March 2024 meeting: Mansfield Park, Vol. 2

If any Austen book is going to bring her fans to fisticuffs, chances are it will be Mansfield Park. Some members in our group don’t like it at all, while others like it to different degrees, with one admitting to its being his favourite.  These differences became evident at this meeting which focused on volume two (chapters 19-31), with the differences of opinion relating in particular to Sir Thomas. 

But let’s start with our guest. This month we again, quite coincidentally, had an American visitor join us, and again she had done her homework! How lucky are we, particularly as this visitor, a generation younger than we are, was reading Mansfield Park for the first time. How often do we wish we could speak to someone reading an Austen book for the first time!

Discussion

Our young American said that while she has read Austen and other classic authors, her main reading, currently, is romance and general fiction. So, as she was reading Mansfield Park, she looked for tropes common to the romance genre. And, she found two significant ones, which could cement Austen’s reputation as the mother of the romance genre! The tropes are the idea of friends (or, here, cousins) becoming lovers, and the heroine’s belief that she’s “not like other girls”. She’s not as pretty, not as outgoing, and so on, as her rivals. Fanny makes just this observation in a discussion with Edmund about her interest in hearing Sir Thomas talk about the West Indies. She suggests she is “graver than other people” and concludes:

… but then I am unlike other people, I dare say.

Those who are not fans of the novel included one of our absent members who emailed that she wondered why she found MP such a chore to read, compared with the other novels. She decided that it’s because she doesn’t like the characters, doesn’t care what happens to them, and so is not eager to read about them. However, she admitted that the novel is enlivened whenever Henry Crawford appears, and she does admire the creation of Mrs Norris.

Some members agreed that they find the novel a chore to read, or at least the first volume. A couple found volume 1 a bit tedious and wanted Austen to get on with the story. Not everyone agreed, however.

One of the members who loves Mansfield Park finds the characters fascinating even if they’re obnoxious. In terms of Volume 2, she was interested in the “amber cross” and the necklace/chain issue. Did Mary and Henry contrive, she wondered, for Fanny to pick “his” chain? We don’t know. Regardless, Austen is pointed about the contrast between Edmund’s chain which was simple and just right for the cross and Henry’s elaborate necklace. It works as a metaphor for the two men and their understanding of, relationship with Fanny.

She also briefly discussed Henry’s behaviour. He goes from playing with Fanny to falling in love with her, but never considers that she mightn’t like him. Interestingly, it doesn’t occur to Fanny that he might like her, which some suggested was a rare lapse of perception in Fanny. As for Henry’s letter, which is delivered by Mary, our member wondered what Henry had told Mary about the situation.

The other member who loves the novel, calling it his favourite, enjoys watching Fanny, and loves the language Austen uses in the novel, such as this description of Mrs Norris, upon Sir Thomas’ return. She

was now trying to be in a bustle without having anything to bustle about, and labouring to be important where nothing was wanted but tranquillity and silence.

And this of Maria when she realises Henry Crawford is not interested in her:

She must escape from him and Mansfield as soon as possible, and find consolation in fortune and consequence, bustle and the world, for a wounded spirit.

He also likes Austen for the broader picture she gives of society, including, here, references to the slave trade. He noted Edward Said’s postcolonial interpretation of slavery in the novel, and John Wiltshire’s refutation of Said’s ideas.

Other issues that interested him included Crawford’s desire to “improve” Thornton Lacey and turn it into something impressive, into a “place”. And Fanny’s comment on memory:

“If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligences. The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control! We are, to be sure, a miracle every way; but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly past finding out.”

Other members found other issues of interest in Volume 2. The theatricals, for example. Tony Tanner (1969) argues that the theatricals are key to understanding the novel. They encompass the concept of danger and change. The family all knew Sir Thomas would not be happy. A dichotomy is presented between being a good citizen and being an actor. Pointedly, Henry Crawford is recognised as the “best actor”, in the play – and, we see, in reality. Henry our member said, put his heart into his acting, and his acting into his heart. Mary is in her teasing, tempting element during the theatricals. The play, Lovers vows, itself, promotes unnatural and dangerous relationships, and all are doomed because of their insincerity. Tanner also argues that the play reveals the novel’s “ordination” theme.

We all had quite different ideas, from this volume of the novel, about the novel’s subject matter – at least as we saw them in this volume. So, another member saw the idea of appearance versus reality as coming to the fore in this volume. She focused on the first two chapters of this Volume (chapters 19 and 20), and the language Austen uses conveys the dichotomy between appearance and reality. She linked the destruction of the theatricals to the breakdown of the family, and sees Sir Thomas as the problem.

She liked this sentence describing Fanny joining the family upon Sir Thomas’ return:

Too soon did she find herself at the drawing–room door; and after pausing a moment for what she knew would not come, for a courage which the outside of no door had ever supplied to her, she turned the lock in desperation, and the lights of the drawing–room, and all the collected family, were before her.

Sir Thomas, this member argued, wants to bring his governance back, to put Mansfield Park back in order. Fanny, she said, has no voice in the family, and fears Sir Thomas. This member sees Sir Thomas as having been harsh about Fanny when he’d suggested to William (in Volume 1) that he might not find her much changed at 16 from how she was at 10. Overall she saw him as having a negative impact on the family.

Not all agreed with this assessment of Sir Thomas, however. One member, for example, complimented Sir Thomas on ordering a carriage for Fanny, despite Mrs Norris suggesting otherwise. She approved the way Sir Thomas regularly put Mrs Norris in her place. This member finds Mrs Norris infuriating – but then most of us do! – and is still thinking the book could be a satire, as she’d suggested during our Volume 1 discussion. She described Fanny as the arch-introvert, one who is observant and perceptive.

She was particularly taken with John Wiltshire’s discussion of the disempowerment of women. He argues that nursing (caring for) servants and the working class is a traditional role for the genteel but otherwise disempowered woman, but that “this benevolence has a Janus face” in that it replicates the inferior-superior social relationships that characterise the wider social system. Mrs Norris, Wiltshire argues, “punishes others for her own dependency and frustration, whilst being able to hide this from herself in the guise of generosity to the recipients and loyal service to the system”.

Similarly, all at Mansfield Park have, through their “adoption of the poor niece Fanny Price … basked in the pleasure of benevolence”. But this has fed “other, less creditable impulses, including Fanny becoming Mrs Norris’ victim. Both Fanny and Mrs Norris are outsiders, “fringe-dwellers”. In other words, both are single, defenceless females who are “not part of the family except by courtesy. The one lives in the small White House, on the edge of the estate, the other in the little white attic at the top of the house”. Wiltshire argues that Mrs Norris prescribes onto Fanny “the worthlessness, inferiority and indebtedness she is so anxious to deny in herself”.  Fanny becomes the scapegoat upon whom she can “exercise her frustrations and baffled energies”. By scolding and punishing Fanny, Mrs Norris “can momentarily appease her own sense of functionless dependency and reaffirm the strictness of the social hierarchy which gives meaning to her life”.

Another member reiterated her response to volume 1 that the book continues to be, partly at least, about the selfishness and self-centredness of the well-to-do. Examples abound in this volume, including Lady Bertram’s self-congratulations for sending her maid to Fanny (too late) to dress for the ball, Mrs Grant using Fanny to entertain Mary, Henry’s assumption that Fanny will be pleased to marry him, and so on.

This member also argued that Sir Thomas is not all negative, but she did see this volume as being partly about the education of Sir Thomas. He is strict, but he loves his children. He’s kind to Fanny. And he does offer Maria a way out of her engagement – albeit he is happy, because it suits his wish “to secure a marriage which would bring him such an addition of respectability and influence”, when she insists, for her own reasons, that she wants to go ahead.

Just as the theatricals tell us much about the novel, this member suggested that the game of speculation, which includes the discussion about improving Thornton Lacey, also offers much to readers in terms of the novel’s characters and themes, particularly regarding competitiveness and money versus unselfishness and generosity.

Our meeting ended with more points being put forward, including that Sir Thomas’ absence had helped people change, that Sir Thomas represents new (and somewhat unstable) money, that he restores some stability on his return, and that, for many of us, his kindness to Fanny is genuine.

Next month, we move on to Volume 3, or chapters 32 to 48.

Sources:

Tony Tanner, “Introduction”, Mansfield Park, various Penguin editions (1966, 1969, 1985)

John Wiltshire, Jane Austen and the body, Cambridge University Press, 1992

March 2024 meeting: Mansfield Park, Vol. 1

JASACT commenced the year with what has become a first-meeting-of-the-year tradition, a February meeting at the Oaks Brasserie. We like easing ourselves back into meetings with a relaxed gathering under the trees. This year we tested our brains on a selection of puzzles from the Pocket Posh Jane Austen 100 Puzzles book. After some early trepidation, we all came through with flying colours, though the character name anagrams did provide a bit of brain teasing.

