Mr Darcy, Mr Knightley and the Taken In Hand ideal

Jane Austen has been busy lately. In the last decade or so, full-length feature films have been made of ‘Emma’ (twice), ‘Sense and Sensibility’ and, this year (2005), ‘Pride and Prejudice’. There was already a ‘Pride and Prejudice’ firmly embedded in the nation’s hearts, the recent TV adaptation starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, and those with memories as long as mine can remember an early-70s BBC TV series of ‘Emma’ starring Doran Godwin. We have also had one ‘Persuasion’ and one ‘Mansfield Park’. What a pity the lady didn’t write more.

Of all Miss Austen’s oeuvre, I would guess that ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and ‘Emma’ are the most consistently popular – especially with females. On a recent and rare visit to the cinema to see the new ‘P & P’, I estimate I was the only male in a fairly well packed house. The main attraction of ‘P & P’ is said to be the personality of Mr Darcy. To get Darcy “right” is considered an achievement. By all accounts Colin Firth pulled it off, the new chap didn’t – quite, though he took a good shot at it.

By contrast, the main attraction in ‘Emma’ is Emma herself, particularly the contradictions and indulgences in her character (usually kindly meant) which lead her into error. She is then taken in hand – there is no other term for it – by Mr Knightley, who in many respects is Mr Darcy’s literary double. Mr Knightley in fact conforms almost ideally to the Taken In Hand archetype male (willing to administer discipline as well as love, wears riding boots etc.) whereas poor Darcy, utterly crushed by Elizabeth’s initial rejection, made to feel his own faults keenly and to acknowledge them openly, is a seething mass of wimpish complexities by comparison. He accepts the pain she dishes out and benefits from it. How Takeninhand is that?

Far more Taken In Hand is the verbal spanking (“Badly done, Emma! Badly done indeed!”) Knightley hands out after the Miss Bates episode on Box Hill. This is probably the most “alpha” speech Miss Austen gives to any of her leading males and yet Knightley remains totally uninteresting. Alongside Darcy, he is a cardboard construct.

Darcy is ten times more attractive a leading male than Knightley, in film, TV and book. The latter is a prig, brooding judgmentally on the sidelines. Darcy does his share of brooding, admittedly, and certainly he is judgmental. But he is also wrong with a capital R, about Elizabeth and her family (though not, as it turns out, about Wickham). Taken In Hand men are seldom wrong, least of all as spectacularly as this. Putting matters right (as Darcy generously does) is the act of a gentleman, but not necessarily of a Taken In Hand chap.

So if there is a literary message to be drawn from the pen of England’s most beloved novelist, it is that the Ideal Taken In Hand man may not exist – and if he does, he is as liable as Knightley to be a humourless, critical martinet. He will be No Fun. Real men are surely more interesting than that – and more fun. They have their complexities too, and sometimes they even need to make mistakes and be slapped down for them, because this is something everybody requires from time to time. This is what happens to Mr Darcy, one of the most romantic male heroes in fiction, and it hardly seems to diminish his appeal. Perhaps the definition of the ideal Taken In Hand male is subconsciously broader than anyone thinks?

Edward Anthony

Take the Taken In Hand tour

Have you seen the following articles?
Out of control, insane, driven by our emotions? No way!
Dominance, integrity and needing to feel superior
It is working as advertised!
Force majeure
The Taming of the Shrew
My husband's calm control makes me feel submissive
Being taken in hand is hot!
Don't forget your whip
I want... to be possessed
Impregnation

2005 Nov 23 - 22:05 | add new comment | latest article | previous article | next article |

Mr Darcy's ability to acknowledge his faults

For me, it is Mr Darcy's ability to acknowledge his faults that makes him in the end so darn attractive. That to me is strength! Strength of character at least, and that is what the 'taken in hand' man is all about.

How many men or women have the ability to openly acknowledge thier own faults? How much better would the world be if we could all be more honest about our faults, learn from them and move on?

