Blog: Here’s an Example of a Good Enemies to Lovers Ship: Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet.

I’ve talked quite a bit on the romance genre recently and while I’ve given a lot of examples of bad romantic relationships in books and given advice on how to actually write a healthy relationship, I don’t think I’ve really given an example of what a good relationship looks like. To be fair, good relationships in the romance genre are really hard to come by, even when you go back a few hundred years (looking at you Brontë sisters). However, even with that said, there are a few examples out there of good relationships and one of them is Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet from Jane Austen’s most famous novel, Pride and Prejudice. They’re a classic example of the enemies-to-lovers trope, but unlike many versions of this, they actually work.

At the start of the book, Darcy acts like a jerk. There’s no way around it. He’s condescending to Elizabeth and is very prideful. He’s the type of character where you just want to hit them over the head with a brick.

Elizabeth is very similar to Darcy. She too is prideful, and, as a reaction to his comments concerning her family, takes on a very sarcastic and condescending nature as well. However, unlike with Mr. Darcy, you don’t want to smack her upside the head because you can tell that she’s just reacting with Darcy, and he absolutely deserves it at first. She’s at his throat and you’re cheering her on.

At this point, if you haven’t read the book or watched the movie, you might be wondering why these two would ever be a good couple if they’re seemingly at each other’s throats constantly. I was wondering this too when I read the book but notice how I keep saying that they’re like this “at first.” Once the plot starts moving forward, we start seeing that these two characters’ prideful natures actually make them perfect for each other.

Towards the middle of the story, Mr. Darcy admits his love for Elizabeth shortly after her sister, Jane, had been sent to London, to which Elizabeth very angrily rejects him with the famous line, “I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world who I could ever be prevailed upon to marry.” The reason for this rejection? She believed that Mr. Darcy had separated Jane from Mr. Bingley because of her lower status, had mistreated Mr. Wickham, and she hated his arrogance. While reasons one and three were valid, she didn’t truly understand why he had done those things (except for the first one, which he amends later in the book). He never mistreated Mr. Wickham, Darcy only kicked him out because of his poor behavior, constantly spending and gambling away the money he was given. His arrogance came from his upbringing in a very rich family, something that he also works to amend.

The three reasons given by Elizabeth as to why she would never marry him kick off a chain of events and plot twists that lead Darcy to change his ways, starting with finding Lydia and funding her marriage to Mr. Wickham. This shocks Elizabeth and starts her change of heart towards him as she realizes that she might’ve judged him too harshly. She sees her own pride and realizes what a jerk she had been and when she meets Mr. Darcy again at Pembroke, their meeting is awkward because of her embarrassment. She sees how selfless Mr. Darcy is for her sake. This comes to an end where he convinces Mr. Bingley to go back to Jane and propose to her, healing one of the worst hurts he inadvertently dealt to Elizabeth. At the end, Elizabeth finally forgives Mr. Darcy of his pride and accepts that she loves him and he truly loves her.

Their relationship is an example of self-sacrifice and personal change and growth for the sake of the other person, something that is lacking in a lot of relationships portrayed in most media nowadays. Most romantic relationships being portrayed in the media are very one sided. Usually, they include one person who is willing to change and be a doormat to appease their partner, while that partner does absolutely nothing to change their behavior, often being as abusive years into the relationship as they were at the beginning.

Darcy and Elizabeth’s personalities also complement each other. There isn’t one person who’s completely dominant in that relationship, they share the power equally. Once again, most relationships in romance novels show the opposite of this, where there is a massive power imbalance that often makes the relationship very toxic of (teacher-student romances (which we sort-of got in Divergent), rich-poor romances (Jane Eyre), supernatural-mortal romances (Twilight) etc.) While this is appealing to a large number of women who like the idea of being controlled to some degree by this big, sort-of monstrous guy, it’s not a good standard to look up to.

Lastly, Darcy and Elizabeth adore each other for the person, not the looks. When was the last time you read a romance story with characters who were actually compelling and had actual personalities other than, “He’s hot and she’s some naive cardboard box with nothing else going for her”? In most romance stories, the characters “love” each other because one of them is dumb enough to sleep with the other one and she has Stockholm syndrome.

Jane Austen actually took the time to make the characters complex, not just tropes, and that’s why Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth work.

Until next time,

M.J.