Worst literary proposal in history?

[dangermousie]

Let me know if you want this behind cut.

Watching the train-wreck of a proposal scene in North & South made me think that classic literature is littered by these horrifying proposals (whether in the asking or the answering) so here is a poll to determine the worst. Because of poll space limitations, I elaborated the choices below. It's a wonder anyone in these books got married at all!

[Poll #655820]

Choice 1
"Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen

DARCY: Marry me even though my feelings are stupid and your family stinks.
LIZZY: You are arrogant and horrid and I'd only marry you if the other choice was Mr. Collins.

Choice 2
"Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen

MR. COLLINS: Marry me because my patroness says it's good. Plus, I have no brains so you can control me. And you can close your eyes real tight.
LIZZY: You know, suddenly Mr. Darcy looks strangely yummy. Yummier than usual even.

Choice 3
"North and South" by Mrs. Gaskell

THORNTON: I love you and I want to marry you.
MARGARET: You have insulted me by your love for reasons unknown. Also, you eat babies. Though I do like when you glover. Like now.

Choice 4
"Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte

ST. JOHN: You are ugly and made for labor not love. You'll make an excellent missionary.
JANE: Not the kind of missionary I was longing for with Mr. Rochester.

Choice 5
"Pamela" by Samuel Richardson

MR. B: Even though I kidnapped you and tried to rape you repeatedly, the fact that you equally repeatedly tried to kill yourself instead stirred my Madonna/Whore complex. Be mine, servant girl.
PAMELA: Such an honor. Bestest husband EVAH!

Choice 6
"Our Mutual Friend" by Charles Dickens

BELLA: Why do you look at me sometimes? You got eyes, or something? OMG, annoyed.
JOHN: I love you. Also, look how I am quiet and angsty and full of sex.
BELLA: I'm like a carnival, gotta have coins to ride. Plus, the book is nowhere near over yet, and where would we be if I accepted now?

Choice 7
"Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott

LAURIE: Marry me and my adorably floppy hair?
JO: Even though you are the coolest male character in the book, I won't because Louisa May Alcott has issues with fans.

Choice 8
"Hard Cash" by Charles Reade

KEEPER: Marry me and I'll let you out of this insane asylum your evil father put you, you sexy Oxonian, you!
ALFRED: Yeah, the food sucks and they shave my head and I get hideous punishments. Plus, I was kidnapped on the eve of my wedding. But I ain't THAT desperate yet, lady.

Choice 9
"Cecilia, Memoirs of an Heiress" by Fanny Burney.

DELVILE: I love you but I am so overcome and my family is so crazy, I can't even get to the point. But hey, I am a Mr. Darcy prototype.
CECILIA: You are uber-hot but at this rate we won't get together before page 900. Burney must get paid by the word.

Choice 10
"Tom Jones" by Henry Fielding

CAPN. BLIFIL: I need money and you are old and sex starved. Twu Wuv.
MRS. BLIFIL: OMG, a horrid husband is still a husband. Plus, one bastard child is enough yet I long for sex. Deal.

Comments

[maddeinin.livejournal.com]

HEEEEEE!

I cannot choose. Oh, the dilemma.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Heh. The funny thing is, I love some of these couples (Darcy and Lizzy, John and Bella, Thornton and Margaret, Delvile and Cecilia (now there's a book that cries for adaptation)), but the proposals themselves? Make a happy case for celibacy.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I went for Jane Eyre, though I know there are some in Trollope that are just awful, but I can't remember where. And usually in those the couple doesn't end up together.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Oh, I just remembered the awful proposal in Barchester Towers. Heee. But not Eleanor and Mr. Arabin but some horrible slimy guy.

I went for Pamela's proposal becausw Mr. B just grosses me out so much and Pamela's reaction is even more annoying. Though it did inspire Fielding's Shamela so the whole thing is not a complete waste. Plus, I have happy memories of reading it in a bathtub in college.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Mr Slope - or Mr. Slop as the child calls him. There's a couple where the guy keeps trying though the girl doesn't love him (and the guy is quite decent) and they are just painful.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yup, Mr. Slope. Trollope can be hit and miss for me, but Barchester Towers is unadulterated goodness.

There's a couple where the guy keeps trying though the girl doesn't love him (and the guy is quite decent) and they are just painful

Hmmm. Must seek out :)

I like the two-book story of a politician from Ireland's rise and fall to power and am trying to remember what it was called. I didn't like where and how he ended up, but it was good while it lasted.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Try The Vicar of Bullhampton. It's been ages since I've read it, but there's a good one in there.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

And by good, I mean rather horrific (especially if I recall correctly the second one).

[ayn-rand-fan-13.livejournal.com]

During Little Women, my favorite part is when Jo finally gets over herself. She's just so pretentious. I mean, she turned down a perfectly good floppy-haired boy.