We are now into the third year of our second cycle of slow reading Austen’s novels, which means we are up to Mansfield Park. In March, therefore, our focus was volume 1 (chapters 1-18).

Discussion

Mansfield Park is, for many, the most problematical of Austen’s novels. This may be because, as one member offered, it’s her first truly adult-written novel, given Sense and sensibility was probably started between 1795 and 1797, and Pride and prejudice first drafted over 1796 to 1797. By contrast, Mansfield Park was conceived and written at Chawton, between 1811 and 1813, by which time Austen had experienced some of life’s big blows. Compared with her first two novels, Mansfield Park’s characters are less appealing to some readers, and its themes more complicated. As a result, slow reads can not only bring new insights, but the occasional change of mind.

One member provided some publishing background that she gleaned from Christopher Browne’s Sensibilities article. The novel was initially published at the Austens’ expense so that Jane could retain ownership of the copyright. It was published in three volumes on the 10th May 1814 at 18 shillings, in an edition of 1250 copies, and was sold out by November of the same year. The second edition of 750 copies was published by John Murray in February 1816. They didn’t sell so well and by 1820, 498 copies were remaindered at 2s. 6p. As our member said, Who would have thought Jane Austen could ever have been remaindered? Not us!

So to our insights. We started with two brief comments mailed in from absent members. One shared that she had always focussed on the sort of fairy tale opening – “once there were three sisters” – without realising that the beginning is all about the trauma of relocating a child out of her home into another, about how Fanny must adjust not only to a new family but also to a new culture and be grateful for it! Austen explores, she wrote, the impact of this and its psychological consequences.

The other mailed-in impression came from a member who offered, among other things, the observation that Mansfield Park, of all the books, has the least number of admirable characters. It feels, she said, as though Austen had just had a surfeit of Bath and wanted to paint ‘real’ people as she saw them, with all their flaws (with the exception of Mrs Grant!) (Her first truly adult novel, in other words?)

Somewhat related to this idea were those of the member who has always disliked this novel intensely, so this time she listened to it, choosing an audio version by Juliet Stevenson. She felt that Stevenson “over-egged the characters” which made them feel like caricatures, and made her think the novel might be satire. Mrs Norris is exasperating, annoying, aggravating, unjust; Edmund is an unperceptive prig; Sir Thomas is happy to leave the children in Mrs Norris’ care, knowing their mother/aunt is not up to it; Austen is facetious about Maria and Julia’s beauty; and Mary is self important, self-centred, an “influencer” (which description we all liked), a “city-slicker” who is due to be punctured. So, satire, she again asked?

Other members’ impressions got more into the nitty gritty, looking at the characters and what they represent or tell us about people and society.

We all liked the suggestion that the three Ward sisters who open the novel represent three levels of society: Lady Bertram the well-to-do, Mrs Norris the genteel middle-class, and Mrs Price the poor. Sir Thomas feels he can bestow goodness on others, and Fanny appears as a Cinderella. Austen, it was suggested, then uses the play – the theatricals – to move people around, to show some of their true colours.

The novel, said another, offers rather a bleak view of marriage and families. She can see, she said, why it was remaindered! Also looking at the opening chapter’s introduction of the Ward sisters, she argued that we are given primarily a materialistic view of Maria Ward’s (Lady Bertram’s) marriage, that there is no evidence that Elizabeth (Mrs Norris) was happy in her marriage, and that, is is made clear, Frances (Mrs Price) married to disoblige her family.

Many reasons are given for Fanny’s relocation to Mansfield Park, but none involve consideration of her feelings (or that of her brother to whom she was close). Fanny had status as the eldest daughter in her own family, and suddenly she had none. In terms of Fanny’s family, there is no evidence outside of William that they tried to maintain contact with her, and again, besides William, she does not appear to miss them.

There is much focus on marriage, but it is all hard-hearted. Mary Crawford looks at Tom Bertram as a marriage prospect, but it’s a venal tick-the-boxes view with no consideration of feelings. It’s been suggested, this member continued, that Mary was inspired by Jane’s sister-in-law Eliza who flirted with two of Jane’s brothers, albeit she did marry one eventually.

Henry Crawford is a flirt who behaves with a complete lack of consideration towards the young Bertram women.

Rather like Mary, Maria actually makes a tick-the-box marriage decision when she accepts the wealthy Mr. Rushworth. Her reasons are material, but perhaps also involve a desire to escape her family. Certainly, no feelings are involved, argued our member, she is quite aware that he is a stupid man.

As for family feeling, there are few examples of warmth with the exception of Mary and Henry, Mary and Mrs Grant, and of course Fanny and William. Tom and Edmund show so real brotherly love, while Maria and Julia seem to get on – until Henry appears.

The novel presents different family structures: Fanny is essentially adopted out of hers; the Bertram family is intact but not happy (with no one seeming to miss Sir Thomas who is absent for this part of the book); Henry and Mary have been shunted around, somewhat, due to death first of their father, mother and aunt-in-law. All this prompted her to think about the impact of family on people. What we appear to have, our member said, was a microcosm of a certain class of society with which Jane was acquainted. Other members also, not surprisingly, referenced similar points regarding family, the importance of marriage, and Austen’s portrayal of society

Some members looked at specific characters. A couple specifically focused on Fanny, with one being interested in her status as niece and cousin. She’s partly accepted, partly not, but is seen as a second-tier in the family. Another talked of how in her first reading of the novel she’d been annoyed with Fanny, but had more sympathy for her this time. This read she saw Fanny’s understanding of the play and its potential impact. She agreed with those who suggested that Fanny suffered from trauma, from a sort of PTSD, in fact.

Edmund was the focus of another member’s reading of this first volume. He argued that in this volume Edmund’s behaviour is “not entirely honourable”, but that we must make allowances for first love, which can affect our values. Edmund is not yet ordained, but he sometimes preaches like a clergyman, and didn’t seem to always be entirely convinced himself of what he was saying. Edmund, he concluded, is rather insincere in this first volume and not an entirely sympathetic character.

Another member was interested in Lord Mansfield’s abolition of slavery. Was Austen presenting marriage as a form of slavery, with characters boxed-in, being directed as to whom they should marry? We agreed that this was worth thinking about as we read the next two volumes.

Several members commented on the issue of selfishness. Almost everyone, said one member, is self-absorbed, selfish, irresponsible, inconsiderate of other people. Even Edmund is, but he does recognise his failings with respect to Fanny (eg the horse riding story, and the rose picking incident which leaves Fanny with a headache).

For another member, this selfishness was her over-riding impression from this reading of volume 1. Indeed, it made her wonder whether the novel is intended to be a broader commentary on the selfishness, self-centredness, hedonism of the well-to-do, and how it leads to poor behaviour and carelessness of the needs of others, to immorality. References to selfishness recur frequently in this volume, including:

This, from Chapter 2’s discussion of Fanny:

Nobody meant to be unkind, but nobody put themselves out of their way to secure her comfort.

This from Mary on herself:

“… selfishness must always be forgiven…because there’s no hope of a cure.”

And, from chapter 14, Fanny’s observation of the would-be playmakers:

Fanny looked on and listened, not unamused to observe the selfishness which, more or less disguised, seemed to govern them all, and wondering how it would end.

Subsequent discussion explored the above a little more, but also included thinking about the idea of the novel as a farce; on its timelessness as a picture of arrogance, entitlement and privilege; and on the value of hearing it read. We also commented that this novel could be the closest we’ll ever get to an autobiography of Austen. Did, for example, her big “love” Tom Lefroy toy with her, like Henry Crawford does here?

We were pleased to have an American visitor in our midst this month, particularly as she’d done her homework and was able to contribute to the discussion.

Next month, we move on to Volume 2, or chapters 19 to 31.

Source:

Christopher Browne, “Jane Austen and her publishers”, Sensibilities, No. 67, December 2023

November 2023 meeting: The Up and Comers

The topic for our final meeting of the year was described as “The Up and Comers, or, looking at the changing social order in Jane Austen’s times”. In the end, for various reasons, it was a small meeting but those of us there enjoyed the discussion. We were amused that in terms of looking at the topic, we broke down the middle with half of us focusing on the “up and comers” and half on the changing social order. However, in a count back the “up and comers” won, as that’s the angle our remote member also took!

