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