Mr Collins is as you say both amusing and irritating, but inside the novel, most people are prepared to take him at his own valuation. He's highly successful in impressing other (middle-class) people with his boasts about Rosings, as his snobbery strikes an answering chord in them. Thus, although his gracious comparison of Mrs Phillips' drawing room with the small summer breakfast parlour at Rosings "did not at first convey much gratification", yet when Mrs Phillips learns about the Rosings chimney-piece costing eight hundred punds, "she felt all the force of the compliment, and would hardly have resented a comparison with the housekeeper's room." Listening to Mr Collins, she "was resolving to retail it all among her neighbours as soon as she could." It is only Elizabeth (and possibly her sister Jane, who is too polite to say) who is critical of Mr Collins' pretensions. The reader is assumed to view character and society through Elizabeth's eyes, and thereby both Mr Collins' obnoxiousness, and Lady Catherine's rudeness and imperiousness, contribute to the (presumed middle-class) reader's education. The reader is taught to value Elizabeth's independence and proper pride, and even to value her resentment of Lady Catherine and her formal pile, over Mr Collins' obsequiousness and false humility and over Mrs Phillips' readiness to be impressed. And the reader is directed to prefer Pemberly to Rosings. Bishonen | talk 13:36, 23 June 2006 (UTC).
Having scanned through Google Books, I list some other hints as to the identity of Rosings:
Godmersham Park cannot be a very "dark horse". Jane Austen's brother Edward lived there, and Jane and Cassandra were often visitors. See Constance Hill, Jane Austen: Her Homes & Her Friends 1923, ch XVIIi.-- Wetman 19:26, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
The article states the location as in Cheshire, but isn't this wrong? It should be Derbyshire, I think. -- Ashley Rovira ( talk) 23:22, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
Mr Collins is as you say both amusing and irritating, but inside the novel, most people are prepared to take him at his own valuation. He's highly successful in impressing other (middle-class) people with his boasts about Rosings, as his snobbery strikes an answering chord in them. Thus, although his gracious comparison of Mrs Phillips' drawing room with the small summer breakfast parlour at Rosings "did not at first convey much gratification", yet when Mrs Phillips learns about the Rosings chimney-piece costing eight hundred punds, "she felt all the force of the compliment, and would hardly have resented a comparison with the housekeeper's room." Listening to Mr Collins, she "was resolving to retail it all among her neighbours as soon as she could." It is only Elizabeth (and possibly her sister Jane, who is too polite to say) who is critical of Mr Collins' pretensions. The reader is assumed to view character and society through Elizabeth's eyes, and thereby both Mr Collins' obnoxiousness, and Lady Catherine's rudeness and imperiousness, contribute to the (presumed middle-class) reader's education. The reader is taught to value Elizabeth's independence and proper pride, and even to value her resentment of Lady Catherine and her formal pile, over Mr Collins' obsequiousness and false humility and over Mrs Phillips' readiness to be impressed. And the reader is directed to prefer Pemberly to Rosings. Bishonen | talk 13:36, 23 June 2006 (UTC).
Having scanned through Google Books, I list some other hints as to the identity of Rosings:
Godmersham Park cannot be a very "dark horse". Jane Austen's brother Edward lived there, and Jane and Cassandra were often visitors. See Constance Hill, Jane Austen: Her Homes & Her Friends 1923, ch XVIIi.-- Wetman 19:26, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
The article states the location as in Cheshire, but isn't this wrong? It should be Derbyshire, I think. -- Ashley Rovira ( talk) 23:22, 16 October 2008 (UTC)