Wednesday, September 29, 2010
DW Harding: Is Collins funny or a nightmare?
Ostensibly, Collins, while an ignorant pest, is just a care-free and harmless sub-character whos purpose is nothing more than to simply drive the story and provide a little bit of comic relief; however, at second glance, Collins represents a much less benign portion of society and provides a potentially petulant vehicle for Austen's satire. Collins' actions are not regarded as out of the ordinary and indeed is usually motivated by social norms, which, if read from the perspective of someone in the middle to upper class of early 19th Century society, would simply be seen as comedy through exaggeration and not given any deeper thought. Moreover, To a citizen of the 19th Century society depicted in Pride & Prejudice, Collins is nothing more than a plot device. Yet, from a modern perspective, which, due to Austen's very progressive characterization of characters like Elizabeth is very likely one that Austen herself intended, Collins is a nightmare; he is a danger. Collins represents the male aristocratic sense of entitlement especially that of first-born children.
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I agree with your viewpoint. I also see that can be two ways of looking at Pride and Prejudice, both from a modern and 19th Century perspective. How one intreprets the novel from either standpoint, I think, is dependent on one's own values in which a deeper understanding may or may not be taken. An amateur more modernistic perspective can be taken by reading on the surface and categorizing Collins as a funny character. Or a more sophistocated perspective, which to me is what resembles the early 19th Century judgments, can be taken which, like you said, regards Collins as a predictable and necessary character in the story.
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