In chapter 19-32 of the book Pride and Prejudice, there are more characters being introduced and we can know more about what the author wants to show in the book, which is all about marriages, between the characters with complex relationships and emotions. Mr. Collins insists on his theory of marriage and tries to persuade Elizabeth to marry him. However, this failed, Elizabeth refused him, which made him must find somebody else to fulfill his dream, so he decided to persuade Charlotte by his good income, powerful neighbor, and future inheritance. It’s quite fortunate that Charlotte has a similar theory to him, and they quickly reach a consensus, and get married as they prefer. Still, their marriage has some impact on the Bennet family which forms some estrangement.
When introducing more characters, one of the characters that has a large impact on the relationship between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy is Mr. Wickham. Mr. Wickham is Mr. Darcy’s ‘friend’ before and is who Elizabeth really admires in the beginning of the story, believing he’s the perfect gentleman. Elizabeth’s prejudice to Mr. Darcy is building up from the lies of Mr. Wickham and his ‘fake’ gentlemanlike poise. “I have spent four days in the same house with him and I think him very disagreeable”, enhance the misunderstanding between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy of being always supercilious and self-conceited by Mr. Wickham’s biased paraphrasing. The reason for Mr. Wickham behaves like this if he wants to be rich, to be in a higher status. All his adventures of love, for example with Miss King, are all looking for how much interest he can earn from the marriage, showing his greediness. He even makes up lies of his friend to make Elizabeth approve of him, and it really works in the beginning, but leads to the loathing of him at the end. Therefore, love is blind doesn’t mean you can't see the love, but the truth is being deceived by and enjoying the false charm, and having prejudice against others, yet they don’t even exist, which means being fooled and blindfolded when seeking love.
In chapter 19-32, apart from the dispute between Mr. Darcy, Mr. Wickham, and Elizabeth, the marriage of Mr. Collins and Charlotte is also thought-provoking. Both Mr. Collins and Charlotte have some connection with the Bennet family. Mr. Collins is a distant relative of the Bennet family, and Charlotte is Elizabeth's best friend. Their marriage for the Bennet family is somehow being influenced and has some undesirable consequences. In the book, it’s quite obvious about Mr. Collins’s stupidity that he lacks dimensionality, from his letters and words, only caring about wealth and power. He’s also being shown from his over-comical languages and society predicted behavior of eagerly showing off as a high-class gentleman. For Charlotte, from her communication with Elizabeth, we can know she’s very smart， intelligent, and sensible. She had planned for her marriage based on her appearance and family background, in which she can only marry someone who has some education and has a growing income in the future. The two thoughts from Mr. Collins and Charlotte shows that their marriage is only for benefits, which Mr. Collins exaggerate his advantages to find somebody with good family background to marry and Charlotte shield the stupidity of her husband and persuading herself that her happiness is based on her husband’s absence to maintain her social status in the upper social class. Thus, marriage is blind in Mr. Collins and Charlotte’s marriage is different with the one between Mr. Wickham and Elizabeth, it’s about disregarding their mate and feeling in the marriage and focusing on what they can get materially from the marriage, more for themselves than each other.
According to these two marriages and relationships, also their personalities showed, I strongly believe that marriage is something complicated and is worth deliberating for young people. Marriage, as we’ve always discussed in this book, has various theories and targets between the characters, with different purposes for the marriage. In the very beginning of the book, the favorable relationship between Jane and Mr. Bingley is noticeable, as is Elizabeth’s admiration to Mr. Wickham. As the story goes on, the marriage of Charlotte and Mr. Collins is worth to be deeply discussed and there’s a change of relationship and impression between Mr. Wickham, Mr. Darcy, and Elizabeth. These complex emotions and feelings all indicate people’s thoughts of marriage and the use of marriage in that era. Marriage during that time might not be like the ones today, usually about benefits and advantages, but not emotional support or love. It’s just a tool for maintaining their power and status. Just like how the ladies do in the story, love can be blind. They can ignore love and their appreciation to reach their target of having a better life. I’m not saying that this kind of thoughts are wrong, or it’ll be even better since material things are more constant than insubstantial feelings, but this also goes against the original intention of marriage, which is not acceptable for some people. Overall, marriage is something hard to have a uniform standard, that people have different views, and their choices might have influenced their whole life.
To conclude, as we continue reading, we can add more about marriage in this book. Not only the range of marriage becomes larger, but also the theory of marriage, the conjugal purpose, and the decision of marriage becomes more diverse and complicated. According to the marriage of Mr. Collins and Charlotte, there’s a great diversity with Elizabeth’s thoughts, and having a conflict with her to emphasize the belief of material life of them except emotions. Both love and marriage are blind, but they are ‘blind’ in different aspects: one is being fooled by the fake behaviors and make up words, and the other is overlooking their mate’s personalities and behaviors and only for substances. However, either love or marriage are blind to the characters being wrong, it’s just based on the principle of marriage.
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