Pride And Prejudice

A proposal will never work when it is devoid of love, its place filled with talk of money and convenience.
Mr. Collins' choice of words in his proposal to Elizabeth make him seem like exactly the opposite of any man a girl would like to marry. Even his first few words of the marriage proposal are enough to turn her away. He says, "Believe me, my dear Miss Elizabeth, that... you would have been less amiable in my eyes had there not been this little unwillingness; but allow me to assure you that I have your respected mother's permission for this address" (Jane Austen). The problem about what he says here is that he is so formal. Calling her Miss Elizabeth puts a huge gap between the two. They are like two absolute strangers instead of cousins, or more importantly, in the middle of a marriage proposal. It almost feels like he is pushing Elizabeth away, and when he later goes on to talk about her mother, out of any word he could have picked, he chose the word respected. Elizabeth's mother must be his aunt if Mr. Collins and Elizabeth are cousins, so should he not call her mother something more endearing? Instead, he seems to place Elizabeth and her mother as an entity that has nothing to do with him, almost.
Elizabeth wisely rejects him, and he says narcissisticly, "As I must therefore conclude that you are not serious in your rejection of me, I shall chose to attribute it to your wish of increasing my love by suspense, according to th usual practice of elegant females" (Jane Austen). The phrase he picks is "I shall chose". I believe he is being stubborn out of pride, and knows that Elizabeth is rejecting him because she does not love him. I believe that he can not stand being rejected by a woman that he calls repeatedly poor, and even went as far as to say, "...it is by no means certain that another offer of marriage may ever be made to you". He seems like he will not give up on her because he can not understand how a girl he sees as so low and below him as rejecting what he believes to be such a fine offer. It is almost like he believes Elizabeth should embrace his proposal the same way she would if a person were to give her the gift of the lost city of Atlantis.
Mr. Collins could have presented his proposal in a better way, but his lack of love for Elizabeth would have shown through anyway. Had, instead of saying, "...I am, to inherit this estate after the death of your honored father (who, however, may live many years longer), I could not satstfy myself without resolving to chose a wife from among his daughters, that the loss to them might be as little as possible..." (Jane Austen), he could have said that in a lighter tone, and kept himself off such a high pedestal. Here, he gives himself a lot of credit, saying that he is choosing a wife among the daughters so that he can ease their pain because he is inheriting the house. He could have said only that he was to inherit the house, while leaving out the part of easing their pain and their father dying. On that point, he calls their father honored. This is like when he called their mother respected, instead of calling her something more loving and familiar. He goes out of his way to be respectful, which would be nice and polite in a conversation of another topic, such as a friendly conversation, but it is not so in a proposal. Then, it is ridiculous and almost insulting.
The nicest thing he says through this entire scenario is, "...I cannot imagine that her ladyship would at all disapprove of you" (Jane Austen). I do not even know who it is that he is referring to, but I know that if I was being proposed to, I would not like it for him to be bringing other women into it. He makes it seem like he is only marrying Elizabeth because it would please this woman, who is probably rich and influential, and a person whom he wants to impress. That is not very romantic or appealing.
Mr. Collins also says the words, "...after your mother's decease" (Jane Austen). Now, within one marriage proposal, he has spoken of the death of both of her parents. That is definitely the most unappealing thing a man could do while proposing. He has insulter her the entire time, and then talks about the death of her family, as if it were some nonchalant event that would not effect her life whatsoever. If he wanted to make his proposal better, it would be best to leave those parts out, along with leaving out absolutely everything he said, other than "my dear... Elizabeth" (Jane Austen). He could then say something nice, or something absurd of that nature.