to see her in a slightly different light.
Still, you make a good point about her sarcasm as she describes her choice for a sitting room, and I shall agree to disagree with you – gently.
[” Despite a lack of choice, there were standards to be maintained and Mr. Collins is as low down the status totem pole as Lady CdeB can go.”]
Exactly how low do you mean? After all, Mr. Collins, as Mr. Bennet’s heir and kinsman, was a member of the upper-classes.
Well, yes, he is a gentleman who will eventually come into an inheritance, but he won’t have it any time soon, so he must make do with the living, which makes him the equal of Mr Bennet and Rev Austen. I can’t’ imagine her inviting someone lower in station to dine and play cards. She’s too full of her self-importance.
I think the gentry regarded each other, as a matter of both good manners and the practical necessity to have someone to relate to, as social equals when they met to dine or ride to hounds, etc. but were particular as to which of them their children was allowed to marry. Money was supposed to marry money and mostly did and so the welfare and prosperity of the next generation and the continuation of the name and status of the family were assured.
Remember also that society was dynamic: family fortunes were rising and falling all the time so that snobbery and exclusiveness were constantly assailed by chance and social change.
Lady CdeB must have in part been taken from life, I think, but I haven’t read any suggestion as to the original.
I also am more sympathetic toward Charlotte than you.
“I also am more sympathetic toward Charlotte than you.”
I understand, Chris. And appreciate your stopping by. I am not wholly condemning Charlotte, simply pointing out a fault. She had a choice by drawing a line in the sand at Anne de Bourgh’s appearance. Why kowtow to her?
Enjoying the P&P post, but I also must disagree with your interpretation of Charlotte. Like another reviewer said, she is simply making the best of a less than ideal circumstance. When she refers to CdeB as a respectable and sensible woman, it seems she is referring to a local shopkeeper’s wife, not a grand dame! Surely Charlotte’s comments damn Lady Catherine with faint praise.
I’m on Charlotte’s side. She was bound by the conventions of the time to defer to her husband in public, but I felt she had still managed to retain a little independence and dignity. It is, of course, another piece of clever writing on Austen’s part that we can read this in more than one way.
“clever writing on Austen’s part that we can read this in more than one way.”
I agree, Rob. While I always looked favorably on Charlotte, I never found her an overly interesting character other than in her tiny rebellion in finding a way to live at Hunsford and retain her sanity in her own living space. Perhaps “toady” is the word that people dislike. I am also beginning to understand that her character is widely loved, for even this small criticism in a long article seems to have hit a nerve.
But Charlotte, within this narrow confine, does have some choice. She does not need to go outside to greet Anne. She can leave that up to her husband. Early in the novel, when Charlotte and Lizzy were close friends, they frequently held intimate conversations and were free with their opinions, especially about Mr. Darcy.
After Charlotte’s announcement of her engagement, except for the living situation in Hunsford, the two friends are no longer intimate and their closeness has been broken. After the Lucases leave Hunsford, Austen does not take the opportunity to let us go inside Charlotte’s head about her true feelings for Lady CdeB, which we could have discovered if Austen had created a confidential conversation between the two friends. But this doesn’t happen. So we are forced to assume much about Charlotte’s feelings and motivations.
In olden times, Lizzy would have told Charlotte about Mr. Darcy’s proposal and his letter, but she reserves this confidence for her sister Jane only, which shows how much their friendship has changed! So, yes, putting a different spin on things, I think that Charlotte has surrendered something of herself in exchange for her new life. She is making the best of things, but, oh, I would love to have heard her confide her opinion of that dragon lady to Lizzy.
“I would love to have heard her confide her opinion of that dragon lady to Lizzy.” Me, too! That would make for a fascinating conversation.
I enjoyed reading your analysis of Lady Catherine. Great point about how we first hear her speak when Mr. Collins quotes her advice, and thus Austen builds our expectations long before we meet her.
Two friends and I (all in our 60s) decided to adopt nicknames for each other — as every inner 5th grader would do! I chose Lady Catherine for my “handle”, mostly because I just love her statement: “I MUST have my share in the conversation!”