Also, I always skip Mr. Darcy's first proposal. Even in the movies, when you can more clearly see what's going on inside his head, it still kind of pains me to see him embarassed that way. Can you tell that I really love me some Mr. Darcy?

Oh, and Heeeeee to all summaries. It's pretty much famous proposals in a nutshell.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Can you tell that I really love me some Mr. Darcy?

I actually enjoy watching the first proposal. Because I am mean that way.

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

Jo and Laurie, because how can you NOT want to marry an incredibly sweet guy who's been your best friend for like forever?

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Don't even get me started on how annoyed this part of the book makes me. Grrr. Only my supreme loathing of Mr B & Pamela trumps it. I am still bitter :P

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

I've never actually read "Pamela" since I knew I'd probably hate it. I need to get around to it just to say I have on the ol' English degree.

And back to Laurie. I think my loathing for that scene was compounded even more when she turned down CHRISTIAN FRAKKIN' BALE in the movie, so not only was he sweet, smart and caring, he was also a stone cold hottie.

GYAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Oh, don't get me started on the adaptation rage (It's a good adaptation but Bale playing Laurie didn't halp my views on the proposal any).

Yeah, I found Pamela amusing, though not in a way Richardson intended. More for how awful the idea of it was and the stilted writing and Richardson's fixation with breasts. Fielding's Shamela is much better.

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

My Christian Bale love was cultivated with that movie, so you know my stand on the proposal and his eventual marriage to snotty Amy. That and I just love Laurie. Seriously. He's one of those characters I'd marry if I could.

So why is Pamela considered a great work of any kind?

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I think this is one of the earliest (if not THE earliest) examples of an English novel. It was hugely successful and influential. And for something written so long ago it's surprisingly readable. I disagree with its morals and approach to life, but to be fair to Richardson, he lived in a very different society from mine.

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

St. John's proposal is WAY stinkin' up there though as is Mr. Darcy's first one. Way to flatter a girl, fellas.

ST. JOHN: You are ugly and made for labor not love. You'll make an excellent missionary.
JANE: Not the kind of missionary I was longing for with Mr. Rochester.

I literally snorted at that one.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I literally snorted at that one.

Thanks.

St. John's proposal is WAY stinkin' up there

And then he is surprised and offended when she doesn't jump at the offer. I can only think of the horrifying sex they would have had...

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

Sex? You think he would have gone there? The way he talked I just assumed they'd leave off at holding hand. In private. Every other week.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

ROFL. Literally.

But of course. Because it's a duty of a man to sleep with his wife. Two minutes every other week. And then she shall raise god-fearing children.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

But children would have interfered with the mission! And saving the heathen was all!

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Now I have an image of Rivers trying to convert Shahrukh Khan. ROFL.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Now there's a Bollywood film just waiting to be written...

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I'd pay a LOT of money to see it :P

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Because she's gay, gay, gay, gay, gay with extra gay on the side! It wuldn't work if she married the guy her own age who's clearly hot for her, because as she says in code, he'd want more than she could give (she says it's because of "social graces" etc., but c'mon, he's been best friends with her since childhood & hasn't noticed this very salient part of her personality? please), & instead she goes for the guy of her father's generation who is clearly very, very fond of her & whom she cares for greatly too. See Andrea Dworkin & her gay husband (http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/LivingWithAndrea.html). It's a workable solution. It gives her independence along with companionship, and best of all, the chance to run tomboy for the rest of her life.

Here via neadods! My opinion is worth what you paid for it. :)

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Heee. For a second I thought you meant Jane Eyre and I was "whaaaaaaaa?" Passionate love story and all that! :P

But Jo? Never thought about it that way. Don't know if I buy into it, but it it's certainly a possible enough interpretation.

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

I always figured that Jo was referring to the fact that she couldn't be refined like Laurie would want her to be, which always made no sense because Laurie KNEW she was like that, heck, they'd been friends for years, and liked her because of that. It always irritated me because Jo never gave a valid reason, then Alcott seemed to try to back pedal by going on about how Laurie was immature and grew up when he went to Europe...blah, blah, blah. The problem was she didn't really give a whole lot of evidence of Laurie's immaturity before Jo turned him down. He just sort of had to take her word on it afterwards and even if he was immature, he was still an extremely good guy and obviously going to turn into and extremely good man. It was from that point on that I said "oh whatever" and wished Jo's writing career ill.

You can argue for just about anything in literature and my theory is that Jo was a "career" woman who felt that if she was with Laurie, he'd need more upkeep than a man who'd been a bachelor for years and could take care of himself. Not that Laurie wouldn't have been supportive, but he was younger, would have needed more time (time I would have been willing to spend, thank you) and would have wanted many babies.

