Unlocking the Codes in the Wrong Mr. Darcy

The Key

When I began reading The Wrong Mr. Darcy by Evelyn Lozada, I knew my goals were to discover the symbolic and cultural codes, define the systems of oppositions that make up the text, and come to understand the networks of controlling values. One of the keys to unlocking the secrets of this text is intertextuality, the traces of other texts that are placed in the narrative. Unfortunately I’ve misplaced said key because one of the largest influences on this text, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, is a book I’ve never read and have no prior knowledge of. So even though I was forced to go into this text without the magical key, I happen to be a pretty skilled lockpick, and I was determined to understand and meet my goals.

Unlocking the Symbolic and Cultural Codes

My first mission was to figure out the symbolic and cultural codes embedded in the book. Kaja Silverman in “Re-Writing the Classic Text,” describes the symbolic code as “central to the organization of the cultural order to which they belong . . . entrusted with the maintenance of that order’s dominant binary oppositions” (Silverman 270). There are plenty of unresolvable oppositions throughout The Wrong Mr. Darcy: rich and poor, those who know and those who don’t know, ethical and unethical. We’re able to see the two main characters, Hara and Derek, encounter the ethical and unethical symbolic code throughout the narrative. Derek learns of Charles’ wrongdoings—accepting money from a college that wanted him on their basketball team, his infidelity with Naomi and lack of consideration for her situation, and eventually, his role in rigging the games—and struggles to come to terms with the fact that his friend is not the same boy he grew up with. Hara learns of her father’s duplicity—the fact that he rigged the competition that allowed her to exclusively interview Charles and jumpstart her career—and struggles with doubts about her abilities and whether she was making the right decision by choosing to pursue the story anyway. 

On page 42, we’re able to see Derek’s moral dilemma when he learns about Charles’ past: “Derek’s thoughts were in chaos. He struggled between his love for a friend and a sickening sense that his ethics were about to be challenged. ‘Charles, seriously, think of a way you can self-report, use this opportunity to get on top of it’” (Lozada 42). Derek immediately tries to convince Charles to come forward about the story, proving that his integrity and morals makes the decision an easy choice. “Normally, his was a black-and-white world. There was a right and a wrong, and that was it. But here, in this instance, he was mired in the rare gray in-between . . . She hadn’t broken the law. But, ignorant or not, she had broken the rules and her son knew about it” (Lozada 43). Derek knows that no matter the intentions, what Charles and his mother had done was wrong. So even though he has love for them, he still cannot support their silence. 

Hara is faced with a moral dilemma of her own when she learns her father rigged the writing competition to get the interview for her. She admits to Naomi while sobbing about her father’s betrayal that she “didn’t deserve this chance” (Lozada 123). She’s originally convinced that she should abandon her sportswriting career altogether, but her new friends make her reconsider the opportunity she’s been presented with. 

It’s clear that the two characters are ruled by a strong moral compass and by what I believe to be a cultural code: cheaters never prosper. In a way, the entire book embodies this cultural code and in the end, all the cheaters are either dead or in jail. O’Donnell who rigs games and his complicit assistant Madeline both end up in prison. Charles, who plays a role in the rigging, ends up dead. The book even begins by telling us that Hara’s father is in prison for illegal sports betting activities.  It seems the all-consuming message is that when you do the wrong thing, it will eventually catch up to you.

Untangling the Networks of Controlling Values

Since cultural narratives govern how we see the world, they often find their ways into texts. These cultural narratives are made up of a purpose and a context: “For every purpose (solution) there is a context (problem). The purpose operates as a valued compensation for the persistence of the context (a problem that continues to assert itself in multiple situations); the context then acts as a warrant for the purpose, that is, the context provides a sufficient reason for the rhetor to pursue the worthy aim of the purpose. The negative context and positive purpose may both be articulated as some way of being, doing, or having that results in a consequence: an unpleasant consequence for the context, and for the purpose a desirable end” (Kopp). 

So trying to formulate versions of The Wrong Mr. Darcy’s controlling values led me first to believe that the first purpose could be: Remaining ethical and sticking to your morals leads to success and fulfillment. The context for this purpose could be: Cheating leads to failure or short-lived success. I then attempted to think of another point of view that would lead me to an opposing controlling value. Perhaps if we think in terms of the cheater’s mindset the purpose could be:  Discovering and exploiting flaws and weaknesses will allow you to win and achieve success. The context for this opposing purpose could be: Playing by others rules and sharing the playing field with others will guarantee loss and failure.

We can see how the different characters are ruled by opposing controlling values. Hara and Derek both believe that remaining ethical and sticking to your morals leads to success and fulfillment. O’Donnell and Madeline are ruled by the opposite idea, that success is success, even if one resorts to unethical means to achieve it. Both believe strongly that their way of doing things is the right way, but in the end morality prevails and the untethical characters are brought to justice. The characters who remained true to their ideals are rewarded with success (Hara gets the big story) and love (Derek and Hara accept their feelings for one another).

Learning to think of the story in this way really opened my mind to the depth that narratives contain hidden and locked away. By looking deeper into the codes embedded in the book I was able to glimpse some of its makings and (hopefully) articulate them well. I feel like I’m finally gaining the knowledge to unlock the secrets that stories contain and The Wrong Mr. Darcy was no different. Pretty soon I’ll be seeing codes written all over any pages I encounter.