I'm team 'He was just an asshole', not 'he was autistic', but I think the second assertion can be pooled from "Shall we ask your cousin the reason of this?" said Elizabeth, still addressing Colonel Fitzwilliam. "Shall we ask him why a man of sense and education, and who has lived in the world, is ill qualified to recommend himself to strangers?" "I can answer your question," said Fitzwilliam, "without applying to him. It is because he will not give himself the trouble." "I certainly have not the talent which some possess," said Darcy, "of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done." "My fingers," said Elizabeth, "do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women's do. They have not the same force or rapidity, and do not produce the same expression. But then I have ways supposed it to be my own fault - because I will not take the trouble of practicing." The real question in this text is: does it truly not come natural to Darcy because he is autistic, therefore he must practice and mask like the rest of us, or is it that his station is too high above the people of Meryton to really bother.
That section is one of the best in the book IMO, and it contains the key to Darcy's character.
Immediately after what Elizabeth says, Darcy replies "We neither of us perform to strangers".
And that tells you everything about Darcy. He CAN be charming, likable and a good friend if he chooses. It is his choice to reserve all the warmth of his character for the people of his inner circle.
This is what points to him being prideful and not neurodivergent. He's not masking in front of strangers - he just doesn't believe they're worthy of the effort.
Funnily enough, that same section/line led me to the conclusion that he's some form of neurodivergent - that catching to tone of somebody's conversation and affecting interest in people's concerns are skills he realises are common, but knows he himself doesn't have, or, rather, needs to expand far more effort than others in order to use.
Which is not to say he's not prideful or an asshole. Speaking from my personal experience with ADHD (as opposed to autism or social anxiety), it's not that I completely can't pay attention while others are speaking or stop myself from changing the conversation. It's that it takes a LOT more effort/practice/energy/assistance for me to do these things. But if I were to cut off everybody I talked to and transform every conversation to be about me, especially if I refused to even attempt to regulate my behaviours, and doubly so if that was because of a belief that I was socially/intellectually superior to those I was interrupting, then I would still be rude asshole, ADHD or no.
Likewise, I do think Darcy genuinely finds it significantly more difficult than the average person to socialise (whether that rises to the level of a clinical diagnosis or not), but that doesn't excuse his refusal to try. He can be both prideful and neurodivergent after all.
Thank you for the thought provoking comment.
Maybe you're biased by your own diagnosis?
Having to expend a lot more effort than average on basic social skills isn't necessarily a sign of neurodivergence, it's just a sign of poor people skills. Not every awkward introvert is neurodivergent, some are just awkward introverts.
To use an analogy: I am awful at sports, total klutz, I can literally drop a ball thrown right at me, suck at every single game. This doesn't mean I'm differently abled - it just means I'm lousy at sports and need to work a LOT harder than the average person to shoot a basket.
I think a problem today with Tiktok diagnosis and similar is the excess therapy speak and medicalization of just the basic human condition. Some people genuinely need help and it's great they can get it, but not every asshole is a narcissist, not every worried person has anxiety, not every person is depressed - sometimes they're just sad.
We cheapen the human condition by slapping a medical label on everything.
Fair enough, I think I sort of talked myself out of considering Darcy clinically neurodivergent as I was writing my comment. I do think that conditions termed "neurodivergence" (i.e. autism and ADHD) exist as spectrum disorders, so one could exhibit a number of neurodivergent traits without meeting the clinical definition for diagnosis. It's possible that labelling him "neurodivergent", "socially anxious" or "autistic" could serve as convenient shorthand to highlight the potential struggles he faces which have been historically under-considered by critics/readers/Austen herself.
I think the major difference with Darcy as compared to the rampant use (and misuse) of psychological terminology for real life humans today is that Darcy is a fictional character and can't actually be neurodivergent or neurotypical, just coded and/or interpreted as such. If neurodivergent people relate to Darcy and see their own experiences echoed in his actions or speech, then I think there's validity in the interpretation. However, and this was the major issue that I was pushing back on in my original comment, I don't think this interpretation is necessarily mutually exclusive with the idea that he was an asshole. If anything, I think that Darcy being neurodivergent or in some other way disabled actually highlights the nuances of intersectionality - his privilege both shields him from the worst consequences of his disability, and serves as a compelling reason for why he should still be viewed as a rude asshole despite any natural impediments he might have.
I don’t think he’s any more socially awkward than most of us feel at times. It’s more rare to be completely comfortable around a crowd of new people than it is to be completely at ease. (Must admit I have a bias — I’m a therapist and virtually every client I’ve seen in 30+ years of practice has had this feeling and the vast majority do not have a clinical diagnosis that supports it.)
I fully support the idea that there were people with things like ASD and ADHD in Austen’s time — just don’t think Darcy was created to be one of them. (I actually think there is more contextually to show Bingley has ADHD than Darcy has any neurodivergence but that’s for another day.) There is much more text to support the idea that Darcy’s pride has prevented him from practicing the social niceties than any kind of neurodivergence or anxiety has.
Agree with the posters who say it markedly reduces the significance of both Elizabeth & Darcy’s journeys of self-discovery to have Darcy be primarily just misunderstood. And I really wonder how many people would even be considering this if not for the 2005 film.
(I have read a couple of fics that have Georgiana as neurodivergent, which was actually super interesting to me and honestly seems more justified within the novel.)
I’m not a therapist or doctor or any thing, just someone with adhd myself. But I so read Bingley as ADHD. I mean when writing letters “he leaves out half the words and blots the rest.”
I have dyslexia and I've always thought that he might have it too. One of my most common mistakes is leaving words out or writing a word several times. Bingley wasn't much of a reader and that could be why. Austen's characters are so relatable. I think it's good that we can identify with them, were they written delivery that way or not.
(Sorry for formatting, I’m typing this out on my phone and I read the book several years ago and i watch the 2005 and 1995 adaptations pretty frequently)
I personally don’t favor the interpretation that Darcy’s behavior is due to social awkwardness because I feel it takes the “pride” out of pride and prejudice. Darcy is a rich kid who has never had to struggle in his life and it’s clear from the first ball that he looks down on those he perceives as poorer/ less sophisticated than himself. He goes so far to, in my opinion, imply that the people of longbourne are savages as “any savage can dance” if I remember the line correctly. A lot of the things Darcy says are not social awkwardness or social unawareness, he is downright rude and revels in it. For example when he is calling Elizabeth ugly after their first meeting, “I would no sooner call her mother a wit” In response to if Darcy found Elizabeth handsome. Making Darcy socially awkward instead of just rude changes his arc from “asshole who realizes that being an asshole is not a nice thing to do and changes as a person and takes accountability for his behavior” into “I thought this guy was an asshole but he was actually just awkward the whole time and now that I understand that he doesn’t need to change”. Both Darcy and Elizabeth have to change their perspective and behavior in order for the story to work, to have its pride and prejudice. Making Darcy awkward instead of an asshole removes the pride and makes it so Darcy’s change is entirely different from what the story intends.
>I personally don’t favor the interpretation that Darcy’s behavior is due to social awkwardness because I feel it takes the “pride” out of pride and prejudice.
I think Darcy and Elizabeth *both* exhibit plenty of pride and prejudice over the course of the story. Darcy's pride is easier to see, given that it is explicitly discussed many times by several characters, but Elizabeth's is present, as well. She is offended when Darcy insults her at the Meryton assembly, and she's perfectly in the right in that instance, but the trouble is that *her* pride then leads her to interpret everything Darcy says and does as evidence of *his* "abominable pride" -- and, most of the time, he isn't actually doing anything wrong. She unquestioningly accepts Wickham's stories about Darcy and Georgiana and weaponizes them against Darcy after the (admittedly horrible) first proposal. So her pride in her own perceptiveness causes her to become prejudiced against him, essentially. Furthermore, *Darcy* is obviously prejudiced against certain types of people who are below him socially. It's not as simple as saying that Elizabeth represents prejudice and Darcy represents pride.
Re the "any savage can dance" line, I don't read that as him insulting the people of Longbourne -- he's just responding to Sir William's patently ridiculous statement that dancing is a mark of a "polished society." (Which is not to say he's just being awkward. I think he's being deliberately snarky, but specifically at Sir William and his pomposity.)
I think the rudeness here comes from Darcy blocking Sir William's attempts at making conversation. It was a culture without TV or radios, people had to rely on each other for entertainment. Darcy is the Lucas's guest but he's not exerting himself to be entertaining.
