The Lust of Fitzwilliam Darcy

In Pride and Prejudice, how big of a factor did lust play in Darcy’s feelings for Elizabeth Bennet?

Consider Fitzwilliam Darcy as a man. He is healthy and vigorous, a man with normal desires. He is 28 at the beginning of the book so he is still youthful, but somewhat past his peak horndog years. He was undoubtedly also traumatized and disgusted by the excesses be observed in George Wickham during their university days, but I don’t think he is a total innocent. He’s very fastidious but I’m sure his cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam (and possibly his uncle the Earl, the Colonel’s father) saw to it that he was properly initiated by a high-end courtesan at some point, so he knows what’s what and where it goes. I just don’t think he has a lot of experience with women. I believe he felt that the self-help remedy was morally superior to his alternatives. He would not have been very comfortable in brothels, and he was far too serious about his responsibilities to trifle with housemaids. He didn’t want bastards running around either.

And I’m quite certain that Darcy knew he could have Caroline Bingley anytime he wanted, and probably just the thought of that was enough to cool his blood anytime that was needed (the way men in the 1950s thought about baseball batting averages). He was not interested in being bound to marry someone because he had compromised her.

Now let’s imagine what happened to Darcy when Elizabeth Bennet came into his orbit. He was in a shitty mood because he was just back from Ramsgate, where Wickham (fucking oversexed Wickham) had just come within a hair’s breadth of seducing his innocent kid sister and eloping with her. Ruining her. Having saved her he was relieved, but he was also angry, bitter, and not in the mood for a good time. In short, he was feeling even more antisocial and cynical than usual. He came to Hertfordshire only because he had promised Bingley he would. And then Bingley forces him (or guilts him) into going to a country assembly. He’s pissed off. He doesn’t want to meet, talk to, or dance with strangers. So without even really looking at Elizabeth he blows up at Bingley, insulting Elizabeth in the process, and even his normal good manners are not enough to keep his voice low enough to prevent her from hearing him.

Then he spends a few more days in the country. He loves the country, even though Hertfordshire isn’t Derbyshire. He rides and shoots and explores the area with Bingley, and he begins to relax a little. He goes out into company in smaller gatherings at private homes, and while he is still uncomfortable, at least he doesn’t shut down completely. And in the “confined and unvarying” local society of four-and-twenty families, he keeps running into Elizabeth at these gatherings.

He’s still a young guy, despite all his inhibitions, and he notices that she’s kind of hot.

She’s got a good body (all that walking!) and a lively personality, and oh those fine eyes.

So he starts hanging around her in what he imagines to be a discreet way, although she notices it, of course (and misattributes his motives for it), and she begins to tease him about it. Nobody has ever teased him before (with the possible exception of Colonel Fitzwilliam) and it throws him off balance. He begins to react to her instinctually, instead of through his veneer of control, and she gets under his skin enough that he even finds himself confiding his admiration of her to (of all people) Caroline Bingley!

“My dear Miss Eliza, why are not you dancing? — Mr. Darcy, you must allow me to present this young lady to you as a very desirable partner. — You cannot refuse to dance, I am sure, when so much beauty is before you.” And taking her hand, he would have given it to Mr. Darcy, who, though extremely surprised, was not unwilling to receive it, when she instantly drew back, and said with some discomposure to Sir William,

“Indeed, Sir, I have not the least intention of dancing. — I entreat you not to suppose that I moved this way in order to beg for a partner.”

Mr. Darcy with grave propriety requested to be allowed the honour of her hand; but in vain. Elizabeth was determined; nor did Sir William at all shake her purpose by his attempt at persuasion.

“You excel so much in the dance, Miss Eliza, that it is cruel to deny me the happiness of seeing you; and though this gentleman dislikes the amusement in general, he can have no objection, I am sure, to oblige us for one half hour.”

“Mr. Darcy is all politeness,” said Elizabeth, smiling.

“He is indeed — but considering the inducement, my dear Miss Eliza, we cannot wonder at his complaisance; for who would object to such a partner?”

Elizabeth looked archly, and turned away. Her resistance had not injured her with the gentleman, and he was thinking of her with some complacency, when thus accosted by Miss Bingley,

“I can guess the subject of your reverie.”

“I should imagine not.”

“You are considering how insupportable it would be to pass many evenings in this manner — in such society; and indeed I am quite of your opinion. I was never more annoyed! The insipidity and yet the noise; the nothingness and yet the self-importance of all these people! — What would I give to hear your strictures on them!”

“Your conjecture is totally wrong, I assure you. My mind was more agreeably engaged. I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow.”

Miss Bingley immediately fixed her eyes on his face, and desired he would tell her what lady had the credit of inspiring such reflections. Mr. Darcy replied with great intrepidity,

“Miss Elizabeth Bennet.”

“Miss Elizabeth Bennet!” repeated Miss Bingley. “I am all astonishment. How long has she been such a favourite? — and pray when am I to wish you joy?”

“That is exactly the question which I expected you to ask. A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment. I knew you would be wishing me joy.”

“Nay, if you are so serious about it, I shall consider the matter as absolutely settled. You will have a charming mother-in-law, indeed, and of course she will be always at Pemberley with you.”

He listened to her with perfect indifference, while she chose to entertain herself in this manner, and as his composure convinced her that all was safe, her wit flowed long.

There’s an argument to be made that Caroline is the safest possible person he could have confided in, as she is absolutely the least likely to gossip about it, but I don’t think he was calculating when he told her. I think his self-control was slipping.