The Up and Comers

Those who chose this approach explored up-and-comers in general, as well as some specific up-and-comers, like the Coles and the Eltons (in Emma) and the Steele sisters (in S&S). Our remote member sent some thoughts on the topic.

She wrote that she was less interested in the general line of the rapid development of social change during Jane Austen’s lifetime, than in in “the far more interesting glimpses of it in her writing”. She was particularly interested she said in how Austen’s characters rose and fell socially, and how they handled themselves. She came up with some useful (and entertaining) categories:

• Those upping unpleasantly, such as the Eltons (Emma), the Thorpes (NA), and the Bingley sisters (P&P). 
• The comical uppers, such as Sir William Lucas, Mr Collins and Mrs Bennet (all P&P). 
• The well behaved and courteous uppers, like the Gardiners (P&P), Fanny and William Price (MP), the Crofts (Persuasion), and the Martins (Emma). 

As our remote member concluded, every nuance of social mobility is included in Austen’s works as almost every character is experiencing some form of change, either consciously or unconsciously. The one curious person who remains solidly static, she thought, is Mr. Bennet. Also, Colonel Brandon, Mr. Knightley and Mr. Morland seem comfortably uninterested in rising the social ladder. They have, she proposed, upped and come!

Another member who looked at the up-and-comers angle suggested that Persuasion could be seen as the novel of up-and-comers, given its exploration of the rise of the naval class in peace-time, and perhaps Sanditon was to continue this idea of the rising class. Emma is also rich in up-and-comers, including the Coles, the Eltons, and the Martins. Emma’s discomfort with this group – including her determination that Harriet is a cut above – is partly behind her education.

Another up-and-comer featured by a member is Pride and prejudice’s Mr Collins, who epitomises, our member suggested, the Peter Principle, in that he’d risen to his level of incompetence. He is an excellent example of someone trying to move up the social ladder. He has some “nice characteristics”. At 25 years old, he is described, when he appears at Longbourn, as “grave and stately … manners … Very formal”. Mrs Bennet would have loved that. Elizabeth, on the other hand, sees something different. She says to her father:

“He must be an oddity, I think,” said she, “I cannot make him out. There is something very pompous in his style. — And what can he mean by apologizing for being next in the entail? — We cannot suppose he would help it if he could. — Can he be a sensible man, sir?”

He praises Lady Catherine, and admires her condescension, which he sees as a privilege. He is an example of those up-and-comers who try too hard. Is Miss Bingley another one? She comes from new money, while Mr Darcy and Emma’s Mr Knightley come from old money.

Those of us who looked at the up-and-comers came to the realisation that the world Austen depicted in her novels was essentially what we’d now call the middle class – that is, not the aristocracy, but what Copeland describes as the “genteel professionals” or “pseudo-gentry” who are “sandwiched between commerce and the land Gentry,”. Consequently, more characters than not, could, in fact, be described as up-and-comers.

Given this large population of up-and-comers in Austen’s novel, we realised that there was no simple way to characterise them or their role in the novels. Take the Coles in Emma, for example. They are successful and well on their way to achieving some social status in the community. The Steeles, in Sense and sensibility, on the other hand, grasp any way they can to claw their way in and up, with Lucy, in particular, not caring whom she hurts along the way. What the Coles and Steeles do have in common, however, is that they all experience snobbery – the Coles at the hands of Emma (who condescends to go to their party and “meant to be very happy” despite their lowly status, to her mind), and the Steeles at the hands of many. But the Coles appear to behave with grace and, dare we say, knowing their place (as they’d be expected to in that era), while the Steeles push themselves forward and turn off anyone with integrity but not those who are easily flattered.

Changing social order

Most of those who focused on the changing social order used, quite serendipitously, Janet Todd’s excellent book, Jane Austen in context, which contains essays on specific aspects of Austen’s career and her times. Interestingly, different members chose different articles, some reading a couple, during their research.

Edward Copeland’s essay “Money” divides Austen’s novels into early and late, with the first three written – Sense and sensibility, Pride and prejudice, and Northanger Abbey – having, he argues, a common economic vision, encompassing the danger of losing all, the chance of hitting it rich, huge losses and huge gains, all riding on luck and the main chance. The later novels – Mansfield Park, Emma, Persuasion – involve more complex economics, which are sometimes deeply troubling morally. Here, social changes are handled more reflectively, and are affected by the economic upheavals of war years, the decline in agricultural profits, and the idea that “movement of money was the key to the disturbing new shifts in the arrangements of power” 

Another member talked about the role of women, changing and otherwise. She spoke of how daughters were seen in terms of their ability to increase their family’s means by marrying up.

Another change came from Raven’s essay, “Book production”, in which he discusses the role of circulating libraries, and the increasing penetration of printed material in society between 1800 and 1830, though authors didn’t necessarily benefit significantly from “the marketing boom”.

Changes in transport was another area we looked at, mainly via Pat Rogers’ essay. Walking was still a common means of transport, for men and women, though as we know from Elizabeth Bennet’s experience, it was frowned upon for, as Rogers describes them, “fine ladies and smart gentlemen”. Horses, and horses and carriages, were the major form of transport at the time, and Austen uses them regularly in her novels to make various points – Edmund’s using Fanny’s horse for Mary, Willoughby’s inappropriate horse gift, to name a couple.

The improvement in roads were, argues Rogers, an “index of social progress” and made the Industrial Revolution possible.

Another essay our members looked at was Robert Clark and Gerry Dutton on agriculture, in which they discuss the importance of farming to the Austen family income, arguing it was more financially signifiant to them than Mr Austen’s role and vicar and teacher. Clark and Dutton argue that:

Austen’s mentality was formed in a household very much more engaged with the shaping forces of the British economy than in the insulated genteel home that is usually presumed. This realisation enables us to re-evaluate the acuity with which her novels represent the socio-economic transformation of Britain in her lifetime.

Closely related to the agriculture issue is that of Landownership. Austen, writes Jones, is concerned throughout her novels with the conduct of landowners and their influence on community. Jones also discusses Mr Knightley as, in effect, combining new Whiggish modernising behaviour with more Tory ideas of benevolence and paternalism. Mr Knightley, he says, was Austen’s favourite “portrait of a country gentleman”. Through him, she “attempts to unify, old and new, Whig, Tory, and even radical ideas of responsible stewardship of land.”

Finally, a member briefly looked at Wheeler’s “Religion” essay. Austen’s family practised a moderate anglicanism, one based on commonsense in morality, on pragmatism, on a middle road between and new. It’s a value espoused by Fanny Price. This thinking shaped Austen’s response to the Gothic sublime, which we see in Henry Tilney critique. Austen, argues Wheeler, avoided extremes.

So, all in all, a wide-ranging discussion that covered ground beyond that originally envisaged. However, it resulted in more ideas for us to consider in our next Austen re-reads.

Sources

• Robert Clark and Gerry Dutton, “Agriculture”, in Jane Austen in context, ed. Janet Todd, Cambridge University Press, 2005
• Edward Copeland, “Money”, in Jane Austen in context, ed. Janet Todd, Cambridge University Press, 2005
• Jane Austen World blog. Regency – Middle Class tag
• Chris Jones, “Landownership”, in Jane Austen in context, ed. Janet Todd, Cambridge University Press, 2005
• James Raven, “Book production”, in Jane Austen in context, ed. Janet Todd, Cambridge University Press, 2005
• Pat Rogers, “Transport”, in Jane Austen in context, ed. Janet Todd, Cambridge University Press, 2005
• Michael Wheeler, “Religion”, in Jane Austen in context, ed. Janet Todd, Cambridge University Press, 2005

October 2023 meeting: Punctuation and Jane Austen

Our October meeting was inspired by an article titled “Shouty Jane Austen? On the evolution of the exclamation mark” written by scholar and writer Florence Hazrat. This article, and an older one by Maev Kennedy, titled “Pride, prejudice and poor punctuation”, were shared in advance with members. Our homework was to think about the articles and Jane Austen’s use of punctuation. The topic was not to everyone’s taste, but for those who attended, it resulted in a stimulating meeting that produced more questions than it answered.

The “Shouty Jane” article, published in 2022, explores Austen’s punctuation, her use of the exclamation mark in particular, and the implications of editors “smoothing” Austen’s punctuation out. Kennedy’s article, however, was published in 2010 in the wake of Professor Kathryn Sutherland’s project which saw the publication online (and in print) of all known Austen manuscripts. It resulted in some commentators questioning Henry Austen’s claim that “everything came finished from her pen”. A fracas ensued with, as Kennedy writes, some arguing that the manuscripts undermined the prevailing image of Austen as “one of the most pristine stylists of all time”.

