Thornton vs. Darcy

In thinking on the similarities and differences between North and South and Pride and Prejudice, I spent some time on the characters of Mr. Thornton and Mr. Darcy. While in North and South, Margaret is the Darcy figure, Thornton has many similarities to him as well: being the first to fall in love (against his will), having a mother figure who disapproves, proposing and being rejected in much the same manner as Darcy, and doing a service for Margaret much like Darcy rescuing Lydia from disgrace.

But Mr. Thornton seems less noble and worthy than Darcy to many readers, even though we see what he is thinking and know his good intentions, and I wondered why.

When I looked into it, Mr. Thornton does more unselfish things than Darcy, for good reasons, yet readers are just as likely to dislike him as much as Darcy is first disliked. There must be a reason for this, and I think it is
the amount of screen-time. Through much of Pride and Prejudice, Darcy is offstage, and we get only a couple glimpses into his thoughts. However, in North and South, Mr. Thornton is given almost as much time as Margaret herself, and we get all his thoughts. One would think, in Pride and Prejudice, that if we saw Darcy's thoughts, we would like him better, but if Mr. Thornton is anything to go by, apparently we wouldn't.

One of the things that makes Mr. Thornton unlikable is his reaction to Margaret's refusal. He is angry, bitter, and cold to her, especially after he is jealous of a supposed suitor, and for a long time does not accept the justice of her objections to him. He is constantly near to Margaret, as they live in the same town, and though he avoids her as much as possible, the nearness makes it worse. Darcy, however, is out of Elizabeth's presence for four months after the failed proposal, so we do not see how he takes it. And when we do meet up with him again, he has learned his lesson so much so that he seems very humble and likable. Mr. Thornton has no such distance to help him. We see every stage of his disappointment, and at first it's not very pretty. He is, after all, only human, and Darcy never had a rival, imagined or not. (There is a small, but telling, remark of Darcy's, that he wants his letter to Lizzy to be destroyed, because "When I wrote that letter, I believed myself perfectly calm and cool, but I am since convinced that it was written in a dreadful bitterness of spirit." This seems to me a hint that his reaction was much the same as Mr. Thornton's.)

But despite all this, which might make us dislike Thornton, he is overall more "good" than Darcy. Even in his most proud moments, he thinks the best of the Hales and Margaret, and does good to them even when he thinks he despises Margaret. When he rescues her from a situation that could ruin her (like Lydia's debacle in Pride and Prejudice), he does it out of gentlemanly principle, not particular interest in Margaret's well-being. A marked contrast to Darcy's rescuing of Lydia, which is done, he admits, thinking "only of [Elizabeth]" and her love. It is unlikely that Darcy would send fresh fruit to Mrs. Bennet if she was ill, or rescue Lydia from Wickham if he did not care for Elizabeth. And though Mrs. Hale is about as silly as Mrs. Bennet (to Thornton, at least), Thornton never despises her, and is genuinely kind to the family (and makes his mother be polite to them).

With all this evidence in his favor, you would think that people would like Thornton just as much, if not more than, Darcy. But among the people I have talked to who have read the book, very few of them think Thornton as "good" as Darcy, and a pretty large chunk dislike him greatly. It is strange that seeing that one unpleasant stage in his affection should influence readers so, if my surmise is correct. Apparently, part of Darcy's appeal is his mysteriousness.

<>[My dad made a really good comment, so I thought I'd add it to the post:
"I would agree with your point about seeing all of Thornton's thoughts and actions after the refusal. It is even more interesting in that Thornton was under a lot of stress due to a failing business while Darcy was sitting fat and happy without a care in the world save for his unrequited love of Elizabeth. Though gruff on the exterior, Thornton's heart was much bigger and not just for Margaret!"]