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I don’t assume I’ve ever met anybody who doesn’t love, or at the very least like, Jane Bennet. The eldest of the Bennet sisters is a genuinely sort, beneficiant, empathetic one who at all times appears to be like for (and finds) the very best in others, and is comfortable to supply second possibilities with out judgement. What’s to not like?
Well. Actually. There is one factor.
Just to be clear: Jane Bennet is a stupendous individual, and in plenty of methods, somebody to look as much as and emulate. After all, on the earth we stay in, open-hearted and open-minded individuals are to be treasured. Without a doubt, she’s one among my favourite Austen characters. But each time I reread Pride and Prejudice, I’m struck by the identical factor: as great as she is, Jane will also be harmful and dangerous with out which means to be. Let me clarify.
“But He’s Such a Nice Guy!”
When Elizabeth first tells Jane about Wickham’s account of his relationship with Darcy, Jane is horrified. Unlike Elizabeth, Jane isn’t overcome by an attraction to Wickham: she’s moved by her personal want to provide everybody the good thing about the doubt. And to a sure level, this is admirable. Jane doesn’t hasten guilty or condemn both as a result of she realizes she doesn’t have all of the info.
“It is difficult indeed-it is distressing. One does not know what to think.”
Pride and Prejudice, chapter XVII
But it goes past that — and that’s the place it stops being admirable and veers into harmful: Jane is additionally taken in by Wickham’s charisma and look of goodness.
…she knew not the right way to consider that Mr. Darcy could possibly be so unworthy of Mr. Bingley’s regard; and but, it was not in her nature to query the veracity of a younger man of such amiable look as Wickham.
Pride and Prejudice, chapter XVII
Jane isn’t solely inclined to assume nicely of Wickham as a result of her knee-jerk response is at all times to assume nicely of others. She’s additionally inclined to assume nicely of him as a result of he’s “a young man of such amiable appearance.” In different phrases: he appears to be like like such a pleasant man!
How usually have we heard, and even stated, “he wouldn’t do that! He’s such a nice guy!” a couple of man who’s been accused of abuse, or different damaging actions of lesser impression? Whenever a well-known man is accused of wrongdoing, particularly if he’s accused by a lady, Internet remark sections turn out to be a depressingly predictable panorama:
“She’s lying.”
“She’s just doing it for the money.”
“If it’s true, why come forward now?”
“She sure seemed friendly when she posed for the same picture with him at X event.”
Like clockwork, such individuals show a staggering lack of knowledge of how abuse works, who may be an abuser and a sufferer, and the assorted methods wherein victims and survivors may react.
“But he seems like such a nice guy.”
It’s a phrase that is thrown round loads. And it is this — this unusual concept that charisma and coercion are in some way mutually unique — which serves to bolster a dangerous false impression about abusers.
“Why “he seems such a nice guy” is the incorrect response to abuse allegations” by Kayleigh Dray
When in Doubt, Listen to Maya Angelou
You know that quote by Maya Angelou that claims “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time”? Jane retains extending Wickham the good thing about the doubt long gone the time when it is affordable to take action.
To have his errors made public may spoil him eternally. He is now, maybe, sorry for what he has achieved, and anxious to re-establish a personality. We should not make him determined.
Pride and Prejudice, chapter XL
Let’s recap what Jane is aware of of Wickham’s actions up so far, we could? He all however tried to rip-off Darcy, manipulated a 15-year-old woman into nearly eloping with him so as to get his palms on her cash, lied about Darcy’s remedy of him, and willfully and persistently maligned his fame. The latter occurred mere months earlier than she says he is perhaps sorry for what he’s achieved.
Jane. Come on. What about this man’s latest conduct makes you assume he regrets something? At this level, her generosity has turn out to be a cussed rejection of actuality.
Real-Life Implications
Nothing remained due to this fact to be achieved, however to assume nicely of them each, to defend the conduct of every, and throw into the account of accident or mistake no matter couldn’t in any other case be defined.
Pride and Prejudice, chapter XVII
Jane genuinely believes that everybody she is available in contact with is a great individual, and that any interpersonal battle can solely be because of a misunderstanding. This ignores an unlucky truth: oppressors and abusers exist. And they depend on individuals like Jane, those that want to see the very best in everybody, to push their victims into isolation and silence.
Jane is a light instance of this phenomenom: she by no means holds Elizabeth’s harsh phrases at Darcy in opposition to her (“I do not know that you were wrong in saying what you did”), and she by no means tries to inform those that have been wronged the right way to react in opposition to those that wronged them. But she stays impartial even after studying the info of what went down between Darcy and Wickham, and Wickham and Georgiana. She nonetheless thinks, in spite of everything of this, that Wickham can’t have had dangerous intentions when working away with Lydia.
We’ve all recognized somebody who instructed us to provide a recognized bully or abuser an opportunity. Some of them achieve this out of an aversion to battle. Some, like Jane, do it as a result of they genuinely assume that everybody can and ought to get alongside. But the outcomes are the identical: an insistence on niceness even on the expense of kindness, and individuals who mistreat others being granted the identical leeway as those that have been mistreated.
Jane Bennet has plenty of qualities that we should always emulate. But her cussed refusal to see individuals for who they’re isn’t one among them.
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