William Gifford, by John Hoppner (d. 1810), via Wikipedia

Scholars, for example, pointed to Austen publisher John Murray’s use of the editor Gifford who wrote of Mansfield Park:

I have read the Novel, and like it very much – I was sure, before I rec’d your letter, that the writer was the author of P. & Prejudice &c. […] It is very carelessly copied, though the handwriting is excellently plain, & there are many short omission which must be inserted. I will readily correct the proof for you, & may do it a little good here & there.

Despite his comment, it would appear that he made more extensive changes to the ms than is implied here.

Sutherland argued, however, that these manuscripts, do NOT make Austen “less of a genius”, that in fact, “it makes her more interesting, and a much more modern and innovative writer than had been thought”. She says that Austen’s “use of dashes, to heighten the emotional impact of what she’s writing is striking: you have to wait for Virginia Woolf to see anything comparable”.

So we had our own little look and think. A member suggested we start with the opening chapter of Persuasion (for which we don’t have a manuscript). Is the punctuation we see Austen’s? Probably not.

Hazrat shares two examples from Persuasion, one from the available ms and one from the published book, and says that the “sobriety and self-control exuded by the full stops and semicolon” in the published version “stand in stark contrast to the vitality of the original manuscript, with its capitalised words, emphatic underscorings, shoal of dashes and single bold exclamation mark”. The manuscript, she argues, shows an author “well versed in catching the rhythms of dialogue and speech, particularly of an emotionally stirred kind”. In the ms, in other words, Anne’s words are full of passion and feeling whereas the edited version is calm, controlled. These versions offer very different readings of Anne’s character.

We also looked at a short excerpt from the published Persuasion, shared by a member. Note the exclamation marks in Wentworth’s sharing of his fears with Anne:

to see your cousin close to you, conversing and smiling, and to feel all the horrible eligibilities and proprieties of the match! To consider it as the certain wish of every being who could hope to influence you! Even if your own feelings were reluctant or indifferent, to consider what powerful supports would be his!

We spent some time discussing Hazrat’s article, because her discussion of the “exclamation mark” and of the history of punctuation, generally, gave us much to think and talk about.

One member suggested that the Juvenilia – at least that edited by the Juvenilia Press – provides us with a good idea of Austen’s original punctuation. Christopher Weibe, who wrote the Note on Text for their edition of Love and freindship, discusses their editorial decisions. He says they had “opted for minimal editorial intervention” because “one purpose of publishing Austen‘s early writing is to provide a window on her formation as a writer”. Their edition, he says

is therefore closer to the manuscript than that of [Margaret] Doody and [Douglas] Murray, whose major intention was “to supply the reader “readily readable” text.

He goes on to argue that the paucity of manuscripts for Austen’s published novels “to illumine her techniques of composition and revision” gives greater importance to the Juvenilia, because “in them we can observe her writing, unmediated by the modalities of contemporary publishing practices”.

He also says that, regarding punctuation, they had left it as it is in the manuscript, following Chapman’s dictum that “to modernize is – in however small a degree – to falsify. Austen, they believe,

displays a jouissance in her punctuation that is very articulate: she is, in the manuscripts, outside the publishing industry’s “corrective”, and standardising influence. We have preserved her famous “freindships” and other eccentric spelling practices; we have reinstated a few words and phrases omitted by previous editors; and we have retained the ampersand symbol, since it conveys the impromptu feel of the novel in letters.

There is a similar (but unattributed) note on the text for Juvenilia Press’s publication of Austen’s Three mini-dramas (their title). They made a few changes, mostly relating to stage direction and presentation of the text as a play, but otherwise, they “made no changes to Austen’s punctuation, nor to her spelling or abbreviations”. This means that, unlike Chapman, they did not make compound words (such as turn “any thing” to “anything” in “The visit”), and they kept her underlinings of words, rather than italicising them as Chapman did.

According to the Juvenilia Press, Doody and Murray argue that ‘Austen only “sometimes uses the conventional system“ of punctuation’ which “can pose a challenge to the reader”, but they

consider that Austen’s flouting of convention is generally purposeful, and there is more to be lost and gained in regularising it.

Yes, our group generally concurred. As the member who brought these comments to the meeting said, Austen’s Juvenilia provide good examples of her often breathless, frequently dramatic, and always expressive prose, much of which is conveyed through dashes and exclamation marks.

Another member shared some thoughts from John Wiltshire who argues that Austen punctuates to reflect conversation. Austen uses dashes for Mr Knightley’s struggle with his conscience, for example, and these dashes, argues Wiltshire, are the cracks within which emotion lies. Her punctuation, in other words closely conveys feeling, emotion.

The evidence?

Overall, we were feeling that editors had suppressed Austen’s more expressive prose. However, one member shared Geoff Nunberg’s comments. He suggests that given we have no examples of the actual copy that Austen submitted to her publishers – “all that Sutherland or anybody else has to go on is the manuscripts for some teenage juvenilia and the rough drafts of some unfinished or discarded works” – we don’t know what cleaning up she’d done. He also argues that her inconsistencies were rather par for the time. We see the same things in the manuscripts of Byron, Sir Walter Scott and Thomas Jefferson.

Indeed, Nunberg argues that it’s anachronistic to see these features as wrong. He and Hazrat make clear that “correctness” in spelling and punctuation were only being established about this time. He says:

By the time Austen was writing, that rhythmic use of punctuation was yielding to the modern system based on syntax, which took the written language further from the intonations of speech. That’s the system that shows up in most of the early editions of her novels, and that’s more-or-less the one we use today.

But who supplied the punctuation in the novels? Was it Austen herself, or her publisher John Murray, or some nameless editor or compositor? Nobody knows. 

In the end, he argues, it doesn matter because:

What’s remarkable about Austen is the way that artistry shows up even in those ragged manuscripts. The punctuation may look slapdash or peculiar to modern eyes, but those complex sentence structures are always already there. 

Sutherland is also on record as saying that “the structure we all love is there”, that Austen’s artistry is still evident in these “ragged manuscripts”.

What did Jane think?

Well, in a word (or two), we don’t know. Nowhere in her surviving letters does she comment on what editors/publishers had done to her work. Was she concerned, or did they not do much to those final copies we haven’t seen? Was she just happy to be published, and didn’t mind what they did? Was she a woman writer accepting what the male editors/publishers told her?

We don’t know! We don’t know how much she changed her manuscript for the fair copy she gave to her publisher, and we don’t know what she thought about it all. The only fair copy known to be in existence is that for Lady Susan, which, being at the end of her Juvenilia period, doesn’t provide enough evidence of her mature practice. Whatever the story, though, we all agreed with Janet Todd that having these manuscripts online is a great resource.

So, it comes down to this: We understand that Lord Byron, the Brontës and others weren’t very clue-y about punctuation and were happy to be edited. Perhaps our Jane was too. Some of us didn’t like that possibility, preferring to think her expressive writing had been toned down against her will. Others of us weren’t so sure! Problem is, we’ll never know! (Says yours truly, liberally using the exclamation mark.)

Sources

Florence Hazrat, “Shouty Jane Austen? On the evolution of the exclamation mark”, Literary Review (paywalled), November 2022.

Maev Kennedy, “Pride, prejudice and poor punctuation“, The Guardian, 23 October 2010.

Geoff Nunberg, “Was Jane Austen edited? Does it matter?“, NPR, 17 November 2010.

Christopher Weibe, “Note on the text and acknowledgements” in Jane Austen’s Love and freindship, Juvenilia Press, 1995.

John Wiltshire, The hidden Jane Austen, Cambridge University Press, 2014.

September 2023 meeting: Let’s talk about Darcy

Our September meeting topic was inspired by some members reading about the late Hilary Mantel’s planned rewrite of Pride and prejudice. Titled Provocation, its perspective was apparently that of poor overlooked Mary Bennet. The Guardian‘s Allardice writes that “The universally acknowledged truth she [Mantel] boots out the door from the off is that Mr Darcy, literature’s favourite strong, silent type, is such a catch.” Given the many portrayals and interpretations of Darcy – in big and small screen adaptations, in fan fiction/rewrites/sequels, and in criticism – we decided it was time to revisit our beloved Mr Darcy!

The member who suggested the topic opened the proceedings by asking how we had reacted to Darcy when we first read the novel – which none of us, as she expected, could remember! What was Austen trying to do at the beginning, as we don’t know then that he’s not the ogre he appears to be. On first meeting him, we see him as rich, and disagreeable. The dashing Wickham’s stories and Darcy’s first proposal only further this impression. It’s not until we see his letter (after that proposal) and then hear from his housekeeper, Mrs Reynolds, at Pemberley, that we start to see him in a different light. 