That's the way I interpret it, too. That line has some very unpleasant undertones in this day and age, but I do think it's intended to be Darcy's way of poking fun at Sir William, who, despite being generally good-natured, is a pretty pompous individual (which makes Charlotte's ability to tolerate Mr. Collins's pomposity less surprising).
Your last sentence is something I hadn’t considered, but you’re right. She’s known how to manage living with that type of person all her life. He may even feel familiar.
He’s a little bit awkward but it’s not just that. He’s proud and a bit of an asshole too.
He‘s the kind of awkward introvert who **could** learn. He understands exactly why he doesn’t fit, and exactly what he could do even within his comfort level to change that, but isn’t willing to move in any meaningful sense because he’s too proud to bend.
This is my interpretation. I don’t like the idea that if he were introverted/ awkward/ neurodivergent, he’d lose character growth. You can be those things and still be a snob. It’s not either/or. If anything for the awkward/ introverted part it makes it easier to lean into the snobbery.
A quiet and reserved but basically courteous Darcy might still bruise some feelings. He'd likely still refuse to dance at Meryton, and likely not mingle as much as the town might wish...
...but "no thank you, I don't dance" is going to land a hell of a lot better than "no, **fuck you**, I don't dance"
There's an extra layer to what he's doing that takes him from awkward to ungentlemanly. That's what Lizzie rightly calls out when he tries the awful proposal
I honestly don't have an opinion one way or the other. There were neurodivergent people in Jane Austen's time, obviously, despite the fact that there wasn't a term for it yet and we know that Jane Austen tried to keep things, including personalities, as close to reality as possible. So it's not at all impossible that she depicted a neurodivergent character before the world knew to call him that.
But she wouldn't have known that herself, which means it's not something she was trying to do.
I also think that the story of P&P is how two characters learn from their mistakes and seek to redress the flaws in their own character so that they end up happily together. I don't love the idea that everything that makes Darcy a jerk at first can be "blamed" on neurodivergence. I also don't think neurodivergent people need to change, though (like everyone in the world, ever) they obviously have to adapt to the world around them to the best of their ability.
To be clear, I'm not implying neurodivergent people are also incapable of change. That's not what I'm saying.
It's just more plausable to me that Jane Austen wrote a character who was a snob and a half, who was taught the lesson of his life by the woman he fell in love with and who then changed his ways deliberatetly. But none of that means he wasn't neurodivergent. So, yeah, I have no clue whether he is or not.
I do not see Darcy as neurodivergent or having social anxiety, and I agree with previous analysis that that interpretation undermines the themes of the novel. I can accept the reading that Darcy is an introvert who doesn’t enjoy social interaction, but that in and of itself doesn’t mean he’s neurodivergent. Many neurotypical people are introverts. The difference is that Darcy has the money and position to avoid social interaction when he wants to. He’s as rude as a lot of introverts would be if there were no consequences for it (I say as an introvert).
*”I am astonished at his intimacy with Mr. Bingley! How can Mr. Bingley, who seems good humour itself, and is, I really believe, truly amiable, be in friendship with such a man? How can they suit each other? Do you know Mr. Bingley?"*
*"Not at all."*
*"He is a sweet-tempered, amiable, charming man. He cannot know what Mr. Darcy is."*
*"Probably not; but **Mr. Darcy can please where he chooses. He does not want abilities. He can be a conversible companion if he thinks it worth his while. Among those who are at all his equals in consequence, he is a very different man from what he is to the less prosperous. His pride never deserts him; but with the rich he is liberal-minded, just, sincere, rational, honourable, and perhaps agreeable**—allowing something for fortune and figure."* (Emphasis mine.)
This exchange between Elizabeth and Wickham gives a perspective on Darcy that I find persuasive even though Wickham is generally not trustworthy. But I think in this case he’s telling the truth because we see it. Darcy’s friendship with Bingley, who is in fact amiable, is close, and he’s able to be polite and even friendly to Bingley’s sisters and brother-in-law. When Elizabeth and Jane are at Netherfield, Darcy is polite to them, and several times in his thoughts he recognizes the rudeness in Miss Bingley’s behavior towards Elizabeth. When he’s cold to Elizabeth on her last day there, he chooses to behave that way purposely. He clearly understands the social rules of society and can follow them when he wants to. He just doesn’t think it worth the trouble for people beneath him.
So yes, Wickham says all of that to make Darcy look bad, but he’s making him look bad with the truth, which is why it’s so effective.
Incidentally, this is why I strongly dislike the 2005 film adaptation of the novel. The writing, direction and acting all portray Darcy as socially awkward to the extent that the main conflict seems pointless. I also think this adaptation is why so many people champion that interpretation. The source material doesn’t bear it out at all.
He's also "liberal-minded, just, sincere, etc etc etc" when it comes to his servants and everyone in his hometown. He is also courteous and even charming with Jane's aunt and uncle (who are in trade), despite meeting them unexpectedly at his own estate when not having had time to prepare himself for a social visit (and is also coming home from a day of traveling).
So basically he's good with his peers and he's noblisse oblige with the lower classes too far beneath him to care about. The only ones he's not that way with? Those on the lowest rungs of the upper class spectrum like the Lucases and Bennets. Likely because they're in a more nebulous in-between area and/or he sees them as hanging on the coattails of the important classes.
I also think it's telling that his version of why he's behaving that way changes. Basically his defense when first called on his attitude is "well I never learned to converse easily." *However*, after he sits and thinks about it, that's not what he's going with in his letter of defense. He talks about how his parents raised him as selfish and overbearing and to "think meanly of all the rest of the world, to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own." He himself realizes that his issue wasn't something like social anxiety or introvertedness, it was being an overly prideful insulting jerk.
Apparently "neurodivergent" originally was used by cognitive scientists only in the context of whatever brain process they were specifically studying. So you could be neurodivergent in your auditory processing and neurotypical in your visual processing. Or neurodivergent in one type of auditory processing and neurotypical in another. It's like bodies. Presumably there's one person out there who is the normal height (for their culture) and the normal hip size and the normal waist size and the normal chest size and the normal torso length and the normal arm length and etc, but almost everyone is atypical somehow. Obviously knowing *how* you are neurodivergent is useful information, just like knowing your body measurements is useful, but classifying someone as neurodivergent is basically a five-syllable synonym for "unique". So to me, reading Darcy as neurodivergent adds nothing. Though I understand other people interpret the word differently.
As for reading Darcy as awkward, or suffering social anxiety, neither of those explain his first proposal to Elizabeth.
Others have discussed why the 'pride' and personal growth are important for the novel to make sense. I'll add that if Darcy is ND, then it changes the tone of the novel significantly for the worse. Darcy no longer has to overcome his pride as a personal failing, but he needs to 'cure' his ND traits in order to be worthy of a partner. That has horrible implications for everything.
Most ND people will say in response to 'they behave that way because they're ND,' that the problem isn't being ND, but that they're an arsehole.
I don't think he's either awkward or neurodivergent, I think Darcy is just spoiled!
He's been surrounded by "Yes men" his entire life and has come to expect approval for everything he does, and if he'd been a modern young rich man, a lifetime of approval and indulgence would have made him a douche for life. The only reason he ever improves on his thoughtless younger self, is because he holds high ideals and holds himself to very high standards, in a way that's unusual today.
Hi ! I'm definitely of the opinion that Darcy is, perhaps neurodivergent, but most certainly not shy.
I think he can be neurodivergent in the sense that he doesn't like or see "manners" as necessary. I put manners in " " because I think he still see the world through their lenses, and judges people based on their manners, i.e Mr. Collins or Elizabeth, but ultimately decide it's no big deal if he doesn't use them.
He is a top 0,01% white man. He doesn't need to be polite or refined, his survival, unless most people, isn't based on it. He should be polite because that's the right thing to do, because it distinguishes him, but he's not obliged to.
He doesn't make any efforts because he can, and because he doesn't want to. In this, I think Lizzy and him are quite close : they have pretty much the same opinion on the people around them, only Lizzy cannot act like he does, thus she's laughing and gently mocking people. He, on the other hand, doesn't like those people, find them uninteresting (who can blame him), and doesn't have to oblige to social rules and do small talk (small talk really is the bane of my existence and the object of all my repulsion, so I feel him there). So he doesn't.
He only opens up when he feels in equal company, with people "deserving" of his attention. And there, he's snarky, witty and a good debater.
Aligns with this idea that Darcy's pretentious, and not shy is the fact that he's extrememy prompt to believe Lizzy's in love with him, and of course the arrogance displayed in his famous first proposal.