Mr Darcy - solid, reliable, morally upstanding and with an acute sense of his own faults (giving more than a hint of his underlying sensitivity) and able to admit them, how sexy is that?

by CC on 2005 Nov 24 - 00:18 | reply to this comment

Mr Darcy and Mr knightley

I've never cared for Mr Darcy myself (except in the 1940 film version with Laurence Olivier - he was so drop-dead gorgeous,Colin Firth just bored me) . All that silent aloofness would be hopeless with a woman like me, a silent person myself, we would just stand there, both of us saying nothing, and getting nowhere. I don't think of Mr Darcy as a Taken In Hand man, I see him and Elizabeth as having a more equal relationship once they have got over their early prejudices against each other. Elizabeth even manages to forgive Darcy for that incredibly insulting first marriage proposal, surely the rudest fictional proposal ever made (even Mr Collins does better than Darcy). Certainly his flaws make him more interesting, as Miss Austen herself remarked "pictures of perfection make me sick and wicked". Someone once remarked to me that the Gardiners are the only married couple in any of Austen's novels who are truly equal (with all the other happily married couples, the wife is generally the more intelligent and perceptive of the two), and I think the Gardiners are the model for Elizabeth's idea of what a happy marriage should be like, and she seems likely in the end to achieve this happy state with Darcy.

Yet Miss Austen said that Mr Knightley was her idea of the perfect English gentleman. He's not someone I would care to be married to myself, but he seems to suit Emma down to the ground. Perhaps she is looking for a father figure, her own being somewhat ineffectual. Of course, he is always right, which makes him rather trying, but he is kind as well. The scene at the ball where he dances with Harriet after she has been snubbed by Mr Elton is one of the most touching in Austen's novels. He is I think more of a Taken In Hand type than any of her other heroes. I could not imagine any of her other heroes spanking the heroine, but I could imagine Knightley spanking Emma, especially after the Box Hill episode (as indeed he does in the 'lost spanking scene from Emma' on Shadowlane). None of Jane Austen's heroes are men I would want for myself, but I think Emma will be happy with Mr Knightley, just as Elizabeth is happy with Mr Darcy. Knightley can be a bit of a prig,but he has warmth and genuine kindness, and it could be worse, one might end up married to Edmund Bertram.

by Louise C on 2005 Nov 24 - 06:33 | reply to this comment

Strength and Weakness of the TIH Ideal

I agree entirely with Edward that the Taken In Hand ideal presents a rather romanticized version of most modern alpha males.
The truth of the matter is that the Taken In Hand couple is thoroughly enthralled with (various versions of) a male-dominant psychology; it is not that we actually measure up to the heroic images engendered in our minds by these deep feelings of rapture. But if, in the process of exploring the Taken In Hand dynamic, both partners become more attentive and unselfish lovers as we eroticize the mundane exchanges of daily life, then this is a very substantial gain to place against the risk of disillusionment, of discovering that our male heroes too often have feet of clay.

I suspect that the appeal of Pride & Prejudice for women is in Elizabeth's character as well as Darcy's. The most Taken In Hand moment in the novel, for me, was the morning after she has angrily spurned Darcy's marriage proposal only to receive his letter. Upon reading it, she is forced to reconsider her shallow and misinformed impression of his character. As the hard truths of his letter sink in, Elizabeth: "Grew absolutely ashamed of herself. She had been blind, partial, prejudiced, absurd. “How despicably I have acted!” she cried –– I, who have prided myself on my discernment.... How humiliating is this discovery, yet how just a humiliation! ... Vanity, not love, has been my folly."

As I read this, I couldn’t help wondering if Elizabeth might have wished Darcy to reappear at that moment. Upon seeing her abject remorse, might he beckon her with open arms, his forgiveness implied? Before accepting it, might she ask him to spank her as she felt she deserved -- soundly, justly, lovingly? Would such a ritual of atonement bring relief to her tormented soul?

But seriously (and not exactly conforming to the Taken In Hand ideal) I think the enduring fascination of P&P is the power of love to motivate painful processes of SELF-correction in both sexes. For Austen convincingly shows that both her lovers need to take THEMSELVES in hand before they can become worthy of one another. This is surely an uplifting example of constructive love, where we work hard to correct our own faults while trusting our partners to correct theirs.

by BYP on 2005 Nov 25 - 08:42 | reply to this comment

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