Then our member injected some controversy into the meeting when she shared a picture of what Darcy looked like according to literary experts’ analysis. You can see it here.  Not much like Colin Firth – whom many see as the perfect Darcy – and roundly rejected by several at the meeting. We nearly had a riot.

So, Mantel’s response to Darcy is fascinating, and makes us think. He is used to not being contradicted, to being surrounded by sycophants, until Elizabeth comes on the scene. Here is Mary Bennet, in Mantel’s draft:

When was Darcy ever contradicted? His every assertion was treated as scripture. When were his wishes not performed, as if they were law? Such infallible consideration must divide a man from himself: he is dull but never knows it, for he receives witty answers to witless questions. I saw that it would be Elizabeth’s lifetime work to collaborate with his innocent self-conceit. It is what she will give, in return for being mistress of Pemberley.

From here, our discussion ranged over many ideas. Not many of us had read about Mantel so we looked at Darcy from our own perspectives. One member shared some ideas from the David Shapard’s notes in his annotated version of Pride and prejudice. We tend to criticise Darcy’s rudeness in not liking to dance with people he doesn’t know – with its being “a punishment” to stand up with them – but Shapard also points out that Darcy would be conscious of conferring some status on (raising the stature of) anyone he chose to dance with. 

Our member also described Darcy as having a few angles – the man of mystery, the man of action, the marriageable man – and argued that he is multilayered.

Our remote member emailed, as she often does, her response. She wrote that she switched off the romantic film images of Darcy, ignored decades of female panting and with the assistance of Hilary Mantel, concentrated purely on the text. She came to see that Jane Austen’s Darcy was definitely not desirable, that he was merely a typical product of the English class system, instilled from birth with the landed gentry’s strong sense of entitlement. He may have been startled into self-examination after Elizabeth’s rebuttal of his first proposal but, she asked, do we really believe a man with such robust self-esteem can cast off his appalling conceit, arrogance and total lack of empathy so easily? 

Austen, she continued, beguiled us into accepting that Elizabeth lost her Prejudice and Darcy relinquished his Pride. Not so. After the announcement of their engagement Elizabeth still has to do “all she could to shield him…….and was ever anxious to keep him to herself, and to those of her family with whom he might converse without mortification”. A delicate flower indeed. Further, argued our member, he succeeded in transferring her Prejudice from himself to her family for ‘she looked forward with delight to the time when they should be removed from society so little pleasing to either, to all the comfort and elegance of their family party at Pemberley’. Surely a subversive twist from Austen to round off the tale!

Quite independently, another member decided to focus on the end of the novel and, on this close reading, realised that the novel isn’t as simplistically romantic as it looks. In the second proposal chapter, Darcy self-assesses as having been “a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle… I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit… I was spoilt by my parents, who… allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing, to care for none beyond my own family circle, to think meanly of all the rest of the world, to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own. Such I was from eight to eight and twenty; and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth!”

Not long after this, we have the end of the penultimate chapter which tells us that:

Elizabeth did all she could to shield him from the frequent notice of either, and was ever anxious to keep him to herself, and to those of her family with whom he might converse without mortification; and though the uncomfortable feelings arising from all this took from the season of courtship much of its pleasure, it added to the hope of the future; and she looked forward with delight to the time when they should be removed from society so little pleasing to either, to all the comfort and elegance of their family party at Pemberley.

Then in the final chapter we learn a little about their married life, that:

• Mr Bennet visits Pemberley as often as he can, implying Mr Darcy accepted this, and therefore has become less snobbish.
• Mr Darcy won’t let Mr Wickham come to Pemberley but continues to help the Wickhams to some degree, which suggests continued generosity and honourable behaviour, though presumably mostly for Elizabeth’s sake. 
• Mr Darcy accepts Elizabeth’s “lively, sportive” treatment of him, which surprises Georgiana, but could indicate some learning of humility (albeit for love!) 
• Mr Darcy learns to swallow his pride and seeks reconciliation with Lady Catherine – but again for Elizabeth – suggesting that his stubborn streak remains but that he is more open to listening.  
• Mr Darcy loves the Gardiners which indicates that he is less snobbish and more willing to judge people by character not class. 

The question then is how much did Darcy change, and how easy was Elizabeth’s life really? 

Other members took other approaches. 

One looked at Tony Tanner’s writing on Pride and prejudice. Tanner argued that being conventional himself, Darcy admired Elizabeth for defying convention. Although written during Napoleonic times, it is, Tanner says, a novel in which a man changes his manners and a lady changes her mind. This member also noted that much of what Darcy did, he did for Elizabeth!

For another member, the interesting question was how much it cost Darcy to rescue Lydia, not just the money paid, but the expenditure involved in undertaking the search and all that that entailed. In this behaviour, she said, he epitomises the novel’s opening line. He has the money, and will do what he can for Elizabeth.

She also felt that it’s not surprising that he’s keenly aware of his status, but she saw him as willing to change.

Taking a different approach again was the member who looked at Barbara Seber’s book. That Darcy is a fisherman is very much in his favour, Seber says, because the two best men in the novel, Darcy and Mr Gardiner, are fishermen. It’s quite a contemplative sport, unlike hunting. Bad boys – and some not so bad, like Mr Bingley and Mr Bennet – are hunters, but Mr Darcy is, significantly, a fisher. Seber commences, however, with the fact that Darcy is a reader, and possesses a fine library, which distinguishes him from the hunting, sporting types. In fact, Austen barely mentions Darcy in terms of sport.  

Further, P&P, says Seber, is ‘distinctive in the Austen canon’ for linking ‘both the hero and the heroine with nature’.  Darcy prefers nature and the outdoors to society, and Elizabeth is associated with nature (with her walks, and her desire for travel in the countryside). Darcy’s sensitivity to nature is emphasised. For example, he pauses in the walk around Pemberley to observe a ‘water plant’.

We learn much about Darcy through the description of Pemberley and the words of his housekeeper, and it is also here that we learn he is a fisherman. He is the only Austen hero associated with fishing, which distances him from questions of cruelty that were even then associated with hunting. Also, Darcy offers Mr Gardiner the opportunity to fish in his ponds, a civil gesture which, says Seber, ‘gestures towards the bridging of the class distinctions inscribed in rural sport’ and which makes Pemberley, in her view, Austen’s ‘attempt to imagine an ideal community where the relationship to nature does not inscribe social hierarchies’. 

Our newest member said that he was only just getting to know Darcy, but agreed that he is multi-layered. His first impression, when Elizabeth was at Netherfield caring for Jane, was that Darcy was unpleasant, aloof, impolite. Regarding the first proposal, however, our member wondered whether his boastful behaviour might mask shyness. Interesting point. Then comes the complete turnaround with the Lydia situation in which he shows himself to be compassionate and decent, a man women would like.

Our last member to contribute looked at Helena Kelly’s book. For Kelly and this member, Darcy is intriguing. He likes Elizabeth’s unconventionality, he listens to Elizabeth and makes himself vulnerable to her. At Pemberley, he is a loving brother, and a good landlord and employer. Elizabeth, Kelly argues, likes him partly because he represents British culture. However, Kelly also makes the point that Austen breaks with convention, because at the time writers didn’t like marrying their characters out of class.

As usual, we came to no overall conclusion, but we did give ourselves much to think about!

Sources:

• Jane Austen; annotated and edited, with an introduction, by David M. Shapard, The annotated Pride and prejudice: A revised and expanded edition
• Margaret Doody, Jane Austen’s names: Riddles, persons, places (2015) (a couple of members also looked at Doody’s discussion of Darcy’s name)
• Helena Kelly, Jane Austen, the secret radical (2016)
• Barbara K Seber, Jane Austen and animals (2013)
• Tony Tanner, Jane Austen

July 2023 meeting: Jane Austen’s characters and us!

JASACT members were set a different sort of challenge for our July meeting, and it was framed like this: Which of Austen’s characters do we see as the closest to our own?  Not necessarily our favourite one, rather the one we relate to most closely – always, now, or at a particular time in our lives.

It was a smaller than usual meeting, but those who attended came up with some interesting characters to identify with.

