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That's the objective truth, everyone tries to marry Darcy because of his money and status, but Elizabeth doesn't because of what he did to her sister and what she thinks he did to mr Wickham, as well as because he insulted her when they met

Yeah, I guess. It’s just interesting to me how I saw this now but as a 16 year old I probably didn’t notice it. As a character, it probably would have been boring if Lizzie didn’t have a single flaw.

Do you think he did like her cause she was impertinent?

Truthfully I think most women have some "not like other girls" thoughts sometimes, although I think it's more common when we're younger. But yeah, even though Lizzie is "prejudice" and Darcy is "pride", I think they both display a good amount of the other's main character flaw. Lizzie is quite proud of her intellectual superiority, and that comes out quite a few times in the novel.

As for craftiness being portrayed negatively, that's just a product of the time, I think. I think when reading Austen, people need to keep in mind that she wasn't some kind of revolutionary seeking to change the status quo. The reason for her longevity in pop culture is based more on her brilliant and timeless satirization of human nature and hypocrisy. As a result, even though I love her work and still think it's relevant, I do think some of the morals, attitudes, and customs in her novels will be a bit jarring to modern readers.

I think he liked her as a person in general, if she had been considering him as a potential partner she might have been slightly less insulting to him and therefore less witty. Maybe her cutting wit was what it took to push him over the edge of wanting to marry someone without the right social status, or maybe he would have liked her enough no matter what. Hard to tell what would have happened

> Truthfully I think most women have some "not like other girls" thoughts sometimes, although I think it's more common when we're younger. But yeah, even though Lizzie is "prejudice" and Darcy is "pride", I think they both display a good amount of the other's main character flaw. Lizzie is quite proud of her intellectual superiority, and that comes out quite a few times in the novel.

Yes, I think with Lizzie I mostly read it as this. I think Austen also amuses herself (and us) with really silly characters like Mr. Collins and Mrs. Bennet, so it doesn’t seem out of place to feel superior to them. But in this passage, it came off as weird.

>As for craftiness being portrayed negatively, that's just a product of the time, I think. I think when reading Austen, people need to keep in mind that she wasn't some kind of revolutionary seeking to change the status quo. The reason for her longevity in pop culture is based more on her brilliant and timeless satirization of human nature and hypocrisy. As a result, even though I love her work and still think it's relevant, I do think some of the morals, attitudes, and customs in her novels will be a bit jarring to modern readers.

Ahh, I like this take on it. I think I got swept away and forgot that Austen wasn’t trying to instigate a revolution.

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Oh my gosh I was finishing up Pride and Prejudice yesterday and I also noticed this! I think that’s just how things were back then, but I thought it was interesting that the idea of being “not like other girls” has been around in some form or another for so long!

I liked @mikarala’s take on it. It gives some perspective.

I don’t think it would fly in today’s culture. Though, I just realised that Lizzie also had relationships with Jane and Charlotte which were founded on mutual respect, so it’s probably more complicated than that.

I’m not like other girls behaviour is something that we grow out of at some point :) she would have been slightly boring if we were all praise for Lizzie all the time.

I agree with you- she definitely knows she’s an intelligent and attractive young woman, “my beauty you had early withstood,” and she’s proud of that fact (it can be seen in the way she talks about her mother and her younger sisters). She is so confident and fearless. But she is just too likeable a character to hold it against her- and becomes aware of her own/her family’s faults and is able to admit that- well that makes for a pretty great character.

Elizabeth really give us one of the best heroines in literature! I don’t think I’ve liked one better, so maybe she actually is not like other girls 😳🤌🏼✨

This is a very good way to put it.

I disagree...I think it's about class. Not because there are not women like Elizabeth. To phrase it shortly...there weren't women like Elizabeth...in the same class as Darcy, they were not taught to be educated and independent minded. They were taught to agree with their husband, play music, be beautiful, and be docile but competitive to their own sex to defend the reputation of their husbands. Lizzy knows this, she knows why she is a fish out of water, and she points this out to Darcy in a veiled demeaning statement about his "friends".