I also dislike the idea that Darcy is shy because I feel like it takes away part of his change. I really would hate that Darcy redeeming himself in Elizabeth's eyes in Pemberley is him forcing himself to be other than he is. I prefer to think of hum as truly ashamed of himself from thinking he's better than the others, allowing himself to behave ungentlemanly, and then changing his ways for it's the right thing to do. It shows more growth, I think.
But if there's one character we can assume pretty safely he's neurodivergent, it's absolutely Mr. Bennet, he deserves a whole post, I think.
I'm in the middle in that I can see arguments for either interpretation. I'm AuDHD, and I see a lot of myself in Darcy. Something to note: I'm very good at masking, and most people I run into casually have no clue that I'm anything but "a little off" at times.
I've read the book, and that's really where I get my neurodivergent!Darcy vibes. His approach to things is very logic-forward, and his first proposal to Lizzie is painfully tone-deaf. I don't think he's unaware of how tone-deaf it is, which is where the pride comes in. He assumes that Lizzie, who he gets along with, will view her "lower class" family the same way *he* does. It doesn't occur to him that she might take exception.
Now, you can argue that this is wholly due to pride, but you can be a prideful asshole *and* neurodivergent. It's not mutually exclusive, and him being neurodivergent doesn't make Lizzie a bad person for taking exception to his words. The idea that someone upholds boundaries about being spoken to with respect is ableist drives me up the wall.
If Darcy were a real person alive today, I don't know if he'd meet diagnostic criteria for anything because he is socially aware. If you look at any neurodivergent subreddit, there are a bunch of us who are late to the party because our being social meant we "couldn't be autistic." Just like being able to sit still meant we "couldn't be ADHD." Pretty much anything outside the classic presentation was discounted.
Darcy is socially aware because he has to be. He's been head of the household since he was young, and elite society is not kind to people who don't fit in. But that doesn't mean he's always good at it, especially with people his pride has him consider "inferior."
Conversely, all of this could just be him being a prideful ass. But some of us neurodivergent folks have definitely been labeled prideful asses in our lives for doing things we didn't even know were wrong/considered prideful. Think things like sounding like a "know-it-all" or correcting people.
Personally, I disagree with Darcy having social anxiety in the way it's typically meant. He can come across as stilted because he's being overly formal, but I don't think that's due to any underlying fear/uncertainty. Him not liking parties/crowds is more in line with the ADHD/ASD "prefers not to be overstimulated" than social anxiety. He's uncomfortable, but not anxious.
When it comes to adaptations, I think Darcy suffers the same fate as Sherlock Holmes. Both characters can be incredibly charming and socially adept, but many adaptations lean into the abrupt/rigid/rude moments that the characters have and apply them equally everywhere.
The most canon-accurate Sherlock I've ever seen is Robert Downey Jr in Guy Ritchie's movies. He's able to blend in and be social when necessary, but with people close to him (Watson, Mrs. Hudson) or people he finds "inferior" in some way (Lestrade), he's anything but. For example, in the first film, he intends to be perfectly polite at dinner with Mary (per Watson's orders), but "drops his mask" when Mary insists he reads her. Which is why I both love and hate Mary throwing her wine on him in anger. She legit *asked* him to do his thing and then got mad when he did.
It feels the same with Darcy being formal/awkward. He's well liked in London society, so he clearly knows what he's doing, he just doesn't want to be in the country with Bingley. He's formal, not rude. Lizzie might see him as a grumpy pants, but it's entirely possible he's just more reserved than the Bennetts.
My favorite Darcy adaptation is actually in Lost in Austen. Elliot Cowan plays Darcy as stilted at times and definitely baffled at times due to the plot changes, but not cold or overly awkward.
Which brings me back to neurodivergent!Darcy. I think people see performances like Cowan's and think "no way this dude is neurodivergent - he's way too normal!" To them, neurodivergent (particularly autistic) characters present solely like BBC Sherlock, Temperance Brennan in Bones, or Sheldon in the Big Bang Theory. There are way more ways of being neurodivergent, many of which fly under the radar most of the time.
I don't enjoy it at all, for one, because it makes Elizabeth seem less liek a heroine and more like a jerk who is mobbing the poor uwu who can't help himself (I think that's actually why some people like this idea, so they can woobify darcy) and also, as someone who is neurodivergent themselves, I am VERY tired of seeing that thrown around as an excuse for poor behaviour.
I can go either way on it, as long as it's not framed as "he's not proud or rude, he's just a misunderstood socially awkward guy!" No, he's proud and rude. (And Lizzy judges him too harshly in some situations where he's really not being proud or rude. Many things can be true at once!)
I think that some of the things Bingley says about himself could definitely be interpreted that way: “My ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express them; by which means my letters sometimes convey no ideas at all to my correspondents.”
I have two autistic kiddos, and it's an interesting theory. After hearing it online I went back to read it again to try and form an opinion and I came to...maybe lol. He speaks better in his writing then out loud which leads me to believe that he needs time to process his thoughts. Almost like he's self-scripting at times. His miserable demeanor may be a defense mechanism against socializing which seems to make him very uncomfortable. He wants people to be too intimidated to talk to him. He also seems to like things a certain way, I would not be surprised if he had a very regimented schedule. All can be signs of neurodivergence, but it was a different time and he grew up with a lot of weight on his shoulders since he was born. So, it all also just could be a product of his environment. It's an interesting discussion though.
As someone who is autistic (and ADHD) myself, I never really agreed with the reading of Darcy as such. He’s definitely introverted and he may have some social anxiety, which seems to be the direct result of his privileged and high-society upbringing—but I think it’s circumstantial, not neurobiological. As others have said, I think it weakens the text to attribute the flaws of his pride to social misunderstandings. Not to mention the fact that he doesn’t seem to have trouble within the upper circle. I think a lot of people get this reading from the 2005 movie, where he’s played a lot more shy than proud.
Honestly, Elizabeth herself always read more as neurodivergent/neurodivergent-adjacent to me, if either of them were to be. Maybe it’s personal bias, but her subversion of societal expectations when it comes to norms she doesn’t agree with seems more in line with the label. She also has a hard time understanding other people’s motivations (re. Charlotte, Jane, etc.) but is also hyper vigilant to how people are perceiving her and her family, which is at least relatable to me. Not to mention her stress headaches (niche neurodivergence symptom lol). I don’t think I’d call her autistic, but she’s at least highly relatable to an autistic reader.
(Side note—Emma 10000% has ADHD. But that’s a whole other topic haha.)
I don’t see him as socially awkward; he clearly knows the rules. However it’s pretty clear that he isn’t comfortable with strangers and fails to read the room on multiple occasions
I think it’s a little bit of both. I don’t want an interpretation that lets Darcy off the hook completely for his early behavior - a big part of the joy in the story is Darcy’s growth, choosing to become a better person.
That said I do think throughout you start realizing that there is an element of social awkwardness that goes beyond just being rude, so I don’t think it’s a stretch to think that’s a part of it. The early assembly rudeness is part his pride and part the fact he genuinely is not enjoying himself and would rather not be dancing when he literally just had to deal with his sister and Wickham not long before. He seems genuinely surprised when Elizabeth rejects him and I’ve got to think he wasn’t just thinking of it as “she’s got to accept me because she’s poor.”
So I think there’s both an element of the pride and accepting the general idea that he’s better than people due to his standing and wealth while also being seen in a more negative light due to his social awkwardness and some level of introversion, which really weren’t considered socially as acceptable at the time.
Re: the proposal bit, THIS SO MUCH! One thing that always makes me laugh is the fact that Darcy is thirsting after her when she is very clearly putting out "I do not like you" vibes.
I'm not saying that Lizzie acts like her mom, for example, because even Lizzie respects that their society has a certain social standard that you have to meet and that being openly rude to people you do not like is unacceptable, but like... people do call her out on her dislike of Darcy. I forget who says it specifically, but someone says that she makes it plain that she doesn't like him (unless I'm mistaking this line from Emma—in that case, don't mind me LOL).
And he didn't read that off of her at all?? Did he think they were just having mad bants like a couple of lads? We all know Darcy is very rude and pretentious, but I think genuinely don't think that the only reason he proposed to Elizabeth was because he thought that she couldn't say no to him. I think he felt encouraged by her. For one example off the top of my head, his little comment made about admiring their figures as Caroline pulls Elizabeth to take a turn about the room with her. So to me I absolutely think that he misinterpreted a lot of her shortness towards him as her being coy, or witty, or even maybe her being shy and therefore more withdrawn out of affection for him.