A few members related to Marianne Dashwood. One said that as a teenager she was a total Marianne Dashwood  –  indulged, thoughtless of the feelings of others, into poetry, the piano, art and rapt in my own self importance. How embarrassing, she said. Another claimed to have an element of Marianne in her, specifically sharing Austen’s quote about Marianne towards the end of the novel: 

Marianne Dashwood was born to an extraordinary fate. She was born to discover the falsehood of her own opinions, and to counteract, by her conduct, her most favourite maxims.

A third member also related to Marianne, to her sense of fun, to her “running down the hill”.

Marianne certainly won the poll, if we were counting.

Keeping to the subject of teenagers, the daughter of one of our co-founders, who has since died, said that her mother had always liked Catherine Moreland, because she related to her naiveté as a teenager.

However, teenagers grow up, and our indulged Marianne member said that now she aspires to be the widely travelled, good hearted Mrs Croft. She’s not over troubled by the social pretensions of those around her, willing to enjoy shipboard life, game enough to be driven in a gig by the accident prone Admiral and, when he was ordered to walk as a result of the gout, walked for her life (until ‘she had a blister on one of her heels as large as a three shilling piece’) to do him good. “What a woman”, said our member. “I love her”.

As for our co-founder, her daughter suggested that she had grown up to be a mix of witty Elizabeth Bennet and sensible Elinor Dashwood … which brings us to Elinor.

The member who felt she had a touch of Marianne, primarily saw herself as a mix of sensible Elinor Dashwood and positive Jane Bennet. Elinor, she said, was calm and sensible, and perhaps a bit boring; she reins in her emotions and tries not to let them control her behaviour, but she does also feel. Our member related to that. However, she said, she’s not as self-sacrificing as Elinor. Regarding her Jane Bennet side, she argued that Jane is a bit like Elinor, in that both are sensible and behave with dignity. Jane wants to think well of people, as does our member who will first assume sins of omission when things go wrong before she will believe the sins are of commission. However, while Mr Bennet says Jane and Mr Bingley are likely to exceed their income because they are too easy-going, our member relates more to sensible prudent Elinor when it comes to money. Her husband pegged her as Jane, but not in this regard she hoped! She suggested that it can be hard to make sensible characters exciting. In Persuasion, and to a degree Mansfield Park, for example, there’s no Elizabeth or Marianne to captivate us.

One of our newer members looked at the characters closer to us in age. Of those she likened herself most to Lady Russell. She didn’t relate to Lady Russell’s status (or her title) she was quick to tell us, but she saw Lady Russell as sensible and steady which is how she is also seen by family and friends. Lady Russell is called in to help the Elliots with their money problems, and she offers good advice that is also sensitive to Sir Walter’s needs. Lady Russell is seen as influential, and as the sensible one.

Another member also chose one of the more minor characters, and also, coincidentally, from Persuasion, but hers was Mrs Smith (née Miss Hamilton). She was friend of Anne’s, had tutored her. Mrs Smith had led a wonderful, extravagant life, and had had all the best things, but then she ended up with rheumatic fever, and having to move to the poorer part of Bath. Is she, our member asked, the deus ex machina whose role is to tell us all about Mr Elliot and move the plot along. Our member felt she had once been married to a Mr Elliot. She could relate to the quote:

We lived for enjoyment. I think differently now: time and sickness and sorrow have given me other notions; but at that period, I must own I saw nothing reprehensible in what Mr. Elliot was doing. ‘To do the best for himself’ passed as a duty.

Our only male member present skirted the question, and answered a few of his own:

• Who he fantasises being: the character with the large estate in Derbyshire, Mr Darcy of course.
• Who he hopes no-one would liken him to: Mr Collins, Mr Wickham, and Mr Rushworth.
• Who others might judge him to be: Henry Crawford (because people don’t know what to make of him) and Edward Ferrars (who’s a bit wishy-washy).
• Who he most identifies with: Mr Knightley (who is sensitive, caring), Henry Tilney (who is well read, kind, and did the right thing), and, dare he say it, Fanny Price (because of how she thinks and has to cope).

We followed all this with a short but sometimes lively discussion, which included our agreement that Mrs Jennings becomes more interesting and more likeable as Sense and sensibility progresses, and that more men find Marianne appealing than women do. But, our main discussion concerned Elinor with one member arguing that Elinor tells white lies and doesn’t say the things she should (such as to Willoughby near the end), and others disagreeing, defending Elinor’s kindness and sensitivity to the situations she finds herself in.

It was a topic that got us all thinking – and it was a shame so many had to miss the meeting. Who did they relate to we wondered? Were there more Mariannes, or does an Elizabeth lurk amongst us? We may never know!

June 2023 meeting: Travel in Jane Austen’s novels

Prepared by member Anna.

Our June meeting was smatter than usual, with numerous apologies coming in for the day. However, a reduced, enthusiastic group, fuelled by Maltesers supplied by one of our number, discussed various aspects of travel in Jane Austen’s novels.

Members were asked to focus on one novel in their contributions.

We began by discussing the difference between a journey and the modern concept of travel as recreation. As there are only 2 real instances of holiday travel, ie The Gardiners and Lizzie in Derbyshire in Pride and Prejudice and the party to Lyme Regis in Persuasion, we decided on a broader definition to encompass journeys.

An absent member provided some information from the Adkins’ book, Jane Austen’s England, in which they discusses the types if travel available to everyone – rich to poor – at the time.  They argue that during Jane Austen time travelling became a bit easier than it had been a century before, and name various methods of travel characters use during her novels: walking, riding horses, carriage, stage coach and post-chaises, and of course ships and boats. Several of these forms appear in Sense and sensibility.

Overall, though, we agreed found that fact travel was so tedious, dangerous and expensive that the majority of people travelled no further than 14 miles from home.

One member referencing Sense and Sensibility said that Austen highlights the reality of this with Mrs Dashwood having to sell her carriage, and the impractical suggestion of Willoughby to gift Marianne a horse given their reduced circumstances.

Despite the obvious expense, there are 49 mentions of movement from one place to another and 46 mentions of carriages in Sense and Sensibility, noting how ludicrous is the idea that nothing happens in Jane Austen’s novels.

The changes of location in the novel have a significant impact on the characters.  The Dashwoods move to the country and Barton Cottage, Marianne’s realisation in London that Willoughby has betrayed her, Edward Ferrar’s decision that he prefers country life to the city life promoted by his mother and Marianne’s fateful walk at Cleveland, which almost results in her death.

Another member also considered the impact of travel on characters in Sense and Sensibility. Travel meant not only moving from one place to another but characters having to move out of their comfort zone and confront aspects which are physically and emotionally challenging.

At Barton Cottage, Marianne’s decision to go for a walk results in her being literally swept of her feet by Willoughby as he carries her home. At the end of the novel, Marianne and Elinor walk facing the same hills and she realises “Everybody seemed injured by me. The kindness, the unceasing kindness of Mrs Jennings, I had repaid with ungrateful contempt”. She has matured and grown emotionally through the course of the novel.

A number of carriages and men on horseback during Marianne’s illness at Cleveland heightens the tension with Austen cleverly creating movement to build emotional pressure as Elinor waits.

Another member turned to Margaret Doody’s Jane Austen’s Names and focused on the significance of the places that Austen chose to send her the characters moved to in Pride and Prejudice.

Brighton, a defended port, military camp and highly fashionable resort, was associated with entertainments and illicit sex. A totally suitable place for Lydia’s seduction by Wickham, as was Ramsgate where Wickham tried the same tactics with Georgiana.

Austen makes London central to her plot, serving as the hinge or crossroads of her story, as every important character, except Mrs Bennet either travels or lives there.

Did the Bennets live in Hertforshire because the name lends itself to wordplay, the place where hearts cross and meet? And is Rosings in Kent where Austen’s wealthy relations lived because they treated her with condescension? Hence the “vainglory and sense of entitlement” expressed through both Mr Collins and Lady Catherine.

While another member considered the significance of the journey to Hunsford, which allowed personal conversations between Elizabeth and Darcy leading to the proposal and personal conversations between Elizabeth and Colonel Fitzwilliam which added to Elizabeth’s prejudice.

The problems of travel for women were also discussed and the expense of private coaches. 

Take Emma, in which protagonist Emma is trapped in Hartfield, tied down by her father although other characters move considerable distances. Isabella and John Knighley travel from and back to London, Frank Churchill goes there for his haircut, Mr Elton travels to Bristol to find a bride and Mr Knightley also travels to London to resolve his feeling about Emma and marriage.

But three journeys do have an impact on Emma, herself, all three making her question herself and her decisions. The carriage ride home from Christmas at the Weston’s with Mr Elton, the infamous picnic at Box Hill, and her distress while Mr Knightley is in London and she thinks she’s lost him for ever.