That the circumstance of womenhood that I imagine Austen was critiquing in her own life was just something predictably not Lizzy. I don't think she saw herself as anything but another middle income girl who read a lot of books probably at the end of her families wealth climb and her sister hopefully marrying someone rich so she can be prosperous. She likely does not feel she has value outside her intelligence due to the shadow of her sister and the way society sees them. I don't think she thinks she is "not like other girls" but she knows Darcy doesn't have the chance to be around other girls....and her breed in general IS RARE...because of the state of opinion at the time around women and education.

Whereas I think the modern context of "not like other girls" is just different. It's not about class, it's about narcissism and lack of awareness, in a time period where MOST GIRLS in the context these women are "othering" themselves...are very much just like them, only aesthetically chose something else. IE: Anime instead of Reality tv, books instead of social skills, etc. Generally superficial things that don't denote intelligence or substance of person.

I think she merely mentions women in the context of courting not as if other women are different. She's specifically assuming he's only courted other rich women from established families who were groomed in a manner as objects to be used as currency in familial exchanges and made to be desirable in obtuse ways...flattery and charisma over intelligence, wit, and tact.

Elizabeth is from a minor family...her parents didn't intend or teach her to flatter and kowtow to men because they have a different context and she wouldn't gain much of it and they really didn't NEED her to be anything, they had MANY daughters. Hence, she assumes Darcy likely has never interacted with a women like her because he likely doesn't talk to lower class people AND CERTAINLY would not ever be assumed to be courted by anyone but someone close to his class and stature...let alone a women who was allowed into her fathers study to educate herself.

She was born in a house of women and not the eldest of middle income (possibly lower-middle even though the middle class barely existed and wealth disparity and lifestyle between "upper" and "lower" was an insurmountable chasm). Their family didn't raise her in that way and allowed her the rights of a man (to read and enjoy education fully) because the rules of society really didn't much apply to them in the same way with the same weight. So to meet a girl like her was likely exceedingly rare for Darcy and hence his general distaste and distrust in their initial encounters. He's jaded. She knows it.

Remember though, Elizabeth didn't flatter Darcy because she disliked him. She was often trying to make him angry; she wasn't trying to be different.

She's almost saying that he likes being insulted 😅

I understand how you might see it that way but I don't think I ever did. To me, it's another example of Lizzie understanding Darcy's circumstances in a way other's didn't or wouldn't, which was presumably part of why he was attracted to her. She got right away how annoying it must be to be surrounded by sycophants. She misinterpreted his reactions to those circumstances in the beginning (hence the story), but she "got" the situation.

She's not talking about superiority over other women, just the insincere social climbers who a person in Darcy's position would naturally find himself surrounded by.

Agreed. I love P&P, but sometimes feel that Lizzie is too perfect. I’ve grown more fond of Austen’s later characters, Emma and Anne Elliot.

I think he was attracted to her first and foremost because she wasn't intimidated by him, and she wasn't coyly trying to "catch" him. She wasn't afraid to speak her mind to him because she wasn't interested in him as a potential partner. It freed her up to be herself and as a result she was more genuine than a lot of women in his sphere who had "set their caps for him," so to speak, (aka, Miss Bingley.) There was no pretention with Elizabeth. She let him see exactly who she was. It made their eventual romance so much more satisfying because it was based on who the two of them really were, and not any kind of pretense or façade that courting often creates and encourages.

I mean, I don't think Elizabeth ever claims to be completely different from all other women. She's saying that in this one specific area she was different from many of the women of Darcy's acquaintance. She has reason to think that women have treated him this way because she watched Miss Bingley do exactly that. And of course, he was indifferent to Miss Bingley, despite her being attractive and intelligent and his best friend's sister. Really, Elizabeth's point is not really even about herself. She's making a point about Darcy, that despite his apparent pride, he actually didn't like to be flattered all the time. He chose the woman who didn't flatter him over the women who did, because he actually does value sincerity and like to be challenged--that's the point.

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Compare Lizzy to Caroline Bingley. Lizzy can be seen as valuing herself. Caroline seems to only display her value in a narrow role capped by matrimony. I agree that Lizzy is not like other women we meet in the novel.