Fast forward to November 26, the ball at Netherfield. Darcy asks Elizabeth to dance, the only woman outside of Bingley’s family to whom he accords this honor. And Elizabeth is rude. She has accepted Wickham’s lies (fucking lying Wickham) and flings them back at Darcy as they dance. Yet he cannot bring himself to be angry with her.

Why not? LUST. He is hot to trot for this girl.

Austen phrases it more discreetly.

She said no more, and they went down the other dance and parted in silence; on each side dissatisfied, though not to an equal degree, for in Darcy’s breast there was a tolerable powerful feeling towards her, which soon procured her pardon, and directed all his anger against another.

I don’t think all those feelings were confined to his breast, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.

While all this has been going on, Darcy has also been developing some not-unjustified feelings of horror and revulsion at Elizabeth’s mother and two youngest sisters, who are paradigms of indecorum and ill-breeding. He overhears Mrs. Bennet boasting about Jane’s imminent engagement to Bingley and how it will throw her other daughters into the paths of other rich men. This is precisely the kind of social hazard he has been trained to avoid. While he likes Jane Bennet, her serene demeanor does not convince him of her sincere affection for Bingley, and he fears that her mother would pressure her to accept a proposal from Bingley even in the absence of love on her side. He has a sincere desire to spare Bingley from a marriage where his affection was not equally returned. But he has an equally sincere desire to get the hell away from Elizabeth, because his id wants her very badly, while his superego strongly desires to stay far away from the rest of the Bennets. And this is a guy whose superego has always driven the bus. (Or the barouche, as the case may be.) His superego’s disdain for her family is stronger than both his desire for her and his dislike for Caroline, so the morning after the ball he conspires with Caroline to close up the house and get everybody back to London before Bingley can return from a short planned jaunt there.

He takes a deep breath. He thinks he’s safe.

Then he goes to Rosings for Easter, and there she is at Hunsford, and he is lost.

This time, his cousin the Colonel is with him. This means that Darcy’s avoidance strategy cannot succeed. He is going to be in company with Elizabeth far more than he is comfortable with, and every moment in her presence reinforces all the feels he ran away from on November 27. The Colonel does not partake of Darcy’s inhibitions around women, and although he has to marry for money he is not above a gentle and fully-informed flirtation with Elizabeth himself. They enjoy each other’s lively company, and the Colonel unwittingly (or perhaps not) brings out Elizabeth’s most irresistible personal qualities: her sense of humor, her intelligence, her insouciance, her empathy. Darcy decides that he doesn’t care about duty. He doesn’t care about wealth, about social standing, or any of the other attributes he has been schooled to look for in a wife. He wants Elizabeth, in every way. Think about the language he uses. “How ardently I admire and love you.” Ardor is heat. With that word he gives away the game. He adds that he has been harboring all these feelings against his better judgment. Yup, sounds like he’s been “thinking with the little head instead of the big one.” Of course he is also attracted to her from the neck up, but the emotional/intellectual attraction he feels to her is still moderated by his revulsion for her family. It is his physical attraction to her that puts him over the top.

As he has been raised to consider himself a prize, it never occurs to him that she could refuse.

When she does, he reacts at first in bitterness, the bitterness of frustrated desire, but overnight he writes her a letter explaining himself.

The letter is quite long, and in it he does his best to rebut her charges that he (a) callously separated Bingley from Jane, and (b) callously deprived Mr. Wickham of his rightful inheritance. But he also drops this tidbit into the part about Bingley and Jane:

My objections to the marriage were not merely those which I last night acknowledged to have the utmost force of passion to put aside, in my own case; the want of connection could not be so great an evil to my friend as to me.

“The utmost force of passion.” There it is.

The letter is also really important for a couple of other reasons. One is, obviously, the information he discloses, which changes her view of him almost immediately. But the other reason is that the letter signifies a level of trust we have barely seen from him before. He has put in writing some information he had previously disclosed to almost no one. Why does he do this? He does it because, ultimately, while he does feel a potent sexual attraction to her, he has figured out how strong her character is, and he knows that she is worthy of not only his love but also his trust. In rejecting him she only proved her desirability even more, not simply by refusing a rich man, but by refusing him over matters of principle (even based on mistaken facts).

He thinks he will never see her again.

Then she shows up at Pemberley.

At this point, while he still desires her physically, he is consumed with love and admiration for her, for all of her, and has spent the months since she rejected him in trying to repair some of the undesirable parts of his character she called out in her rejection.

What he doesn’t know is that she’s been reading and rereading his letter, and by this time, she is in love with him too, although she hasn’t been able to admit it to herself, partly because she is assuming that he must hate her.

He is determined not to fuck things up again. He makes a point of being gracious to her aunt and uncle. It is obvious to them what is going on.

To Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner he was scarcely a less interesting personage than to herself. They had long wished to see him. The whole party before them, indeed, excited a lively attention. The suspicions which had just arisen of Mr. Darcy and their niece, directed their observation towards each with an earnest, though guarded, enquiry; and they soon drew from those enquiries the full conviction that one of them at least knew what it was to love. Of the lady’s sensations they remained a little in doubt; but that the gentleman was overflowing with admiration was evident enough.

He makes a point of being solicitous to Elizabeth. He asks if he might introduce her to his sister, and then brings his sister to call on her at the earliest possible moment. He invites her and the Gardiners to Pemberley socially. His sister adores her. He thinks happiness might be within his grasp.

And then, fucking Wickham materializes again….

tl; dr

While lust is an important element of Darcy’s feelings for Elizabeth, in my view, beginning after his rejected proposal, his desire to possess her becomes secondary to his wish to actually share his life with her. That’s the point where I think he truly crosses the line from lust to love.

Based on an answer I originally wrote on Quora.