Language In Clarissa, Evelina And Pride And Prejudice

to heighten his bad qualities and his insipid kowtowing
to his betters.
Collinsf s good qualities-and Austen tells us he
does have some-are silenced in lieu of his praise of and
unctuous behavior to those he feels deserve his notice.
That he seeks to make one of the Bennet girls his wife in
order to smooth over "bad feelings" is bad enough, but he
outdoes himself in going from one sister to another.
Morris remarks that Collins cannot fathom his own
baseness, as he feels a superficial desire to marry
Elizabeth in order to "improve the lot of the Bennet
daughters upon his inheriting the estate" (34).
So overwhelmed is Mr. Collins with his prospects for
the future that he not only cannot understand why
Elizabeth would turn him down, but he feels obligated to
lecture her on the very real possibility that no one else
will ask for her hand considering the smallness of her
dowry. Like many other critics, Morris points out that
all Austen novels couple marriage with the mercenary
aspect of eighteenth-century finance: "Money-the need
for it and the satisfactions of possessing it-"
dominates the musings of her heroines, and there is "a