No, this seems like an observation of a guy's behavior, not a statement of her own. It's true that people are often attracted to people they can't have, so probably she's just saying he's doing that.

I wouldn’t say I agree with this interpretation - I think it’s equivalent to saying that when Elizabeth looks down on her younger sisters for being flighty/etc, it’s a “not like other girls” thing. But it’s not that, she just… correctly thinks her sisters are flighty/etc.

I guess it depends on how you understand “not like other girls.” Imo that implies a girl who’s trying to say she’s “one of the guys”, smarter/less shallow that all the other girls around her, has more “valid” priorities than the girls around her, etc. Lizzie… would never have been able to present herself as one of the guys even if she wanted to.

I think that quote is more about how Darcy would be surrounded by people who wanted to butter him up to take advantage of his wealth. Obviously in a marriage context all the people doing that would be women, which is why Elizabeth would have stood out because she acted differently than them. However, Darcy was also surrounded by men that wanted to take advantage of his wealth - for example, Wickham. But in a specifically marriage-centric context, Wickham and other men were irrelevant. Similarly I would say Wickham could be considered socially “crafty” - but as with the women that quote is alluding to, it’s not presented positively.

Idk I get what you’re saying but I think one of the things Austen does really well is show how the complicated social norms of interaction encouraged “social craftiness” but it’s actually better if people, both women and men, can just be honest with each other - but of course even social pressure aside that’s very hard for Austen’s characters to do.

I’ve always taken that particular passage as lovey dovey talk between two people who finally come together.

Personally, I was disappointed by Elizabeth when she tells Jane that she dates her love of Darcy to when she saw his beautiful grounds at Pemberly.

I wholly agree with you that it certainly sours me to Elizabeth, that not as a woman who loved a man for growing and changing and holding himself accountable by her standards, but that it’s very much cannon that she was utterly and overwhelmingly was falling in love when she visited his estate. But I also believe (maybe wrongly) that’s it’s what she sees there, not the material wealth, but the exact items she gazed upon that changes her mind about his wealth. Sort of like you deciding to donate to a philanthropist irregardless of his mansion, but because within it contain photos of the people and the causes they helped found and flourish.

I always thought that Elizabeth meant that as a joke.

I don't understand why "I'm not like other girls" is criticized so much. It is a real thought that plagues many people. A writer like Jane Austen who was a genius at nuanced observations won't be dishonest with her writing.

And this is the one thing I feel amiss among genre romance readers. They seem to restrict the creativity of writers too much with idiotic shackles.

I think that it is pointless to speculate on whether or not Darcy actually liked Elizabeth, because for all that Jane Austen is a brilliant satirist, she has no idea about how male attraction works and so none of the scenes which include Darcy have him come across as a real and functional man.

Not that any other women romance writer I have read is any better.

You've definitely got an interesting discussion on here, do you mind if I crosspost to r/PrideandPrejudice?

Pride and Prejudice is always going to be hailed as one of the best novels. There is something about the writing which helps it remain fresh after all these years.

It's the truth though, it's not that she was unarguably special, but she did not act like the other girls for Darcy. I think it's a silly thing to be mad about.

P&P isn’t a romance novel, by our standards or back then either (it was and is a satire). The focus is on the social maladies even to the people who ascribe to them, that occur when one adheres to the social norms and how quite comical it can be when one chooses not to adhere to them, by just how silly and “romanticized” it can get.

That said, I don’t believe and didn’t read that passage as a “I’m not like other girls”, but more of “look how much he doesn’t think of me like the ones who approach him!” By now, Darcy has been SHOWN how judgmental he can be, and this scrutiny isn’t one based on sex (though we find that out later); but one based on pure character. Not even personality. If anything, he holds even his own little sister to this unspoken and private standard, one that is eventually shared with Elizabeth later in the novel. I believe one can fall for the setup of his pride, that Austen adopts. And read even into Elizabeth, our own sense of pride against Elizabeth’s prejudice.

