Comparing Austen's Bride And Prejudice

In Bride and Prejudice, which is structured much more like a typical romantic comedy film than the original source material, Darcy doesn’t propose per-say in this scene, but confesses his love for Lalita (Elizabeth’s equivalent). Lalita and Darcy have spent the last couple of days together, and in a series of montages and music, we can see that they are starting to fall in love. This scene is immediately after Lalita has found out that Darcy is the one who convinced Balraj (Bingley) not to marry Jaya (Jane), and she has also just met Anne de Bourgh that Darcy’s mother (who plays a similar part to Catherine de Bourgh) is trying to persuade Darcy to marry. In this scene Lalita is wearing a white sari, and Darcy is wearing an all black suit, and

The language used subsequently is designed to match the quality of Elizabeth’s shock; “she stared, coloured, doubted, and was silent.” Elizabeth then begins to paraphrase Darcy. This is has a cynical purpose, Darcy has to be redeemed later and become the hero, and indirect speech has a softening affect. We can understand the offensive and not at all tender nature of what Darcy is saying, and the m-dashes show how vehemently he is speaking; but we cannot condemn him for his words by quoting them back to him. If Austen quoted Darcy directly, as she did with Collins to prove his idiocy, it would have been more difficult to forgive him later. This differs a lot from the movie, as Darcy’s announcement of his love for her comes as far less of a shock, as they have just spent the last week gallivanting around California together and were even serenaded by a gospel choir. In the movie Darcy does not have the advantage of paraphrasing, he instead says, “I tried to forget you but I couldn’t, I know this sounds totally crazy and my mum’s going to flip out, but I don’t want you to leave.” Not that this is nearly as offensive as what Darcy likely expressed to Elizabeth but it still angers Lalita considerably. In this version, a lot of Darcy’s hesitations in pursuing Lalita seem to come from his mother

There is a disappearance in any satirical or ironic elements in the text, and the back and forth seems much less like eloquent bickering than Lalita telling Darcy all the things that he has done wrong. The change in genre also means that in true romantic comedy style, just when she thought that “maybe, maybe I was wrong about you”, he does something that hurts her. Lalita was beginning to fall for Darcy, and this means that Lalita is in much more of a vulnerable state during and after this scene, she is heartbroken as well as angry. This differs from Elizabeth’s feelings of being shaken, offended, and quite probably perplexed, as the proposal came as a massive