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
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.
JASACT 