I always thought of it as a joking/not joking. That it’s a sad fact of their family finances really. Just always disappointing to me.

It sounds more like she's dissing that he's rich. Basically, that other girls have to be nice to him because he has to power to ruin their reputation and their chance at getting a decent marriage -- something their livelihoods often depend on. If he wasn't rich, those girls would treat him as a rude and arrogant man (which isn't exactly untrue at that point in the story) and dismiss him.

That is also how his relative Lady Catherine behaves -- she has the power to ruin someone's livelihood if they displease her.

And also accusing him of having a "poor rich man" complex, and I guess she suspects him of pursuing her simply for sport. It was quite common for wealthy men to have mistresses before they got married.

So it is kind of a "not like other girls" but that's because a lot of other girls don't have the luxury of telling it like it is, so she's more saying, "I am just saying what other girls would say if their situations weren't dependent on finding a rich husband."

I’ve also seen a more academic critique where the author suggested that part of her saying that about Pemberley was that despite the fact that the grounds are massive and the house one of wealth, the grounds were not over-maintained…they weren’t made into follies or fake paths; they were maintained as a natural setting, and Pemberley wasn’t overly ostentatious for its wealth (Elizabeth comments on this in the book); meaning that Darcy has good sense about natural spaces and about wealth that she might not have appreciated at first, but when we saw Pemberley, it showed he did not try to basically be as bling-y as possible. (I think the mention by Elizabeth is at the beginning of book 3).

She meant more how well he manages the property and how his servants think well of him. That's also when she first sees him with Georgiana, when his defensive guard is down.

While I think that makes sense, I also think it doesn't seem that much to me like "a sense of superiority over other women". Like... She's kinda right, no? Darcy is kind of disdainful of people who want his approval, because they must be after his money or something. See also, Wickham, who is not a woman, IIRC.

Lizzie kinda hates his guts at this point no? So she can't possibly be after his money, which means that... He can trust her opinions to have something other than greed behind them. Most of Lizzie's experiences re:"people who want Darcy's approval" is women, the shit with Wickham happened off-screen in the backstory, so that's kind of the whole sample she's working with.

Also, sidenote, I get that a lot of people have the "not like other girls" thing going on as a function of blindness to the depth and personhood of the women around them. And that is indeed bad. However, I find it frustrating that the vilification of internalized misogyny and the dehumanization of gender-conforming women seems to be coming at the expense of acknowledging like... the legit isolation that GNC women, gifted women, and women who are otherwise standing apart from the norm tend to experience.

Like, Lizzie is very different from most of the girls and women around her, she has a stronger relationship with her father than her sisters seem to, she is less interested in marriage and social maneuvering, she is out of step with her society and what it expects of her. And... When men are like that, that's kind of a good thing, no? Like, Hiccup in How To Train Your Dragon is not like the men around him, nor is Hamilton in Hamilton, nor is Captain America. It's a very standard male protagonist thing.

Shouldn't it be okay for a female character to also... just be different? And have enough observational skills and introspection to know it and remark on it?

I get that when male protagonists are different, that's a source of insecurity they must overcome, and when female protagonists are different, that's a source of pride, because of the relative standings the two cohorts have in a sexist society. But that's not going to change if we just... Decide to hold in disdain any female character who is different from other people along some notable axis and is aware of it.

That’s slightly unfair to lizzie cause although she undergoes a material change after she sees pemberly, it’s also after she read his letter and realised she’d misread the situation. I think her feelings change because she can see his efforts to engage with her when she meets him again and she’s touched that he would be so kind after she was so critical of him for a situation she knew nothing about.

Go ahead! I’d love seeing different tales come in from there :)

I’m not mad about it, I just want to understand it better.

In her defense, she WASN’T like other girls. It’s not an easy thing to be - different. In her case she met a well-to-do guy who liked her assertiveness and didn’t mind her coming from a poor family. And whom she was attracted to. Jane Austen herself wasn’t as lucky, and she spend the greater part of her short life enduring the disadvantages of being poor, eventually the daughter of a widow with very scarce means.