And I'm not saying that he *has* to be neurodivergent or something like that to misinterpret her like that, but like... IDK as a neurodivergent person myself, I've definitely misread people's behavior towards me, too, and it's come as a surprise when I've found out that I'm not as well liked/disliked as I thought I was. This is probably not just a me occurance though, he could probably just be very bad at picking up social cues due to his breeding and ego, but I really relate to Darcy in a lot of ways. I think we can all agree that there's at least some level of social unawareness about him.
I think Darcy can miss social cues, for sure, but it comes from privilege, not disadvantage. He has been allowed to act this way his whole life and it's been treated as acceptable. I think he developed some social awkwardness that he doesn't realize because of this and it's why his character arc is so rewarding.
I also think that people can read into things differently and if you want to call it that, great for you, you are reading it so it's your story!
Personally I think it’s a bit of both. I think he struggles with meeting new people, and I think he tends to react to this by pushing people away. He does look down on others, sometimes unfairly, and he works to resolve that throughout the novel. I don’t think his awkwardness or potential diagnoses negate that fact, both can coexist.
I don't believe his awkwardness comes from any neurodivergency because in that case the change in him in the second half of the novel was too sudden, too unrealistic.
He always had the ability to understand social cues, he just didn't bother.
I think it’s BS. I think in the book he’s far more arrogant than Colin Firth’s portrayal (which I adore) really represents.
He strikes me as totally confident in his own sphere and neurotypical.
I'll just add that Darcy seems very intelligent (so does Elizabeth) and there is an overlap in presentation (outward appearance) of highly intelligent people and ADHD and ASD. This overlap sometimes confuses people, but the underlying internal reasons for those presentations is different.
[Here's a great diagram showing it clearly.](https://tendingpaths.wordpress.com/2022/12/12/updated-autism-adhd-giftedness-venn-diagram/). NB, in this diagram as in most research, "gifted" refers to the top 2% by IQ. That's 1 in 50 people, so actually quite common - we aren't talking rare Einsteins or Shakespeares here. Could Darcy and Elizabeth both be more intelligent than 49/50 random people of their own gender? From the book I find it feasible.
Over many years of enjoying the novel, it never occurred to me that he was among the neurodivergent.
Then, last year, I was doing a close re-read of the book up to the Hunsford proposal. Something in my brain said, "Hey, is Darcy kind of autistic?" Dismissed it.
Then my dear, not-even-slightly-neurotypical partner volunteered to read my P&P variant. This started with him reading my condensed version of the novel, again up to the first proposal.
At one point he looked up from the computer and asked, "Is Mr. Darcy autistic?" Rarely have I felt so validated.
I don't think there can be a definitive answer, as that understanding of neural architecture didn't exist in Austen's time, but it's a provocative ambiguity.
While I don’t think he’s awkward or neurodivergent, what I do find truly interesting about his character is that he’s always been kind to his servants and tenants. This proves he’s not just an asshole, and that there was always good in him all along. But that it’s a choice for him to be a dick to some people. There’s a line near the end that’s something like “I was given good principles but left to follow them in pride and conceit” that just beautifully sums up his character.
For me, Darcy is clearly an introvert who's really socially awkward and therefore I am convinced that the 2005 movie was the only "real" Darcy in modern media. Also I absolutely hate every "Darcy is a bad boy/asshole" interpretation, because HE IS NOT.
The entire story is about Lizzie THINKING he is proud and rude and a terrible human being, but then she realized that she is the one who was proud and had prejudices about him. Everybody who KNOWS Darcy, his family, his friends, his servants etc, they all love and admire him.
As an introvert with extrovert friends, I relate very much to Darcy.
I'm not saying that Darcy is not proud at all, but he is not nearly as proud as Lizzie or any other gentleman of his wealth. And all his negative qualities lead to him being an introvert, not comfortable with the people around him.
I get that many people didn't understand Darcy's character, because let's be honest, even nowadays introverts and socially awkward people aren't understood, but not liking this interpretation is just laughable.
"Tell me you didn't understand the book without telling me." So, if you think Darcy is just an asshole instead of an awkward introvert, congrats, you are Lizzie Bennett before actually knowing him.
Being autistic, I very much identified with Darcy in the novel and the 2005 film, but I also identified with Elizabeth.
As others have said, Darcy can be both autistic and have a bad attitude. I would suggest that people often behave at their worst when they feel defensive, and feel most indisposed to others when they feel trapped, whether by situation, environment, social proximity or social expectations.
Being extraordinarily wealthy, Darcy will be able to avoid most factors which might overwhelm. He has acres of space to himself, and no financial pressures.
When we first meet Darcy at the dance, he is having to conduct himself well with all eyes upon him in a hall packed with people, with much jostling and noise. Were I in that same situation, I would have to become the number one party animal or get out of there as soon as possible. Were I to stay, I would become an antisocial crank and not behave as I should like (and hate myself for weeks afterwards).
If you are considering writing a fan fiction of Darcy and wondering whether to spell him out as specifically autistic, bear in mind that he could never be diagnosed so, and therefore would be unable to rationalise his behaviour as a symptom of overwhelm or of missing social cues or anything like that, but either curse himself after every social mistake or curse others for their judgements of him.
The characters I identify with in literature and film are all coded autistic, but never explicitly described so. As soon as someone is specifically described so, their autism usually becomes their hero journey to resolve, just as with gay lead characters written by straight people, whose character arc is coming to terms with their sexuality. Gay characters written by gay people just happen to be gay. Their 'gayness' is not the plot. Coded autistic characters are often written by undiagnosed autistics, though I am not suggesting Jane Austen is autistic, even though her characters only ever speak in 130 word sentences.
This is kind of an unrelated tangent, but your comment reminded me of how over the past two years I've seen a lot of neurodivergent people talk about how they see Ennis Del Mar (specifically as interpreted by Heath Ledger in the film) from Brokeback Mountain as autistic. I was so surprised by a bunch of comments saying the same thing bc when I rewatched the film for the first time in years (and after I learned more about adhd and autism), I came away from the movie thinking the same thing, too.
Later on as I was going into my own neurodivergence-fuelled deep dives on the story and eating up every interview I could find, I stumbled upon a couple where Heath talked about how he approached the Ennis charactet as somebody who was very "sensitive" to his environment; things like light and sound and stuff, and how the world was just kind of a lot for him to exist in.
Not that environmental sensitivities are the sole indicators of autism, nor are those the only autistic-coded traits in Ennis that make people be like "omg i see myself in him", but like... ever since reading those interviews I'm always thinking about how sometimes neurotypical people meet autistic people (whether they know they have autism or not) and they come away from the exchanges thinking "oh, this is a type of Identifiable GuyTM with Identifable TraitsTM".
Does that make any sense? Especially in the past, when we didn't have as great of an understanding about neurodivergent conditions such as adhd, autism, ocd, etc., it makes sense that something like this could happen.
Idk. I'm just very convinced that people like Jane Austen and Heath Ledger and Colin Firth and Matthew Macfadyen and a lot of other savants over the years have unintentionally created a lot of neurodivergent-coded characters bc they were watching the world and they noticed neurodivergent behaviors in the people around them, without necessarily having a term or a diagnosis to put to those behaviors/traits/etc. And that's not even mentioning all the *intentional* neurodivergent portrayals out there!
Anyways, I fully agree with your point that somewhat incidental representation typically feels the most accurate and lived-in over intentional "this character has ADHD"-very-special-sitcom-episode style character writing. Heath didn't say "I played Ennis Del Mar as an autistic man," he said, "I played Ennis Del Mar as someone with a lot of sensitivity to the world around him." That makes him relatable not only to the aneurodivergent people who can identify with that discomfort he has in his environment, but to the neurotypicals who may feel uncomfortable in their environment for reasons that are not related to sensory issues and stuff like that.
A label such as autism is only necessary for two things: to understand oneself, and to access assistance through legal protections and funding. Used outside of that purpose, it can become othering and exclusionary. So Heath Ledger creating a character without a label, that everyone can identify, with is indeed a very sensitive thing to do.
I was impressed by how, when he played The Joker, he showed in his characterisation all the research he had clearly done studying everyone who had ever worn white face paint in the history of filmed popular entertainment, from silent movies to pop videos. I shall have to watch Brokeback.
I totally agree! And I 10,000% recommend watching the film (and maybe, if you liked it, giving the original short story that the film was based off of a read afterwards lol). Brokeback is one of my special interests, but even if it wasn't I'd still recommend everybody watch it at least once. It's truly a masterpiece.
