Mr. Darcy Elizabeth's love. Morgan wrote that the gratitude that Austen meant for Elizabeth to feel for Darcy "...is a gratitude that, despite all the obstacles which realism can provide, despite time, conventions, and misunderstanding, despite her wrongs and his own limitations, Mr. Darcy can see Elizabeth honestly and can love her as well." One critic, Wilbur Cross, wrote at first Darcy displays outrageous arrogance to Elizabeth, but the novel ends with an "almost pitiable humiliation of Darcy", which was a testament to the power of women to tame men. The character of Fitzwilliam Darcy has appeared in and inspired numerous works.
Mr. Darcy into the vogue and the character of Mr. Darcy exemplifies the trend. Nicolson described the differences between Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy as follows: "Mr. Bingley is a[n] 18th century man: handsome, young, agreeable, delightful, fond of dancing, gentlemanlike, pleasant, easy, unaffected and not entirely in control of his own destiny. Darcy is fine, tall, handsome, noble, proud, forbidding, disagreeable and subject to no control but his own...Darcy is a 19th-century man, manliness itself, uncompromising, dark and sexy. And it is Darcy, of course, whom the novel ends up loving". The character of Mr. Darcy very much reflects the changing