I disagree. We never see inside Darcy's head, we only ever see his attraction through the propriety of social constructs during that time. Maybe the first time he saw her, he thought she had a banging set of tits and had to fight most of the night to try and get a better glimpse down her dress, but the social mores of the time would have branded him as an outcast for even the hint of such behaviour. Wickham is the type to happily shag anything that moves, and seemingly has no compunction about stealing away impressionable teenage daughters for a bit of fun before promptly abandoning them. But during social engagements, he has utterly perfect manners and never a hint of this side of him comes through, for all it was obviously present within him. That's because, in that time period, unless you were fabulously (royalty level) wealthy, to do so would be a social death sentence.

I think what makes Lizzy so relatable is that she isn't a "perfect" person. She can be very judgmental, particularly of other women. I always think she was very harsh on Charlotte who had to make a cold blooded choice in order to secure her future. This was something a lot of women had to make as their options were so limited. I think Austin understood that.

Lizzy was a woman of intelligence and principle who had a relatively modern outlook for women and was trying to find her place in a world where this was actually a disadvantage.

So you're just going to reduce him to a different completely incorrect set of stereotypes?

Nah, it's in things like his first proposal. When he's talking about how he loves Elizabeth despite not liking her and being unable to think of anything else, that's a woman's fantasy not an actual man.

The book is called Pride and Prejudice. Darcy, the upper class, suffers from Prejudice, and Elizabeth, the middle/working class, suffers from Pride. It's a lovestory how Love overcomes these two vices in them, even though they clash and gives each other a bad first impression.

You could even argue that they fall in love with each other, because of the 2 vices. Pride loves Darcys prejudice, and prejudice loves Elizabeths pride. So is Elizabeth wrong? Does Darcy not love her, because of her passionate resentment at being looked down upon. But in the Lovestory, they both become the better person as love overcomes the vices, in the sense that 2 wrongs make a right, and that is why we love the story.

'“In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”
Elizabeth’s astonishment was beyond expression. She stared, coloured, doubted, and was silent. This he considered sufficient encouragement, and the avowal of all that he felt and had long felt for her immediately followed. He spoke well; but there were feelings besides those of the heart to be detailed, and he was not more eloquent on the subject of tenderness than of pride. His sense of her inferiority, of its being a degradation, of the family obstacles which judgment had always opposed to inclination, were dwelt on with a warmth which seemed due to the consequence he was wounding, but was very unlikely to recommend his suit.'

That's the most we get of his confession. I would note - her inferiority in this respect is the station of her birth - not of her as a person or her mind. Class structures in Britain dictated everything back then. We don't know what he lists as her positive qualities, because we know nothing of the actual speech he gave her, just that her station and family are an obstacle that he feels he's valiantly overcome.

Then again, maybe you have a deeper understanding of what the stuck-up noblemen of the early 1800s would have detailed in a love declaration, more than someone like Austin who grew up during that time period.

It's a side effect of her views on others. You might even call it her...pride and/or prejudice.

But wasn't that what was expected and pushed on the girls from a young age? The parents want the rise in social status and expect their children to fulfill that dream/expectation. That's how they were socialized. Comparing that with society's contrasting expectations of a women who should wear makeup and look like she's not at the same time which morphed into the NLOGs rejecting the same notion and feeling superior.

In this section, she's teasing/flirting with Darcy. Her statements shouldn't be taken seriously, certainly not seriously enough to call her out for having a character flaw like that.

There's a grain of truth there, Darcy didn't care for women like Ms. Bingley who tried to flatter his ego, and she probably was one of the first single women Darcy encountered who didn't do that. But I doubt she's seriously making general statements about women, and how she's special.

If you look at the men Darcy is friends with, his cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam and Bingley, neither of them hesitate to tease him (Bingley makes that joke about Darcy being a grump when he's bored and Fitwilliam laughs at his 'stupidity' when Darcy is being sullen). That is likely the personality type Darcy enjoys being around.

> I don't understand why "I'm not like other girls" is criticized so much

Have you heard of the term "female misogynist"? This is why it's criticized. Basically, women are conditioned to believe that we're in competition with each other over male approval, and the "I'm not like other girls" thought process serves to undermine and belittle other women's interests and accomplishments.