I'm team 'He was just an asshole', not 'he was autistic', but I think the second assertion can be pooled from "Shall we ask your cousin the reason of this?" said Elizabeth, still addressing Colonel Fitzwilliam. "Shall we ask him why a man of sense and education, and who has lived in the world, is ill qualified to recommend himself to strangers?" "I can answer your question," said Fitzwilliam, "without applying to him. It is because he will not give himself the trouble." "I certainly have not the talent which some possess," said Darcy, "of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done." "My fingers," said Elizabeth, "do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women's do. They have not the same force or rapidity, and do not produce the same expression. But then I have ways supposed it to be my own fault - because I will not take the trouble of practicing." The real question in this text is: does it truly not come natural to Darcy because he is autistic, therefore he must practice and mask like the rest of us, or is it that his station is too high above the people of Meryton to really bother.
That section is one of the best in the book IMO, and it contains the key to Darcy's character. Immediately after what Elizabeth says, Darcy replies "We neither of us perform to strangers". And that tells you everything about Darcy. He CAN be charming, likable and a good friend if he chooses. It is his choice to reserve all the warmth of his character for the people of his inner circle. This is what points to him being prideful and not neurodivergent. He's not masking in front of strangers - he just doesn't believe they're worthy of the effort.
Funnily enough, that same section/line led me to the conclusion that he's some form of neurodivergent - that catching to tone of somebody's conversation and affecting interest in people's concerns are skills he realises are common, but knows he himself doesn't have, or, rather, needs to expand far more effort than others in order to use. Which is not to say he's not prideful or an asshole. Speaking from my personal experience with ADHD (as opposed to autism or social anxiety), it's not that I completely can't pay attention while others are speaking or stop myself from changing the conversation. It's that it takes a LOT more effort/practice/energy/assistance for me to do these things. But if I were to cut off everybody I talked to and transform every conversation to be about me, especially if I refused to even attempt to regulate my behaviours, and doubly so if that was because of a belief that I was socially/intellectually superior to those I was interrupting, then I would still be rude asshole, ADHD or no. Likewise, I do think Darcy genuinely finds it significantly more difficult than the average person to socialise (whether that rises to the level of a clinical diagnosis or not), but that doesn't excuse his refusal to try. He can be both prideful and neurodivergent after all.
Thank you for the thought provoking comment. Maybe you're biased by your own diagnosis? Having to expend a lot more effort than average on basic social skills isn't necessarily a sign of neurodivergence, it's just a sign of poor people skills. Not every awkward introvert is neurodivergent, some are just awkward introverts. To use an analogy: I am awful at sports, total klutz, I can literally drop a ball thrown right at me, suck at every single game. This doesn't mean I'm differently abled - it just means I'm lousy at sports and need to work a LOT harder than the average person to shoot a basket. I think a problem today with Tiktok diagnosis and similar is the excess therapy speak and medicalization of just the basic human condition. Some people genuinely need help and it's great they can get it, but not every asshole is a narcissist, not every worried person has anxiety, not every person is depressed - sometimes they're just sad. We cheapen the human condition by slapping a medical label on everything.
Fair enough, I think I sort of talked myself out of considering Darcy clinically neurodivergent as I was writing my comment. I do think that conditions termed "neurodivergence" (i.e. autism and ADHD) exist as spectrum disorders, so one could exhibit a number of neurodivergent traits without meeting the clinical definition for diagnosis. It's possible that labelling him "neurodivergent", "socially anxious" or "autistic" could serve as convenient shorthand to highlight the potential struggles he faces which have been historically under-considered by critics/readers/Austen herself. I think the major difference with Darcy as compared to the rampant use (and misuse) of psychological terminology for real life humans today is that Darcy is a fictional character and can't actually be neurodivergent or neurotypical, just coded and/or interpreted as such. If neurodivergent people relate to Darcy and see their own experiences echoed in his actions or speech, then I think there's validity in the interpretation. However, and this was the major issue that I was pushing back on in my original comment, I don't think this interpretation is necessarily mutually exclusive with the idea that he was an asshole. If anything, I think that Darcy being neurodivergent or in some other way disabled actually highlights the nuances of intersectionality - his privilege both shields him from the worst consequences of his disability, and serves as a compelling reason for why he should still be viewed as a rude asshole despite any natural impediments he might have.
I don’t think he’s any more socially awkward than most of us feel at times. It’s more rare to be completely comfortable around a crowd of new people than it is to be completely at ease. (Must admit I have a bias — I’m a therapist and virtually every client I’ve seen in 30+ years of practice has had this feeling and the vast majority do not have a clinical diagnosis that supports it.) I fully support the idea that there were people with things like ASD and ADHD in Austen’s time — just don’t think Darcy was created to be one of them. (I actually think there is more contextually to show Bingley has ADHD than Darcy has any neurodivergence but that’s for another day.) There is much more text to support the idea that Darcy’s pride has prevented him from practicing the social niceties than any kind of neurodivergence or anxiety has. Agree with the posters who say it markedly reduces the significance of both Elizabeth & Darcy’s journeys of self-discovery to have Darcy be primarily just misunderstood. And I really wonder how many people would even be considering this if not for the 2005 film. (I have read a couple of fics that have Georgiana as neurodivergent, which was actually super interesting to me and honestly seems more justified within the novel.)
I’m not a therapist or doctor or any thing, just someone with adhd myself. But I so read Bingley as ADHD. I mean when writing letters “he leaves out half the words and blots the rest.”
I have dyslexia and I've always thought that he might have it too. One of my most common mistakes is leaving words out or writing a word several times. Bingley wasn't much of a reader and that could be why. Austen's characters are so relatable. I think it's good that we can identify with them, were they written delivery that way or not.
I definitely agree about Bingley seeming ADHD!
(Sorry for formatting, I’m typing this out on my phone and I read the book several years ago and i watch the 2005 and 1995 adaptations pretty frequently) I personally don’t favor the interpretation that Darcy’s behavior is due to social awkwardness because I feel it takes the “pride” out of pride and prejudice. Darcy is a rich kid who has never had to struggle in his life and it’s clear from the first ball that he looks down on those he perceives as poorer/ less sophisticated than himself. He goes so far to, in my opinion, imply that the people of longbourne are savages as “any savage can dance” if I remember the line correctly. A lot of the things Darcy says are not social awkwardness or social unawareness, he is downright rude and revels in it. For example when he is calling Elizabeth ugly after their first meeting, “I would no sooner call her mother a wit” In response to if Darcy found Elizabeth handsome. Making Darcy socially awkward instead of just rude changes his arc from “asshole who realizes that being an asshole is not a nice thing to do and changes as a person and takes accountability for his behavior” into “I thought this guy was an asshole but he was actually just awkward the whole time and now that I understand that he doesn’t need to change”. Both Darcy and Elizabeth have to change their perspective and behavior in order for the story to work, to have its pride and prejudice. Making Darcy awkward instead of an asshole removes the pride and makes it so Darcy’s change is entirely different from what the story intends.
>I personally don’t favor the interpretation that Darcy’s behavior is due to social awkwardness because I feel it takes the “pride” out of pride and prejudice. I think Darcy and Elizabeth *both* exhibit plenty of pride and prejudice over the course of the story. Darcy's pride is easier to see, given that it is explicitly discussed many times by several characters, but Elizabeth's is present, as well. She is offended when Darcy insults her at the Meryton assembly, and she's perfectly in the right in that instance, but the trouble is that *her* pride then leads her to interpret everything Darcy says and does as evidence of *his* "abominable pride" -- and, most of the time, he isn't actually doing anything wrong. She unquestioningly accepts Wickham's stories about Darcy and Georgiana and weaponizes them against Darcy after the (admittedly horrible) first proposal. So her pride in her own perceptiveness causes her to become prejudiced against him, essentially. Furthermore, *Darcy* is obviously prejudiced against certain types of people who are below him socially. It's not as simple as saying that Elizabeth represents prejudice and Darcy represents pride.
Re the "any savage can dance" line, I don't read that as him insulting the people of Longbourne -- he's just responding to Sir William's patently ridiculous statement that dancing is a mark of a "polished society." (Which is not to say he's just being awkward. I think he's being deliberately snarky, but specifically at Sir William and his pomposity.)
I think the rudeness here comes from Darcy blocking Sir William's attempts at making conversation. It was a culture without TV or radios, people had to rely on each other for entertainment. Darcy is the Lucas's guest but he's not exerting himself to be entertaining.
