Elizabeth plays a significant role in the construction of the masculinity since she is the mouthpiece of Jane Austen. Darcy changes according to the desire of Elizabeth. Some critics, like Jocelyn Harris, argue that Elizabeth’s early hatred of Darcy is a strong emotion akin to love and Elizabeth re-reads Darcy’s letter several times in order to enflame her hatred.
Jane Austen introduces Elizabeth as the prototype of women during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Elizabeth speaks her mind decidedly. She is unwilling to bend to the rules of the society. She challenges Mr. Collins, Darcy and Lady Catherine de Bourgh as representative of the society in order to gain her rights and autonomy. Elizabeth challenges the norms of the patriarchal society. She is effective in impacting gender inequality in her society. Elizabeth is the icon of Austen. Austen refuses the proposals of many gentlemen of her time asserting her a new feminine identity. Alexander Welsh argues that Austen reads marriage as a metaphor for self-knowledge. Austen understands masculinity different from those men of the Victorian England. The same case is with her “delightful character” Elizabeth. Elizabeth is subverting the male dominated society when she alters Mr. Darcy’s character to make his manners match her own. She is not like Caroline Bingley, Jane and Charlotte who portray conventional women respectful of social hierarchy. They stand for stereotypes of traditional women of marriageable age who change themselves in the pursuit of a husband.
Elizabeth’s refusal of Darcy’s first proposal marks a turning point in the construction of Darcy’s new masculinity. After the first proposal Austen shifts her focus to Elizabeth. The new techniques of constructing his masculinity are based on the desire and need of Elizabeth. Austen gives Elizabeth more ways to construct Darcy’s masculinity and to snatch a new identity for her in Victorian period. One of the fundamental aspects of Austen’s unique brand of masculinity is that it is always based on woman’s needs and desires. Her novel accordingly requires what Sarah Ailwood terms a “social construction of gender”; one that requires greater equality between men and women. This reformation of gender roles necessarily facilitates the need for the development of a “new woman” who is able to enter into a marriage of equals and who can maintain an effective but loving household. It also requires the development of a “new man” able to respond, as Ailwood suggests, to woman’s need for equality, social and political participation and for mutual respect that leads to understanding. Jane Austen invents a world in which both men and women must co-exist in order to function and to facilitate each other’s development.
Elizabeth’s questioning Darcy’s masculinity haunts him even more than her rejection of his emotions. His love for Elizabeth inspires him to mould himself to what Elizabeth desires in a partner. Darcy responds to the woman he loves an arguably very modern ability to be found in a nineteenth century man. Elizabeth is in love from the outset because she shows all signs of erotic love towards Darcy. She is endlessly interested in him inspired and incited. She cannot stop herself and speaking to him whenever there is an opening. Elizabeth’s feeling towards Darcy is developed step by step as Darcy’s change is developed step by step. Finally, they reach a moment of mutual desirableness. Elizabeth encounters three proposals; two out of which she has refused, that is, Collin’s proposal and Darcy’s first proposal; and the third she accepts because it fulfils her desires and rights as a woman.
The role of Elizabeth is unquestionable in Darcy’s construction of masculinity. Sarah Ailwood states: “the fact that Elizabeth is the catalyst for Darcy’s change is made explicit; is made after their engagement. She adds that having described his deficient education and upbringing, Darcy exclaims:
Such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.
Pride and Prejudice (p.325-6)
Ailwood considers that Elizabeth the catalyst to change Darcy. However, she is more than a catalyst because the catalyst does not change at the end. This is because Elizabeth undergoes finally great change to find her partner at the end of the novel. Her change is a leading factor to change Darcy’s behaviour. The catalyst is only her eye which inflames his heart and enforces him to read their fine expression. Her body, her love and her gaze are her tools that enforce him to forget about his feeling of superiority and to have feeling of equality. Darcy who thinks of himself, as Judith Wilt puts it as set and finished, is “astounded to find in Elizabeth another chapter yet to go in the story of his life”. Thus, Elizabeth is the vital chapter in the construction of his masculinity and gentlemanliness in his life.
