Dite la vostra, Mr. Darcy. Pubblico e privato in Jane Austen

As in life, the individual defines himself or herself in the novel as a function of the Other, never without the Other, never against the Other. The question of intersubjectivity is relatively recent but decisive for philosophical, psychological, and social inquiry, and certainly emerging as early as the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when Jane Austen is living and writing, and when the nascent dialectic between the concepts of public and private suggests an interweaving of relationships between seeing and being seen, between inside and outside. Elizabeth and Darcy are human beings on paper who define themselves through their actions and relationships toward/with otherness. Actions and relationships made of mutual adaptation, of reflection and self-reflection, of choice and discard. To come to agreement, to overcome ‘pride and prejudice,’ to come to an understanding of ‘being wrong in everything’ and to finally become mature.