Using Beth Wallace’s essay (citation below) as source material, our remote member considered Mansfield Park and how it is the young men who travel the most; from Tom Bertram’s accompanying his father to Antigua and his profligate trips to the races, Ramsgate, Weymouth and London, to Henry Crawford’s more purposeful journeys to Norfolk, Bath and London. 

Mr. Crawford assures all that he will return to Mansfield Park from Bath, Norfolk, London, York or any place in England at an hour’s notice. Noticeably, these land-bound men, including Edmund Bertram on his journeys to Eton, Oxford, Peterborough and London, do not comment on the travel itself.  

Modest Midshipman William Price travels the furthest and reminisces the most willingly about his naval experiences in the Mediterranean, Gibraltar and Sicily. Travel has indeed opened his mind. 

Female travellers are generally more thoughtful and the countryside is seen according to their moods and characters, such as the silent emotional turmoil during the ten miles in Henry’s barouche to and from Sotherton. 

Money and social class determined who travelled in carriages. Mrs Norris believes that ten year old Fanny can easily get from Portsmouth by public coach under the care of any creditable person who may chance to be going, such as a tradesman’s wife.

Years later, when Fanny and her brother are more respected, they travel by post back to Portsmouth and Mrs Norris ‘sees Sir Thomas actually give William notes for the purpose.’ 

Appropriateness also outweighed distance. Sir Thomas asks Fanny what time she would have the carriage come round when she is going to the vicarage close by. 

“My dear Sir Thomas!” cried Mrs Norris, red with anger, “Fanny can walk,” 
“Walk!” Repeated Sir Thomas ……”My niece walk to a dinner engagement at this time of the year!”

This was a time when consumer culture was escalating, and stories told from the point of view of material objects, their origin, manufacture, and journey taken to arrive with a particular owner, were quite popular. The journey taken by Jane Austen’s material objects, though, tell us so much more about the psychological development of her characters. The journey taken by Mary Crawford’s harp, for instance, exposes her ‘dangerous and siren-like power over Edmund’ and her insensitivity to the essential requirements of an agricultural community which prevent her from obtaining a horse and cart at harvest time. This brilliant use of material culture to focus on character exposé places Austen at the vanguard of the modern psychological novel. 

The meeting ended with quotes after a decision to delay the quiz for a month. It was an excellent topic.

Sources

Roy and Lesley Adkins, Jane Austen’s England. Viking, 2013, pp. 238 – 261)
Margaret Doody, Jane Austen’s names. University of Chicago Press, 2016
Beth Wallace, “Traveling shoe roses: The geography of things in Austen’s works” in Jane Austen’s geographies, ed. Robert Clark. Routledge, 2018

May 2023 meeting: Pride and prejudice, Vol. 3

Our May meeting saw us conclude our slow reading of Pride and prejudice, with a discussion of Volume 3 (Chapters 43 to the end). This volume starts with Elizabeth and the Gardiners visiting Pemberley and ends with, well, the ending!

Discussion

Some editions of P&P owned by JASACT members

Again, a wide range of “new” responses to the novel was shared, starting with a contribution from our remote member who made the observation that every reread of Jane Austen’s novels offers new insights into both her curiously complex characters and into our own. 

Characters

This observation proved true among our members, at least regarding our responses to Austen’s characters. There were new responses to Elizabeth, for example, with our remote member saying that in this read of volume 3 she finally came to appreciate and like Elizabeth, to admire her honesty and respect her ability to collect her thoughts and express them so instantly and lucidly. Another member noted that the usually confident Elizabeth is, at the beginning of this volume, quite discombobulated, and self-conscious. She’s uncertain of her feelings and of how to behave and react, such as in Ch, 45, where she “wisely resolved to be perfectly easy and unembarrassed; a resolution the more necessary to be made, but perhaps not the more easily kept”.

As another member said, all the characters in this volume show their individual characteristics, but only some change, Elizabeth and Mr Darcy being the two we all agreed on. Indeed, they themselves see that both have improved in civility.

Jane, for example, does not seem to change, though she’s not always as cloyingly sweet at she seems. She does see the truth of characters sometimes, such as when she writes to Elizabeth about Lydia’s disappearance, and says this about her mother, “Could she exert herself, it would be better; but this is not to be expected.”

An absent member sent in a detailed response focusing on Mr Bennet who had intrigued her from the beginning. He’s a gentleman, she wrote, but he lacks the finances to provide for five daughters. She saw him as an important catalyst in the novel for the plot, particularly regarding Lydia’s behaviour, which in turn gives Austen scope for social comment on a range of issues, including status, and the role of women.

Related to this issue of characters was one member’s reflections on the Bennets’ parenting. In the wake of hearing about Lydia’s running off, Elizabeth reflects on “the mischief of neglect [Mr Bennet] and mistaken indulgence [Mrs Bennet] towards such a girl”. She suggests to the Gardiners that Mr Bennet’s negligence might have encouraged Wickham to feel he could get away with his treatment of Lydia. Mr Collins, albeit tactlessly, makes valid points about “a faulty degree of indulgence” towards Lydia.

Eventually, Mr Bennet comes to see his own failures as a parent – in not being more attentive and in neglecting to make provisions for his daughters – and admits as much to Elizabeth. Mrs Bennet, on the other hand, learns nothing: “no sentiment of shame gave a damp to her triumph”, once the marriage is achieved.

Finally, one member observed that the plot is driven by thoughtless people, which must then be fixed by others, like Mr Darcy.

Style

Several of us talked about the style, and the various points we’d noted.

One, for example, saw that in the Pemberley scenes, the Gardiners who, although interested in Elizabeth, are not emotionally involved and are therefore more reliable in their assessment of Darcy and Wickham than is the emotionally-thrown Elizabeth.

Another talked about the dialogue, naming particularly the scenes in this volume between Elizabeth and Lady Catherine, and Elizabeth & Mr Darcy. Lady Catherine’s rudeness, she said, is extraordinary, and the scene shows Elizabeth’s resilience and presence of mind. The dialogue shows Austen’s sense of theatre. She loved Elizabeth’ statement to Lady Catherine that “He is a gentleman and I am a gentleman’s daughter”.

A few members commented on loving Austen’s language, particularly the quality of her sentences, and shared examples such as Lady Catherine to Elizabeth:

But your arts and allurements may, in a moment of infatuation, have made him forget what he owes to himself and to all his family. You may have drawn him in.

We agreed that Austen draws us in!

One member also commented on how words change over time and how this can impact our reading. In Ch 45, Austen writes that Mrs Gardiner and Elizabeth “pitied” Georgiana for her shyness, but does Austen mean “pity” the way we use it now?

Some questions posed by members

Did Austen’s readers understand signs that we do not? Was Longbourn a rundown, previously wealthy estate that had once afforded a shrubbery (behind the house), an area variously referred to as a copse (with benches), a wilderness (with a hermit in the hermitage), and a small wood, to the side of the house. In the front of the house is a lawn that is also described as a paddock, which sounds like it has been neglected. Are we to understand that the state of the property is a reflection of Mr.Bennet’s hopelessness? 

Where did Lady Catherine get the idea that Elizabeth and Mr Darcy were (or were about to be) engaged? We tossed this around, with some suggesting Caroline Bingley as being the most likely source given her dislike of, and her jealousy towards Elizabeth .

However, one of us had researched this through close reading. She said that after Lady Catherine’s visit, E is at a complete loss to know how LC learned of the engagement. LC doesn’t say, and E doesn’t ask her, but p 340 explains the likely source of the gossip as being reports by the Lucas family to Charlotte and Mr Collins. Well, they (Maria??) are certainly more observant than Elizabeth’s father who is quite incredulous when he hears the news, in turn, in a letter from Mr Collins warning him of Lady Catherine’s strong disapproval of any such match. 

What is Georgiana’s role? Some of the ideas our member considered were that Miss Bingley sees her as match for her brother (Vol 1) providing plot tension; Darcy explains why he dislikes Wickham and Wickham’s predatory nature (Vol 2) which marks the begininning of Elizabeth’s changing attitude to Darcy; Elizabeth realises (Vol 3) that Georgiana is not haughty but shy (adding to the “first impressions” idea). The Georgiana story explains why Darcy goes so quickly to find Lydia. Darcy’s treatment of Georgiana enables Elizabeth to see Mr Darcy in a different light. Georgiana also exemplifies the idea that whether wealthy or poor, women have predators. She is easily manipulated by Wickham, in a different way to Lydia who flaunts.

