When Elizabeth expresses to her sister
Jane her hesitations at exposing Wickham's character after
Darcy confided in her, Jane agrees that they should keep Wickham's history hushed up.
However, they disagree on the reasons why. Elizabeth hesitates simply because Darcy has
not given her permission to relay a terrible story involving Miss Darcy. Furthermore,
she believes that no one would be willing to believe Darcy's account of Wickham, since
everyone loves Wickham and dislikes Darcy. Jane's take on
the issue, since she is always willing to believe the best about a person's character,
is that if they expose Wickham now, they'll forever ruin his
reputation. She believes that Wickham may be feeling remorse for having
tried to seduce Miss Darcy and is now trying to "re-establish his character," as we see
in her lines:
To have his errors made public might ruin him for
ever. He is now perhaps sorry for what he has done, and anxious to re-establish a
character. We must not make him desperate. (Ch.
40)
Even after Lydia runs off
with Wickham unmarried, Jane's opinion does not waver. She
still believes that exposing someone's past without knowing
his/her present feelings and future intentions is cruel.
When Elizabeth grieves over their decision not to expose Wickham, Jane argues, "But to
expose the former faults of any person, without knowing what their present feelings
were, seemed unjustifiable" (Ch. 47).
However, Darcy
disagrees with Jane. While he doesn't say anything in reply to Elizabeth
when she bemoans her choice not to expose Wickham's character, we later find out that he
actually considers himself to blame for Wickham's current
actions, not Elizabeth. We learn that Darcy finds himself to blame in the letter
Elizabeth receives from her Aunt Gardiner explaining Darcy's involvement in Lydia and
Wickham's forced marriage. Darcy feels that he should have exposed
Wickham's character himself in order to
prevent any family or any young lady from ever trusting Wickham again and
that it was his pride that prevented him from exposing
Wickham. Hence, Darcy searched out the couple in London and bribed Wickham to marry
Lydia, and his motive was his own self-blame, as we see Mrs. Gardiner
explain:
The
motive professed was his conviction of its being owing to himself that Wickham's
worthlessness had not been so well known as to make it impossible for any young woman of
character to love or confide in him. He generously imputed the whole to his mistaken
pride. (Ch. 52)
Hence we see
that Jane feels that Wickham should not have been exposed so that he can re-establish
his character while Darcy feels that Wickham should have been exposed in order to spare
any future young ladies Wickham might also try to seduce.
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