Elizabeth has witnessed a crucial change same as that of Darcy’s. After Elizabeth has rejected Darcy’s proposal, his explanatory letter causes her to recognize her own headstrong errors. This letter is the turning point in Elizabeth’s change. She starts to lessen her prejudices about him and to come to an equal area where both of them construct a new form of masculinity as well as femininity. Masculinity can never exist apart from femininity. It will always be a demonstration of the current image that men have of themselves in relation to women. The role of Darcy’s letter on Elizabeth is equal to the role of Elizabeth’s rejection of proposal on Darcy. After reading the letter, Elizabeth experiences many conflicted feelings. The moment in which Elizabeth reads Darcy’s letter and changes her opinion of him. She begins reading Darcy’s letter “With a strong prejudice against everything he might say” Pride and Prejudice (p.182). Finally, she turns inward to perceive the change she has gone through: “She grew absolutely ashamed of herself. Of neither Darcy nor Wickham could she think, without feeling that she had been blind, partial, prejudiced, absurd” Pride and Prejudice (p.185). She feels regret because of her prejudice that prevents her to live a wonderful life with the man she loves and her misunderstanding of Darcy’s real character. Elizabeth’s visit to Pemberly lets her come closer to understand the real character of Darcy.
Jane Austen uses narrative techniques to show how Elizabeth constructs Darcy’s masculinity. She uses Elizabeth’s gaze and her body to objectify Darcy. The second half of the novel reveals that. Austen makes both Elizabeth and Darcy change. Darcy gazes at Elizabeth as well as Elizabeth gazes at Darcy. However, Elizabeth enjoys the art of gazing during his absence. This is done through his estate of Pemberly and through his portrait. Elizabeth’s pleasure in looking at Pemberly is like Darcy’s pleasure in looking at her; that is why Austen states that Elizabeth delighted. In the construction of Austen’s new masculinity she gives her men and women equal gender roles. Both Darcy and Elizabeth run away of their pride and prejudice, and finally come to one area which is of mutual understanding and respect.
Pride and Prejudice shows a breakdown of Darcy’s pride and Elizabeth prejudice. Both of them have experienced a total metamorphosis in their personality towards self-recognition. Darcy attributes the change in his manners wholly to Elizabeth saying “you taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous… You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased” (p.326). At the end, Elizabeth changes her mind and has removed her prejudice about Darcy. Thus, she finds him the most desirable gentleman. Finally, Darcy proposes to Elizabeth:
“You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject forever.” Pride and Prejudice (p.323)
Elizabeth, in turn, gave “him to understand that her sentiments had undergone so material a change” (323). Jane Austen makes Darcy and Elizabeth change to fulfil the needs and desires of each other. This change makes Darcy discover his masculine identity in Elizabeth. Elizabeth, as well, discovers her feminine identity in Darcy. At that moment of self-realization, both Darcy and Elizabeth experience a moment of total involvement and power. So, “they walked without knowing in what direction”. Austen focuses on the emotional direction rather than the natural direction. This is because “there was too much to be thought, and felt, and said for attention to any other object” (323). The new masculinity and gentlemanliness constructed by Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice seems to be totally different from that of the Victorian period. In this new masculinity there is no gender barrier between Darcy and Elizabeth. There is total annihilation of gender and class division between the two. At this moment, there is no barrier between time and place as well. That is why “they walked without knowing in what direction”. Darcy’s masculine identity annihilates into Elizabeth’s feminine identity. As a result of this, they are living a moment of “peace restoration”.
In Austen’s new masculinity in Pride and Prejudice, Darcy is void from his earlier hegemonic masculinity and altogether renders himself to Elizabeth. Darcy becomes so gentleman that the readers can see the difference between the Darcy of the ball in Meryton and the Darcy of the second proposal. Darcy changes his manner to match the manners of Elizabeth. Being agreeable, sociable and desirable is considered to be of masculine power women look for. In this new masculinity, Elizabeth Bennet proves herself to be Darcy’s intellectual equal not inferior to him on any account. She accepts him because she does not feel that she is no longer subordinate to him. Though this is indeed the situation women find themselves in during the eighteenth century England. Through Elizabeth, Austen provides clues to her dissatisfaction with the limitations imposed by the society. It is the society that puts Darcy in a place of social superiority and Elizabeth in a place of social inferiority. So, the feeling of human Equality is a key feature of the idea of desirable man in the eyes of Elizabeth and the feminist Austen.