I’m not ashamed to admit I love Jane Austen. I have long said that she originated (or at least made popular) two of the basic tropes of romance novels ever since, the enemies to lovers plot (Pride and Prejudice) and the second chance at love plot (Persuasion). So when someone writes a book whose thesis is that the archetype of Fitzwilliam Darcy, of Pride and Prejudice fame, has caused generations of people (especially but not exclusively women) to try to follow a toxic and even dangerous romantic pattern without even realizing that they’re doing so, I am DEFINITELY interested in reading the book, whether to argue with it or to find it surprisingly persuasive.
The book in question is The Darcy Myth: Jane Austen, Literary Heartthrobs and the Monsters They Taught Us to Love, by Rachel Feder, and I didn’t just read it, I devoured it in a couple of days. It’s great fun, and whether you’re a fan of Mr. Darcy or you loathe the whole concept of Jane Austen, you will find something to love in this book.
To begin with, the author is funny. She’s a professor of English literature, among other things, and if she had been a professor at my college, I would have definitely wanted to take her class just to enjoy her snarky take on things and the way she uses modern language (including four letter words, just to warn anyone who might expect a pure G-rated and esoterically academic discussion here) to describe, startlingly accurately, characters from Austen’s (and others’) literary worlds. You can hardly get through a page without a funny remark or a wisecrack, and that’s part of the charm of the book. The book is seeded with pop quizzes (“Are You in a Gothic Novel?”, “Are You Dating a Darcy?”, to name a couple), “Hottie Smackdown”s (Darcy v. Heathcliff), and frequent “Meet a Darcy”s, with the character’s name, love story, turn-ons, turn offs and a couple of paragraphs introducing you to the character and guessing why you might want this particular “Darcy,” like something out of a teen magazine.
But it’s not just snark, and it’s not superficial (nor is it excessively academic, so don’t be afraid of it on that count). The author knows her stuff, and she places Darcy in a historical and literary context that includes Gothic novels, horror novels, vampire novels (you may never see Darcy quite the same way once you’ve read about his connection to Lord Byron and the vampire novels at least partially inspired by him) and the like. She gives us the social background in which Pride and Prejudice exists, and the literary background which led Austen to write the kind of books she wrote.
Her thesis is that the arc of Darcy’s story, his being emotionally unavailable and pretty much a jerk to the main character at the beginning of the book, only to fall in love with the main character and ultimately to make a grand romantic gesture to show her his love (and that he’s changed) so the two of them can realize they’re soulmates and that they’re due a happily ever after, is ubiquitous in so many other romantic novels and romantic comedies. And this myth sells the idea that it’s a woman’s job to reform a would-be romantic partner who’s got all kinds of red flags, or even just someone who treats her badly or doesn’t respect her. It’s akin to, and probably related to, the thing parents (used to?) tell little girls when boys teased them, that “he’s doing it because he likes you.” Believing that someone who’s acting like a jerk may really be a romantic hero who can be reformed sets people up for heartache or worse. While I wouldn’t go so far as to call Darcy himself a monster, people who are monsters can look, at first glance, like a Darcy rather than a monster, and that’s a dangerous thing. If nothing else, the enemies to lovers trope, as exemplified by Darcy and Elizabeth, leads people to ignore their intuition that tells them from the first that there’s something wrong with this other person and they should drop them as soon as possible.
From The Bridgertons to Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, from Dracula to The Bachelor, from Gossip Girls to Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey, the author brings in all kinds of stories and archetypes and demonstrates how we have been seeing different versions of Darcy all over the place, to the point where we don’t even realize that’s what we’re seeing.
Because she’s not the kind of author who leaves her readers in a state of despair, the author also provides some ideas for how to break ourselves of the more pernicious aspects of the Darcy myth without losing the good stuff in the original Darcy (she admits that the scene where Darcy proposes to Lizzy the second time is wonderful and says, “So before we proceed, maybe we should indulge in a collective swoon”, and the next paragraph is just the word “Swoon”, bold and italicized).
If you’re ready for a provocative book that will make you think about the origins of some of our more culturally problematic behavior when it comes to relationships, but you don’t want to get too heavy about it, The Darcy Myth should be just what you’re looking for.
And now if you’ll excuse me, I think I need to go back and reread Pride and Prejudice for the umpteenth time.
Bookskill 