But whatever, that's just me rationalizing, because I think Laurie was a reasonable guy who knew Jo well and would have given her what she wanted. The saddest thing about that proposal is that the refusal ruins a wonderful friendship that is never regained.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

But someone who has been a bachelor for years and years and years would actually be hard to live with as it would be hard for him to adjust to having another person there. I always think of Dorothea in Middlemarch who ended up doing just that and regretting it bitterly because her elderly husband's habits were so ingrained he was incapable of unbending them.

And you do want SOME give and take in a relationship, some interaction.

Jo=silly.

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

Or maybe she was hoping he'd be old and leave her alone. I haven't a clue what she was thinking really as I think Laurie would have been just as supportive of her. The boy had grown up with her and liked her because of the way she was which is why I NEVER bought him suddenly deciding that Amy was his type all along, because she wasn't. I still consider her just a Jo substitute, no matter how much Alcott tried to write it otherwise.

There's nothing about Laurie that would make you think he'd really be anything but supportive of Jo and he was always reasonable with all the girls.

Why, Jo, WHY!!!???

[morwen_peredhil]

I had to pick Laurie and Jo just because that is the one I still haven't gotten over after all these years.

It is even more unbelievable when Laurie is played by Christian Bale. I mean, really. There is no way in hell she would have turned him down.

*eats Pocky to console self*

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Christian. *dreamy*

[dreamybritactor.livejournal.com]

Choice 7
"Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott

LAURIE: Marry me and my adorably floppy hair?
JO: Even though you are the coolest male character in the book, I won't because Louisa May Alcott has issues with fans.


LOL!!!!! I love the way you put that! I always wondered why Jo didn't want to be with Laurie. Put him with the "Lydia" character, do ahead.

Oh and nice to see I am not the only one who chose the Jane Eyre one. Jane should have bitch slapped him!

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I always felt sorry for St. John. He struck me as someone who was only driven into clergy out of necessity and thus willfully tricked himself into fervor. Rosamond who he had a thing for is much better off with someone else, but I do feel sorry for his self-inflicted misery.

[girlintheattic.livejournal.com]

*Is still incredibly bitter about Jo/Laurie*

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I had a friend who said she threw the book across the room when she got to that point :)

[ex-beautyof.livejournal.com]

Oh this is fun but hard lol, I voted Mr. Collins proposal to Lizzy... Poor lizzy.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yup, not a sterling example of romance :P

[katranna.livejournal.com]

You're so funny!

I have managed to never hear of Gaskell previosuly, but I get to my first meeting of Victorian Novel calss today, and find out we're reading "North and South"--and that my roommate will have to do a presentation on it when we get to it. I think, "huh, is that the book dangermousie's been on about?" And it is!

Now you've made my roommate all excited about reading it, whereas previously she was barely lukewarm, sincer she'd also not heard of it. You should be taking this class instead of me; you read many more such novels for fun than I do. :-P

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Heeee. *is flattered*

[sourisvho.livejournal.com]

LOL. Your summaries are extremely hysterical!

I went for Jane Eyre, though I think the one from Little Women traumatized me the most. Stupid Jo.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Thanks :)

Yes, Jo was an idjit.

[emily-anne.livejournal.com]

MR. B: Even though I kidnapped you and tried to rape you repeatedly, the fact that you equally repeatedly tried to kill yourself instead stirred my Madonna/Whore complex. Be mine, servant girl.
PAMELA: Such an honor. Bestest husband EVAH!

*dies laughing*

Oh, how I hated that book.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I thought it was amusing though not in a way Richardson intended. And the second half where Mr. B turns into a stern and lecturing husband (hyppocrite much?) is even worse. The only good things about Pamela are Fielding's "Joseph Andrews" (starts as a riff but turns into a brilliant novel in its own right, much better than the source material) and wickedly hilarious "Shamela."

[emily-anne.livejournal.com]

Aaah, I love Shamela! We had to read Pamela last year on my Rise of the Novel course and it was universally hated so lecturer told us to read Shamela to help us get over it. Genius.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yes, Shamela and Mr. Booby are totally OTP. Well, if it wasn't for her fooling around with the Parson.

Fielding=love.

While Richardson? It's one of those things like "The Sheik." Wildly popular and influential in its day, but if you examine it now, you are mainly left with zzzzzzzz.

[elainemc.livejournal.com]

Pamela is my favorite single-novel trainwreck ever. The third and fourth volumes are even better than the first. Pamela almost dies!!!11!!

However, my favorite trainwreck series without contest, would be Martha Finley's Elsie Dinsmore books. Holy god, those're some kind of horrifying. I can't stop re-reading them, though.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Pamela almost dies!!!11!!


And how one wishes she would. Heh, reminds me of Clarissa who, by the time she shuffled off this mortal coil, was long overdue.