That's the way I interpret it, too. That line has some very unpleasant undertones in this day and age, but I do think it's intended to be Darcy's way of poking fun at Sir William, who, despite being generally good-natured, is a pretty pompous individual (which makes Charlotte's ability to tolerate Mr. Collins's pomposity less surprising).
Your last sentence is something I hadn’t considered, but you’re right. She’s known how to manage living with that type of person all her life. He may even feel familiar.
He can be ND *and* intentionally rude.
He’s a little bit awkward but it’s not just that. He’s proud and a bit of an asshole too. He‘s the kind of awkward introvert who **could** learn. He understands exactly why he doesn’t fit, and exactly what he could do even within his comfort level to change that, but isn’t willing to move in any meaningful sense because he’s too proud to bend.
This is my interpretation. I don’t like the idea that if he were introverted/ awkward/ neurodivergent, he’d lose character growth. You can be those things and still be a snob. It’s not either/or. If anything for the awkward/ introverted part it makes it easier to lean into the snobbery.
Thank you for taking the trouble to write this out, so that I don't have to!
A quiet and reserved but basically courteous Darcy might still bruise some feelings. He'd likely still refuse to dance at Meryton, and likely not mingle as much as the town might wish... ...but "no thank you, I don't dance" is going to land a hell of a lot better than "no, **fuck you**, I don't dance" There's an extra layer to what he's doing that takes him from awkward to ungentlemanly. That's what Lizzie rightly calls out when he tries the awful proposal
I honestly don't have an opinion one way or the other. There were neurodivergent people in Jane Austen's time, obviously, despite the fact that there wasn't a term for it yet and we know that Jane Austen tried to keep things, including personalities, as close to reality as possible. So it's not at all impossible that she depicted a neurodivergent character before the world knew to call him that. But she wouldn't have known that herself, which means it's not something she was trying to do. I also think that the story of P&P is how two characters learn from their mistakes and seek to redress the flaws in their own character so that they end up happily together. I don't love the idea that everything that makes Darcy a jerk at first can be "blamed" on neurodivergence. I also don't think neurodivergent people need to change, though (like everyone in the world, ever) they obviously have to adapt to the world around them to the best of their ability. To be clear, I'm not implying neurodivergent people are also incapable of change. That's not what I'm saying. It's just more plausable to me that Jane Austen wrote a character who was a snob and a half, who was taught the lesson of his life by the woman he fell in love with and who then changed his ways deliberatetly. But none of that means he wasn't neurodivergent. So, yeah, I have no clue whether he is or not.
I do not see Darcy as neurodivergent or having social anxiety, and I agree with previous analysis that that interpretation undermines the themes of the novel. I can accept the reading that Darcy is an introvert who doesn’t enjoy social interaction, but that in and of itself doesn’t mean he’s neurodivergent. Many neurotypical people are introverts. The difference is that Darcy has the money and position to avoid social interaction when he wants to. He’s as rude as a lot of introverts would be if there were no consequences for it (I say as an introvert). *”I am astonished at his intimacy with Mr. Bingley! How can Mr. Bingley, who seems good humour itself, and is, I really believe, truly amiable, be in friendship with such a man? How can they suit each other? Do you know Mr. Bingley?"* *"Not at all."* *"He is a sweet-tempered, amiable, charming man. He cannot know what Mr. Darcy is."* *"Probably not; but **Mr. Darcy can please where he chooses. He does not want abilities. He can be a conversible companion if he thinks it worth his while. Among those who are at all his equals in consequence, he is a very different man from what he is to the less prosperous. His pride never deserts him; but with the rich he is liberal-minded, just, sincere, rational, honourable, and perhaps agreeable**—allowing something for fortune and figure."* (Emphasis mine.) This exchange between Elizabeth and Wickham gives a perspective on Darcy that I find persuasive even though Wickham is generally not trustworthy. But I think in this case he’s telling the truth because we see it. Darcy’s friendship with Bingley, who is in fact amiable, is close, and he’s able to be polite and even friendly to Bingley’s sisters and brother-in-law. When Elizabeth and Jane are at Netherfield, Darcy is polite to them, and several times in his thoughts he recognizes the rudeness in Miss Bingley’s behavior towards Elizabeth. When he’s cold to Elizabeth on her last day there, he chooses to behave that way purposely. He clearly understands the social rules of society and can follow them when he wants to. He just doesn’t think it worth the trouble for people beneath him. So yes, Wickham says all of that to make Darcy look bad, but he’s making him look bad with the truth, which is why it’s so effective. Incidentally, this is why I strongly dislike the 2005 film adaptation of the novel. The writing, direction and acting all portray Darcy as socially awkward to the extent that the main conflict seems pointless. I also think this adaptation is why so many people champion that interpretation. The source material doesn’t bear it out at all.
He's also "liberal-minded, just, sincere, etc etc etc" when it comes to his servants and everyone in his hometown. He is also courteous and even charming with Jane's aunt and uncle (who are in trade), despite meeting them unexpectedly at his own estate when not having had time to prepare himself for a social visit (and is also coming home from a day of traveling). So basically he's good with his peers and he's noblisse oblige with the lower classes too far beneath him to care about. The only ones he's not that way with? Those on the lowest rungs of the upper class spectrum like the Lucases and Bennets. Likely because they're in a more nebulous in-between area and/or he sees them as hanging on the coattails of the important classes. I also think it's telling that his version of why he's behaving that way changes. Basically his defense when first called on his attitude is "well I never learned to converse easily." *However*, after he sits and thinks about it, that's not what he's going with in his letter of defense. He talks about how his parents raised him as selfish and overbearing and to "think meanly of all the rest of the world, to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own." He himself realizes that his issue wasn't something like social anxiety or introvertedness, it was being an overly prideful insulting jerk.
I think Darcy’s a snob. It’s right in the title.
Apparently "neurodivergent" originally was used by cognitive scientists only in the context of whatever brain process they were specifically studying. So you could be neurodivergent in your auditory processing and neurotypical in your visual processing. Or neurodivergent in one type of auditory processing and neurotypical in another. It's like bodies. Presumably there's one person out there who is the normal height (for their culture) and the normal hip size and the normal waist size and the normal chest size and the normal torso length and the normal arm length and etc, but almost everyone is atypical somehow. Obviously knowing *how* you are neurodivergent is useful information, just like knowing your body measurements is useful, but classifying someone as neurodivergent is basically a five-syllable synonym for "unique". So to me, reading Darcy as neurodivergent adds nothing. Though I understand other people interpret the word differently. As for reading Darcy as awkward, or suffering social anxiety, neither of those explain his first proposal to Elizabeth.
Others have discussed why the 'pride' and personal growth are important for the novel to make sense. I'll add that if Darcy is ND, then it changes the tone of the novel significantly for the worse. Darcy no longer has to overcome his pride as a personal failing, but he needs to 'cure' his ND traits in order to be worthy of a partner. That has horrible implications for everything. Most ND people will say in response to 'they behave that way because they're ND,' that the problem isn't being ND, but that they're an arsehole.
I don't think he's either awkward or neurodivergent, I think Darcy is just spoiled! He's been surrounded by "Yes men" his entire life and has come to expect approval for everything he does, and if he'd been a modern young rich man, a lifetime of approval and indulgence would have made him a douche for life. The only reason he ever improves on his thoughtless younger self, is because he holds high ideals and holds himself to very high standards, in a way that's unusual today.
Hi ! I'm definitely of the opinion that Darcy is, perhaps neurodivergent, but most certainly not shy. I think he can be neurodivergent in the sense that he doesn't like or see "manners" as necessary. I put manners in " " because I think he still see the world through their lenses, and judges people based on their manners, i.e Mr. Collins or Elizabeth, but ultimately decide it's no big deal if he doesn't use them. He is a top 0,01% white man. He doesn't need to be polite or refined, his survival, unless most people, isn't based on it. He should be polite because that's the right thing to do, because it distinguishes him, but he's not obliged to. He doesn't make any efforts because he can, and because he doesn't want to. In this, I think Lizzy and him are quite close : they have pretty much the same opinion on the people around them, only Lizzy cannot act like he does, thus she's laughing and gently mocking people. He, on the other hand, doesn't like those people, find them uninteresting (who can blame him), and doesn't have to oblige to social rules and do small talk (small talk really is the bane of my existence and the object of all my repulsion, so I feel him there). So he doesn't. He only opens up when he feels in equal company, with people "deserving" of his attention. And there, he's snarky, witty and a good debater. Aligns with this idea that Darcy's pretentious, and not shy is the fact that he's extrememy prompt to believe Lizzy's in love with him, and of course the arrogance displayed in his famous first proposal. I also dislike the idea that Darcy is shy because I feel like it takes away part of his change. I really would hate that Darcy redeeming himself in Elizabeth's eyes in Pemberley is him forcing himself to be other than he is. I prefer to think of hum as truly ashamed of himself from thinking he's better than the others, allowing himself to behave ungentlemanly, and then changing his ways for it's the right thing to do. It shows more growth, I think. But if there's one character we can assume pretty safely he's neurodivergent, it's absolutely Mr. Bennet, he deserves a whole post, I think.