There are hints of “She’s/I’m not like other girls” throughout the whole book, the first time I noticed it was very early on, near the end of chapter 4 here:

"You are over scrupulous, surely. I dare say Mr. Bingley will be very glad to see you; and I will send a few lines by you to assure him of my hearty consent to his marrying whichever he chooses of the girls; though I must throw in a good word for my little Lizzy."

"I desire you will do no such thing. Lizzy is not a bit better than the others; and I am sure she is not half so handsome as Jane, nor half so good-humoured as Lydia. But you are always giving her the preference."

“They have none of them much to rec- ommend them,” replied he: "they are all silly and ignorant like other girls; but Lizzy has something more of quickness than her sisters."

It’s literally right there. I remember this well because I posted it on my instagram to point it out and talk about it with my friends.

Males have even more of an "I'm not like other guys" thought stream. They are as competitive trying to garner female approval or mate. It's a pretty natural evolutionary instinct while mating. Not conditioned at all. And seen in many other species.

It's just that nowadays it is a taboo for women to criticize other women or belittle them. An agenda driven censoring of your own feelings. It's natural for women to belittle each other. Its just social dynamics. Men tear each other to shreds without any social labelling.

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> Compare Lizzy to Caroline Bingley.

The entire quote that /u/nyanyaneko2 mentions is a thinly-veiled description of Caroline Bingley's behavior. Lizzy "pluralizes" the comment to make it less pointed and less mean. She's not intending to insult Caroline Bingley, rather to tease Darcy about all the attentions he received from her would be rival.

I don't think it's appropriate to think of it as truly a commentary on "other women" in general.

I agree that she does not intend to insult Caroline but rather how Austen, throughout the novel, paints Caroline and her cohorts as not being taught to think for themselves as Lizzy has. I would rather say she was not taught but by her parental neglect was allowed to read and think. I was not limiting myself to this one comment. Do you think that was /nyanyaneko2's intent?

I understand why you feel the way you do about Elizabeth's comment. It does come off as a bit superior, but I think it's important to remember that this was written in the 1800s and societal norms were much different than they are today. In that context, her comment can be seen as a sign of how she is trying to prove herself to Darcy and stand out from the other women who were courting him. That being said, I do agree with you that Greta Gerwig's adaptation of Little Women did an excellent job of showing how crafty and determined women of that period could be.

Yes exactly, particularly when it is being spoken about in a specific context where an observation has been made that other women in that situation behave differently. It doesn't mean that there are no other women like this, just that in a particular context a woman can stand out as different or unique. I often wonder why can't women notice that they stand out in a certain situation? It's just an observation. Likewise I think Elizabeth is merely expressing a thought from observing other women around Darcy and perhaps other men of a similar ilk at the time.

That's a good observation about his friends also being like that. Nice point.

>really silly characters like Mr. Collins and Mrs. Bennet, so it doesn’t seem out of place to feel superior to them. But in this passage, it came off as weird.

But that's a point in and of itself - shouldn't it feel weird, even when the person is a bit silly? Respectability has a lot of facets.

She’s making a little joke about Caroline Bingley (a woman she knew wanted to marry him) and how Caroline always treated him. She doesn’t single out Caroline by name but she’s sort of poking fun at her behavior and laughing at how Darcy was more attracted to her rudeness.

Pride? In Pride and Prejudice?

Everyone sucked up to Darcy because he was rich, but Elizabeth judged him by his attitude and behavior, not by his bank account. He wasn't used to that, it was unique in his experience. When she does start to like him its not (as she jokes when she tells Jane about her engagement) after she sees his beautiful grounds at Pemberly, but after he goes out of his way to help her family out of what was an embarrassing and potentially devastating - from a social point of view - situation.

I think she also started liking him after her misconceptions about wikhams narrative had been cleared and she was surprised at how well he treated her when she showed up at pemberly (she didn’t think she deserved his kindness and found it admirable that he would still be so friendly after she’d clearly been wrong)