What did Darcy tell his sister about Elizabeth? When they meet unexpectedly at Pemberley, Darcy tells Elizabeth that ‘There is also one other person in the party … who more particularly wishes to be known to you’. In other words, his sister Georgiana.

Elizabeth is surprised:

She immediately felt that whatever desire Miss Darcy might have of being acquainted with her, must be the work of her brother, and without looking further, it was satisfactory, it was gratifying to know that his resentment had not made him think really ill of her. 

So, what had Darcy said to his sister about Elizabeth, posed our member? That he has met a woman to whom he is attracted? That he proposed to her and she refused him? It’s hard to believe, suggested our member, that he would have told the (whole) truth about his proposal. Might his sister have given him some advice on how a woman likes to receive a proposal of marriage? Whatever occurred between them, Georgiana is evidently well disposed towards Elizabeth, although very shy when they meet.

We discussed this issue, with various ideas put forward, but Austen is quiet on this point, so we came to no resolution.

Our final thought was that everyone in the novel contributed to the final outcome, that it’s a perfect ensemble work.

April 2023 meeting: Pride and prejudice, Vol. 2

In April, JASACT continued our slow reading of Pride and prejudice, by discussing, this month, Volume 2 (Chapters 24 to 42). This volume starts just after the Bingley retinue has moved to London, and includes Lydia’s going to Brighton and Elizabeth’s visit to Hunsford, where she receives Darcy’s proposal. It ends with her arrival in Derbyshire, in the company of her aunt and uncle, the Gardiners.

Discussion

Some editions of P&P owned by JASACT members

Again, different members noticed different aspects on this umpteenth (for most of us) read of the novel. And again, this surprised us, though we should know by now that with Austen, this is not at all surprising.

One member, for example, found Jane, at the opening of the volume, just a bit too saccharine, and she quoted American academic Patricia Meyer Spacks from her annotated edition of the novel. Spacks likened the angelic Jane to the sentimental 18th century heroines, but notes that while they are good by exerting self-control, for Jane it comes from within her nature. Philosophers David Hume and Adam Smith argued that feeling rather than reason provides the grounding for morality, and Jane exemplifies this. She sympathises with everyone, and behaves graciously to all. Our member wondered whether she should temper her view of Jane!

It was also noted how many journeys there are in this volume:

• the Gardiners come to Longbourn
• Jane goes to London with the Gardiners
• Elizabeth goes to Hunsford/Rosings, via London, with the Lucases
• Darcy and Fitzwillaim go to Rosings, and then leave Rosings
• Darcy and Fitzwilliam leave Rosings
• Lydia goes to Brighton
• Elizabeth and the Gardiners set off for Derbyshire

These comings and goings, it was suggested, enable us to contrast Mrs Bennet and Lady Catherine de Burgh who are silly and illogical in different ways. These movements also provide opportunities for Elizabeth to reflect on events.

Because we know the outcome of the romance plot, re-reads often enable us to see exactly how the romance played out. One member felt this particularly on this read, saying she clearly saw Darcy’s growing interest in Elizabeth – his frequent visits to the parsonage, his delayed departure from Rosings, his enquiry of Elizabeth regarding her attachment to her country and home, and his frequently coming across her in the park. All this provides a subtle build up to the first proposal that is not necessarily noticed by a first-time reader.

We all commented on the quality and emotional power of his letter to Elizabeth after she rejects him, with one member adding that the proposal and subsequent letter provide the novel’s turning point. We learn of Darcy’s serious interest in her, while Elizabeth discovers that she had been unduly influenced by Wickham’s condemnation and feels shame as a result.

In fact, one member characterised this volume as being “the education of Elizabeth“. She starts prejudiced, sure of herself regarding Wickham and Darcy, and is prepared to give leeway to Wickham in the marriage stakes but not to Charlotte. But, she then sees how Charlotte has managed her life, and we see what poor company really her family were anyhow! Elizabeth learns that she had misjudged Mr Darcy, and recognises her own father’s failings. She castigates herself:

“How despicably I have acted!” she cried; “I, who have prided myself on my discernment! I, who have valued myself on my abilities! who have often disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified my vanity in useless or blameable mistrust! How humiliating is this discovery! Yet, how just a humiliation! Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind! But vanity, not love, has been my folly. Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance, I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were concerned. Till this moment I never knew myself.”

Various members commented on Darcy’s cousin Fitzwilliam’s role in the novel’s plot and development. He passes on information to Elizabeth which enables her to glean some truths about Darcy’s true qualities, about his interest in her, but also about Darcy’s role in Bingley’s departure for London.

This volume also contains hints for the future. Should Elizabeth and Jane reveal Wickham’s true nature to others? What might the impact be of Mr Bennet’s inappropriate and neglectful behaviour as husband and father?

Our newest member was particularly intrigued by Mr Bennet, and asked what his purpose in the novel is. She described him as incompetent and wondered whether it was due to his being in an all-female environment. She’s seen it before, she said. We look forward to her observations on Mr Bennet when we discuss the final volume.

We discussed technique and style a little. One member commented on the changes in pace, while another asked whether Austen planned all the clues and hints to the plot, or did they happen seamlessly. (The age-old question for writers, we thought.) And, of course, there’s always some humour, provided mostly here by Mr Collins’ obsequiousness.

Overall, we agreed that this volume is the pivot for the novel. We learn a lot about the plot and the characters, relationships are developed, and we get hints of what’s to come.

Next month we move on to Volume 3, chapters 43 to 61.

Sources

Patricia Meyer Spacks, Note 9, p. 174, in Jane Austen, Pride & Prejudice: Annotated edition, Belknap Press, 2010.

March 2023 meeting: Pride and prejudice, Vol. 1

JASACT commenced its 2023 year with a meeting in February at Oaks Brasserie. This is the third time we have started the year this way, easing ourselves back into meetings with a relaxed meeting under the trees. This year we played the card game Speculation (using buttons for betting). Playing the game enlightened many of us a little more about some of the nuances in Mansfield Park. We also discovered who was the card shark amongst us (but what we learnt in the garden will stay in the garden!)

Last year, JASACT commenced another cycle of slow reading of Jane Austen’s novels, with Sense and sensibility. This year we are doing Pride and prejudice, starting with Volume 1 (Chapters 1 to 23).

Discussion

Some editions of P&P owned by JASACT members

Prepared by member Jenny K.

It was generally agreed that Jane Austen’s writing is so rich with meaning that whenever we reread her work, we discover many aspects and ideas that we had failed to notice previously. 

Her structural skill was immediately in evidence with the brilliantly ironic opening sentence followed by a sentence summarizing the ensuing action.

One member declared that Pride and Prejudice is not only the best and most clever of Austen’s novels as it is witty and funny in almost every line. It is almost as if she is playing with the reader.

Fifteen major characters appear each made distinctive by their style of dialogue. The teasing Mr Bennett is immediately identified as laconic in contrast to his flighty not very bright wife whom he delights in tormenting.

The novel’s original title, First impressions, makes sense, as it is often a case of first impressions, either provided directly or indirectly. Right from the start we are presented with differing views. Local gossip is inaccurate concerning Darcy’s character. Wickham contributes further to this inaccurate view of Darcy with his selective version of the truth while speaking to Lizzie. She, in turn, chooses to ignore Caroline’s warning concerning its veracity. Lizzie cannot help being impressed by Wickham’s appearance and manners. 

Acute as she can be, Lizzie is also entirely unaware of her effect on Mr Darcy who is bewitched by her from the start but hopes her social inferiority will protect him from involvement. Austen uses dramatic irony brilliantly in Darcy’s response to Lizzie’s playful suggestion that he has no defects. His defects start to appear when he easily influences gullible Bingley concerning his attraction to Jane, misjudging Jane’s behaviour as being indifferent. 

Lizzie’s great friend, Charlotte shows obvious opportunism, in occupying Mr Collins in the guise of distracting him from Elizabeth. She is well aware of the need to flatter the man to lead him on, as witnessed by her comments to Lizzie concerning Jane’s behaviour. One member longed to know what the proposal was like or even if Charlotte did the proposing. Being so egotistical, Mr Collins is sure to have kept the upper hand.

The snobbery in the form of bitchiness and the cold civility of the Bingley sisters is both funny and appalling. Miss Bingley is desperate and so obvious in her pursuit of Darcy who could not be more indifferent. 

The humour is often buoyed up by the cringe-making behaviour of Mrs Bennett and Mr Collins, she with loud gossipy comments and he with his obsequiousness. 

What makes Volume 1 so entertaining is the masterful interplay between the characters.

Next month we move on to Volume 2, or chapters 24 to 42.