This was an excellent post. I especially am grateful for your calling attention to the way we initially learn about CdeB. Mr. Collins’s behavior does a wonderful job of setting up how Elizabeth won’t play this role. I am reminded of Elizabeth’s comment to Darcy that he fell in love with her because “he was sick of civility, of deference of officious attention.”
However, I must add my voice to those protesting the description of Charlotte as a toady, especially based on her comment that CdeB is a “respectable, sensible woman and a most attentive neighbor.”
Directly after this statement of Charlotte’s (two paragraphs later) Elizabeth is reflecting on her first day at Hunsford…”in the solitude of her chamber had to meditate upon Charlotte’s degree of contentment, to understand her address in guiding, and composure in bearing with her husband, and to acknowledge that it was all done very well.”
“It was all done very well.” So, whatever we may think about Charlotte’s comment, Austen is not giving us any guidance to disapprove of her through Elizabeth’s judgment. I would point out, in addition, that Mr. Collins has just finished his customary lavish praise of CdeB, and as a wife of that time she can hardly contradict her husband (at least in public.)
As to standing out in the wind with Miss De Bourgh, that didn’t strike me as a particularly important indicator of character. The important point is that we don’t know how it happened that she went to see Miss De Bourgh. Perhaps Mr. Collins called his wife to join him or perhaps Miss De Bourgh herself asked for Charlotte, since she was issuing an invitation to dinner. We don’t know – but it’s not hard to imagine situations where, given the standards and expectations of the time, Charlotte would be obliged to go out to see Miss De Bourgh. I don’t think you can flatly say that she didn’t have to. Maybe she didn’t, maybe she did.
Less speculatively, Charlotte is not a free economic agent. She is dependent on her husband and he is dependent on the good will of Rosings, which won’t be in CdeB’s hands forever. Additionally, as their family grows, they may want a better parish or another living. It may not be especially attractive, but assuming she’s not just engaging in empty flattery but is sincere as she can be in the circumstances, taking an interest in the heir to Rosings is the politick thing to do. Does CdeB seem like the kind of lady who’d miss slights to her daughter?
At some point, to know if it’s really toadying or just discreet looking out for one’s interests, we’d have to see more of Charlotte’s behavior and/or have access to her thoughts and, as you note, we don’t have that once her engagement is announced.
I couldn’t find it in the text, but somewhere Elizabeth reflects on Charlotte’s description either of Rosings or Hunsford or her situation in general and describes it positively, but not in the raptures of Mr. Collins. Elizabeth says something along the lines of “it was Mr. Collins’s picture, rationally softened…” – the idea being, she presents it positively but without the syncophantish toadying of Mr. Collins. That seems to me to be how we’re supposed to see Charlotte’s conduct in general – and I think, despite some disagreements here and there – we’re on the same page on this – that Charlotte has made a decision based on pecuniary (some might say mercenary) needs and is doing the best she can with it.
I write all this, btw, not as a big fan of Charlotte – I don’t love the character. She’s always seemed a bit boring to me. However, I find even Austen’s judgment on her (conveyed through Lizzie) a bit harsh. Really, the Lucases weren’t rich at all, they had other children. Charlotte was an economic burden on her parents and had some kind of moral responsibility to not be a dependent forever. She didn’t want to face being a spinster depending on a sibling…she wasn’t beautiful, she didn’t have a great fortune. She married a fool (but a man society deemed respectable) and as far as we know, made the best of it. Let her be!
(P.S. sorry for the length of this comment – and I agree with those who have said that it’s a tribute to Austen that we can read the text with different impressions.)
“Miss Elizabeth has the makings of a mean girl….” You know, you’re right!
I had never specifically considered Austen’s literary skill in building our expectations of CdeB by leaving her out of the action so long and only providing others’ words about her. Thanks for your thoughts on that. Isn’t it the mark of a great novel that one can read it multiple times and still make “new” discoveries?