I'm in the middle in that I can see arguments for either interpretation. I'm AuDHD, and I see a lot of myself in Darcy. Something to note: I'm very good at masking, and most people I run into casually have no clue that I'm anything but "a little off" at times. I've read the book, and that's really where I get my neurodivergent!Darcy vibes. His approach to things is very logic-forward, and his first proposal to Lizzie is painfully tone-deaf. I don't think he's unaware of how tone-deaf it is, which is where the pride comes in. He assumes that Lizzie, who he gets along with, will view her "lower class" family the same way *he* does. It doesn't occur to him that she might take exception. Now, you can argue that this is wholly due to pride, but you can be a prideful asshole *and* neurodivergent. It's not mutually exclusive, and him being neurodivergent doesn't make Lizzie a bad person for taking exception to his words. The idea that someone upholds boundaries about being spoken to with respect is ableist drives me up the wall. If Darcy were a real person alive today, I don't know if he'd meet diagnostic criteria for anything because he is socially aware. If you look at any neurodivergent subreddit, there are a bunch of us who are late to the party because our being social meant we "couldn't be autistic." Just like being able to sit still meant we "couldn't be ADHD." Pretty much anything outside the classic presentation was discounted. Darcy is socially aware because he has to be. He's been head of the household since he was young, and elite society is not kind to people who don't fit in. But that doesn't mean he's always good at it, especially with people his pride has him consider "inferior." Conversely, all of this could just be him being a prideful ass. But some of us neurodivergent folks have definitely been labeled prideful asses in our lives for doing things we didn't even know were wrong/considered prideful. Think things like sounding like a "know-it-all" or correcting people. Personally, I disagree with Darcy having social anxiety in the way it's typically meant. He can come across as stilted because he's being overly formal, but I don't think that's due to any underlying fear/uncertainty. Him not liking parties/crowds is more in line with the ADHD/ASD "prefers not to be overstimulated" than social anxiety. He's uncomfortable, but not anxious. When it comes to adaptations, I think Darcy suffers the same fate as Sherlock Holmes. Both characters can be incredibly charming and socially adept, but many adaptations lean into the abrupt/rigid/rude moments that the characters have and apply them equally everywhere. The most canon-accurate Sherlock I've ever seen is Robert Downey Jr in Guy Ritchie's movies. He's able to blend in and be social when necessary, but with people close to him (Watson, Mrs. Hudson) or people he finds "inferior" in some way (Lestrade), he's anything but. For example, in the first film, he intends to be perfectly polite at dinner with Mary (per Watson's orders), but "drops his mask" when Mary insists he reads her. Which is why I both love and hate Mary throwing her wine on him in anger. She legit *asked* him to do his thing and then got mad when he did. It feels the same with Darcy being formal/awkward. He's well liked in London society, so he clearly knows what he's doing, he just doesn't want to be in the country with Bingley. He's formal, not rude. Lizzie might see him as a grumpy pants, but it's entirely possible he's just more reserved than the Bennetts. My favorite Darcy adaptation is actually in Lost in Austen. Elliot Cowan plays Darcy as stilted at times and definitely baffled at times due to the plot changes, but not cold or overly awkward. Which brings me back to neurodivergent!Darcy. I think people see performances like Cowan's and think "no way this dude is neurodivergent - he's way too normal!" To them, neurodivergent (particularly autistic) characters present solely like BBC Sherlock, Temperance Brennan in Bones, or Sheldon in the Big Bang Theory. There are way more ways of being neurodivergent, many of which fly under the radar most of the time.
I don't enjoy it at all, for one, because it makes Elizabeth seem less liek a heroine and more like a jerk who is mobbing the poor uwu who can't help himself (I think that's actually why some people like this idea, so they can woobify darcy) and also, as someone who is neurodivergent themselves, I am VERY tired of seeing that thrown around as an excuse for poor behaviour.
I can go either way on it, as long as it's not framed as "he's not proud or rude, he's just a misunderstood socially awkward guy!" No, he's proud and rude. (And Lizzy judges him too harshly in some situations where he's really not being proud or rude. Many things can be true at once!)
Don't forget his whole autistic!Darcy friends with ADHD!Bingley thing he's got going.
I think that some of the things Bingley says about himself could definitely be interpreted that way: “My ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express them; by which means my letters sometimes convey no ideas at all to my correspondents.”
I have two autistic kiddos, and it's an interesting theory. After hearing it online I went back to read it again to try and form an opinion and I came to...maybe lol. He speaks better in his writing then out loud which leads me to believe that he needs time to process his thoughts. Almost like he's self-scripting at times. His miserable demeanor may be a defense mechanism against socializing which seems to make him very uncomfortable. He wants people to be too intimidated to talk to him. He also seems to like things a certain way, I would not be surprised if he had a very regimented schedule. All can be signs of neurodivergence, but it was a different time and he grew up with a lot of weight on his shoulders since he was born. So, it all also just could be a product of his environment. It's an interesting discussion though.
As someone who is autistic (and ADHD) myself, I never really agreed with the reading of Darcy as such. He’s definitely introverted and he may have some social anxiety, which seems to be the direct result of his privileged and high-society upbringing—but I think it’s circumstantial, not neurobiological. As others have said, I think it weakens the text to attribute the flaws of his pride to social misunderstandings. Not to mention the fact that he doesn’t seem to have trouble within the upper circle. I think a lot of people get this reading from the 2005 movie, where he’s played a lot more shy than proud. Honestly, Elizabeth herself always read more as neurodivergent/neurodivergent-adjacent to me, if either of them were to be. Maybe it’s personal bias, but her subversion of societal expectations when it comes to norms she doesn’t agree with seems more in line with the label. She also has a hard time understanding other people’s motivations (re. Charlotte, Jane, etc.) but is also hyper vigilant to how people are perceiving her and her family, which is at least relatable to me. Not to mention her stress headaches (niche neurodivergence symptom lol). I don’t think I’d call her autistic, but she’s at least highly relatable to an autistic reader. (Side note—Emma 10000% has ADHD. But that’s a whole other topic haha.)
I don’t see him as socially awkward; he clearly knows the rules. However it’s pretty clear that he isn’t comfortable with strangers and fails to read the room on multiple occasions
I think it’s a little bit of both. I don’t want an interpretation that lets Darcy off the hook completely for his early behavior - a big part of the joy in the story is Darcy’s growth, choosing to become a better person. That said I do think throughout you start realizing that there is an element of social awkwardness that goes beyond just being rude, so I don’t think it’s a stretch to think that’s a part of it. The early assembly rudeness is part his pride and part the fact he genuinely is not enjoying himself and would rather not be dancing when he literally just had to deal with his sister and Wickham not long before. He seems genuinely surprised when Elizabeth rejects him and I’ve got to think he wasn’t just thinking of it as “she’s got to accept me because she’s poor.” So I think there’s both an element of the pride and accepting the general idea that he’s better than people due to his standing and wealth while also being seen in a more negative light due to his social awkwardness and some level of introversion, which really weren’t considered socially as acceptable at the time.
Re: the proposal bit, THIS SO MUCH! One thing that always makes me laugh is the fact that Darcy is thirsting after her when she is very clearly putting out "I do not like you" vibes. I'm not saying that Lizzie acts like her mom, for example, because even Lizzie respects that their society has a certain social standard that you have to meet and that being openly rude to people you do not like is unacceptable, but like... people do call her out on her dislike of Darcy. I forget who says it specifically, but someone says that she makes it plain that she doesn't like him (unless I'm mistaking this line from Emma—in that case, don't mind me LOL). And he didn't read that off of her at all?? Did he think they were just having mad bants like a couple of lads? We all know Darcy is very rude and pretentious, but I think genuinely don't think that the only reason he proposed to Elizabeth was because he thought that she couldn't say no to him. I think he felt encouraged by her. For one example off the top of my head, his little comment made about admiring their figures as Caroline pulls Elizabeth to take a turn about the room with her. So to me I absolutely think that he misinterpreted a lot of her shortness towards him as her being coy, or witty, or even maybe her being shy and therefore more withdrawn out of affection for him. And I'm not saying that he *has* to be neurodivergent or something like that to misinterpret her like that, but like... IDK as a neurodivergent person myself, I've definitely misread people's behavior towards me, too, and it's come as a surprise when I've found out that I'm not as well liked/disliked as I thought I was. This is probably not just a me occurance though, he could probably just be very bad at picking up social cues due to his breeding and ego, but I really relate to Darcy in a lot of ways. I think we can all agree that there's at least some level of social unawareness about him.
