Hero No. 1

What is it about Darcy that we would not recognise him by any other name? Put Ma Bennet in a sleepy provincial town in north India. Have her...

Written by Mini Kapoor

October 10, 2004 12:00 AM IST

4 min read

What is it about Darcy that we would not recognise him by any other name? Put Ma Bennet in a sleepy provincial town in north India. Have her collect greeting cards, and scan the countryside for suitable boys for her daughter. Call her Rupa Mehra, as Vikram Seth did. But we will hark right back to Jane Austen. Transport Elizabeth to our obsessive times. Substitute her solitary turns in the neighbourhood park with hysterical outpourings in her diary, and leave her to make sense of turn-of-the-century London8217;s manners and sensibilities. Call her Bridget Jones, but we will recognise Lizzy beneath those 20 pounds of extra fat.

Since it was published in 1813, Pride and Prejudice has always been part of the popular canon. Now, as it comes to us once again, Bollywoodised, presumably with Anu Malik8217;s score giving an edge to Austen irony, perhaps with Amritsar8217;s appetite for dance and social mobility via matrimony amplifying the twin concerns in the original, the rechristening is inspired. Aishwarya Rai8217;s Elizabeth is Lalita Bakshi. Mr Bingley, that single man in possession of a good fortune, therefore in want of a wife, is Mr Balraj. Darcy too has changed. All those conscience pangs about 19th century aesthetes8217; 8220;ten thousand a-year8221; being creamed off slave-driven West Indian estates have warranted a change of occupation. In Chadha8217;s telling, he is an American hotelier 8212; still rich, of course, and equally disdainful of the woman who8217;ll one day be his. And he8217;s still Darcy. As was the smouldering hero in Bridget Jones8217;s Diary, remember.

Along with the immutatability of his name, is Darcy8217;s enduring presence in any listing of women8217;s idea of an ideal man. Just the other day a poll reconfirmed it. Darcy8217;s irreplicability is not without reason. From the moment he appears at a dance in the early pages of Pride and Prejudice, and destroys all the mothers8217; evolving thoughts about his suitability with atrocious behaviour, with contempt and booming dismissals of Lizzy, till the time he charges the narrative with the most offensive proposal in the history of the English novel, his allure is established.

From there it8217;s downhill for him. It is not for nothing that First Impressions was Austen8217;s working title for the first draft of the book. Nothing in Pride and Prejudice is what it seems. Mrs Bennet is the actual heroine. The concerns of the book8217;s denizens are deceptive in their frivolity. As critic Lionel Trilling wrote in a famous essay: 8220;Austen is the first novelist to represent society, the general culture, as playing a part in the moral life, generating the concepts of 8216;sincerity8217; and 8216;vulgarity8217; which no earlier time would have understood the meaning of, and which for us are so subtle that they defy definition, and so powerful that none can escape their sovereignty.8221;

Every situation, every encounter is fraught with the burden of assessment, of silent tests one must pass in accordance with the rules one has chosen to live by. Darcy passes, yes. But as Elizabeth finds, his success has much to do with the manner in which cast him. Darcy is restored as a big catch, with his handsome looks and ample fortunes, only upon her testimony. At the end, when all is resolved, she must bite back a witty observation, cautioning herself that 8220;he had yet to learn to be laughed at, and it was rather too early to begin8221;.

Darcy is hero number one, but he only has moments.

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