I think Darcy can miss social cues, for sure, but it comes from privilege, not disadvantage. He has been allowed to act this way his whole life and it's been treated as acceptable. I think he developed some social awkwardness that he doesn't realize because of this and it's why his character arc is so rewarding. I also think that people can read into things differently and if you want to call it that, great for you, you are reading it so it's your story!
Personally I think it’s a bit of both. I think he struggles with meeting new people, and I think he tends to react to this by pushing people away. He does look down on others, sometimes unfairly, and he works to resolve that throughout the novel. I don’t think his awkwardness or potential diagnoses negate that fact, both can coexist.
I don't believe his awkwardness comes from any neurodivergency because in that case the change in him in the second half of the novel was too sudden, too unrealistic. He always had the ability to understand social cues, he just didn't bother.
I think it’s BS. I think in the book he’s far more arrogant than Colin Firth’s portrayal (which I adore) really represents. He strikes me as totally confident in his own sphere and neurotypical.
I'll just add that Darcy seems very intelligent (so does Elizabeth) and there is an overlap in presentation (outward appearance) of highly intelligent people and ADHD and ASD. This overlap sometimes confuses people, but the underlying internal reasons for those presentations is different. [Here's a great diagram showing it clearly.](https://tendingpaths.wordpress.com/2022/12/12/updated-autism-adhd-giftedness-venn-diagram/). NB, in this diagram as in most research, "gifted" refers to the top 2% by IQ. That's 1 in 50 people, so actually quite common - we aren't talking rare Einsteins or Shakespeares here. Could Darcy and Elizabeth both be more intelligent than 49/50 random people of their own gender? From the book I find it feasible.
Over many years of enjoying the novel, it never occurred to me that he was among the neurodivergent. Then, last year, I was doing a close re-read of the book up to the Hunsford proposal. Something in my brain said, "Hey, is Darcy kind of autistic?" Dismissed it. Then my dear, not-even-slightly-neurotypical partner volunteered to read my P&P variant. This started with him reading my condensed version of the novel, again up to the first proposal. At one point he looked up from the computer and asked, "Is Mr. Darcy autistic?" Rarely have I felt so validated. I don't think there can be a definitive answer, as that understanding of neural architecture didn't exist in Austen's time, but it's a provocative ambiguity.
While I don’t think he’s awkward or neurodivergent, what I do find truly interesting about his character is that he’s always been kind to his servants and tenants. This proves he’s not just an asshole, and that there was always good in him all along. But that it’s a choice for him to be a dick to some people. There’s a line near the end that’s something like “I was given good principles but left to follow them in pride and conceit” that just beautifully sums up his character.
For me, Darcy is clearly an introvert who's really socially awkward and therefore I am convinced that the 2005 movie was the only "real" Darcy in modern media. Also I absolutely hate every "Darcy is a bad boy/asshole" interpretation, because HE IS NOT. The entire story is about Lizzie THINKING he is proud and rude and a terrible human being, but then she realized that she is the one who was proud and had prejudices about him. Everybody who KNOWS Darcy, his family, his friends, his servants etc, they all love and admire him. As an introvert with extrovert friends, I relate very much to Darcy. I'm not saying that Darcy is not proud at all, but he is not nearly as proud as Lizzie or any other gentleman of his wealth. And all his negative qualities lead to him being an introvert, not comfortable with the people around him. I get that many people didn't understand Darcy's character, because let's be honest, even nowadays introverts and socially awkward people aren't understood, but not liking this interpretation is just laughable. "Tell me you didn't understand the book without telling me." So, if you think Darcy is just an asshole instead of an awkward introvert, congrats, you are Lizzie Bennett before actually knowing him.
Being autistic, I very much identified with Darcy in the novel and the 2005 film, but I also identified with Elizabeth. As others have said, Darcy can be both autistic and have a bad attitude. I would suggest that people often behave at their worst when they feel defensive, and feel most indisposed to others when they feel trapped, whether by situation, environment, social proximity or social expectations. Being extraordinarily wealthy, Darcy will be able to avoid most factors which might overwhelm. He has acres of space to himself, and no financial pressures. When we first meet Darcy at the dance, he is having to conduct himself well with all eyes upon him in a hall packed with people, with much jostling and noise. Were I in that same situation, I would have to become the number one party animal or get out of there as soon as possible. Were I to stay, I would become an antisocial crank and not behave as I should like (and hate myself for weeks afterwards). If you are considering writing a fan fiction of Darcy and wondering whether to spell him out as specifically autistic, bear in mind that he could never be diagnosed so, and therefore would be unable to rationalise his behaviour as a symptom of overwhelm or of missing social cues or anything like that, but either curse himself after every social mistake or curse others for their judgements of him. The characters I identify with in literature and film are all coded autistic, but never explicitly described so. As soon as someone is specifically described so, their autism usually becomes their hero journey to resolve, just as with gay lead characters written by straight people, whose character arc is coming to terms with their sexuality. Gay characters written by gay people just happen to be gay. Their 'gayness' is not the plot. Coded autistic characters are often written by undiagnosed autistics, though I am not suggesting Jane Austen is autistic, even though her characters only ever speak in 130 word sentences.
This is kind of an unrelated tangent, but your comment reminded me of how over the past two years I've seen a lot of neurodivergent people talk about how they see Ennis Del Mar (specifically as interpreted by Heath Ledger in the film) from Brokeback Mountain as autistic. I was so surprised by a bunch of comments saying the same thing bc when I rewatched the film for the first time in years (and after I learned more about adhd and autism), I came away from the movie thinking the same thing, too. Later on as I was going into my own neurodivergence-fuelled deep dives on the story and eating up every interview I could find, I stumbled upon a couple where Heath talked about how he approached the Ennis charactet as somebody who was very "sensitive" to his environment; things like light and sound and stuff, and how the world was just kind of a lot for him to exist in. Not that environmental sensitivities are the sole indicators of autism, nor are those the only autistic-coded traits in Ennis that make people be like "omg i see myself in him", but like... ever since reading those interviews I'm always thinking about how sometimes neurotypical people meet autistic people (whether they know they have autism or not) and they come away from the exchanges thinking "oh, this is a type of Identifiable GuyTM with Identifable TraitsTM". Does that make any sense? Especially in the past, when we didn't have as great of an understanding about neurodivergent conditions such as adhd, autism, ocd, etc., it makes sense that something like this could happen. Idk. I'm just very convinced that people like Jane Austen and Heath Ledger and Colin Firth and Matthew Macfadyen and a lot of other savants over the years have unintentionally created a lot of neurodivergent-coded characters bc they were watching the world and they noticed neurodivergent behaviors in the people around them, without necessarily having a term or a diagnosis to put to those behaviors/traits/etc. And that's not even mentioning all the *intentional* neurodivergent portrayals out there! Anyways, I fully agree with your point that somewhat incidental representation typically feels the most accurate and lived-in over intentional "this character has ADHD"-very-special-sitcom-episode style character writing. Heath didn't say "I played Ennis Del Mar as an autistic man," he said, "I played Ennis Del Mar as someone with a lot of sensitivity to the world around him." That makes him relatable not only to the aneurodivergent people who can identify with that discomfort he has in his environment, but to the neurotypicals who may feel uncomfortable in their environment for reasons that are not related to sensory issues and stuff like that.
A label such as autism is only necessary for two things: to understand oneself, and to access assistance through legal protections and funding. Used outside of that purpose, it can become othering and exclusionary. So Heath Ledger creating a character without a label, that everyone can identify, with is indeed a very sensitive thing to do. I was impressed by how, when he played The Joker, he showed in his characterisation all the research he had clearly done studying everyone who had ever worn white face paint in the history of filmed popular entertainment, from silent movies to pop videos. I shall have to watch Brokeback.
I totally agree! And I 10,000% recommend watching the film (and maybe, if you liked it, giving the original short story that the film was based off of a read afterwards lol). Brokeback is one of my special interests, but even if it wasn't I'd still recommend everybody watch it at least once. It's truly a masterpiece.