Following the previous post on the characters of Anne and Wentworth, here are a few thoughts on the moral appraisal going on in the novel. These are some of the attitudes, it seems to me, that we get through Austen's narrator. But her narrative voice is wonderfully sly and elusive at time, so feel free to disagree! It's important to rememebr, too, that all these judgments are dramatised, woven into the rhythms and emotional arcs of the story. Reduced to critical paraphrase, they always seem dry.
Persuasion and the
depiction of human vices
(Page references are to Oxford World Classics edition.)
The literary form known as the novel is, among other things,
an instrument for the moral analysis of people in society. This is especially
the case with the novels of Jane Austen, in which the narrating voice always
comes over as that of a shrewd, reasonable observer of human affairs. Even when
the narration is generally sympathetic to the heroine – as it evidently is in Persuasion – there is still some detachment.
To give a cool and balanced judgment, the third-person narrator needs to be at
some distance from the stage on which the events take place.
Austen is in the classical eighteenth-century tradition of
the rational narrator, concerned for the cohesion of society through
traditional values and customs. Persuasion
shows some new tendencies in England
– the new class of rich naval officers, new style of marriage illustrated by
the Crofts, impulsive and romantic young people – being absorbed into the social
fabric without revolutionary upheaval. Writing at a time of social and
political turmoil in Europe, Austen is finally
a conservative novelist, concerned to preserve traditional family and social
structures by reforming, Rather than overturning, what is decadent and corrupt.
In Persuasion,
Austen portrays a variety of human qualities and follies, virtues and vices.
She does so with a variety of novelistic techniques. Here are some examples:
Vanity
The opening of the novel makes clear Sir Walter’s appalling
vanity over his pedigree and his looks. Just in case we miss this, we are told
about it explicitly:
Vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir
Walter Elliot’s character; vanity of person and of situation. (10)
This trait is comically emphasised throughout, making him
virtually a caricature of this vice alone.
But Sir Walter’s vanity (and Elizabeth’s)
is not only there to be laughed at. Austen is also interested in the consequences of this defect. It blinds
him to reality: he does not realize how far he has fallen, and he deludes
himself that he is a person of great distinction in Bath. Sir Walter’s self-importance also makes
him irresponsible, not living up to the conduct required by his place in
society.
Here were funds of enjoyment! Could Anne wonder
that her father and sister were happy? She might not wonder, but she must sigh
that her father should feel no degradation in his change; should see nothing to
regret in the duties and dignity of the resident land-holder; should find so
much to be vain of in the littleness of a town … (112)
So ludicrous is his self-adoration that he passes judgment
on the bad looks of everyone he meets, and is easily persuaded that the
admiring looks of the women when he passes by with Colonel Wallis are intended
for him (115). Both he and Elizabeth are easily flattered (indeed, it is often
the only way to communicate with them, as Mr Shepherd discovers) and fail to
see the designs of Mrs Clay. Vanity has clouded their moral judgment and
prevents them from behaving rationally, in a manner useful to society.
Austen probably does not mean us to see Sir Walter as
typical of his class. The novel does not lead us to think all such landholders
are dreadful snobs who should be overthrown. Rather, the message seems to be
that the privileges of an inherited name and estate carry with them certain
duties – among them, to mange money prudently and to be a responsible landlord.
As Lady Russell puts it:
We must be serious and decided – for, after
all, the person who has contracted debts must pay them; and though a great deal
is due to the feelings of the gentleman, and the head of a house, like your
father, there is still more due to the character of an honest man. (16)
(Note that gentleman
is here used to describe Sir Walter’s social position.) The message is that
honesty and dignity are the true signs of nobility of character, not an entry
in Burke’s Peerage. Sir Walter is an irresponsible landlord (the misery this
might have caused his tenants is kept offstage) and does not behave in the
manner his position in society dictates. It is not that his class as a whole is
corrupt: it is that Sir Walter has betrayed the trust and failed to meet the
expectations which come with membership of that class.
Duplicity
In a society where manners and customs are highly prized,
there is an evident danger that some people will use a pleasing external manner
to cloak their real intentions. Central to Austen’s world is the distinction
between the social exterior – the ‘mask’ we put on in company – and interior
thoughts and feelings. The two characters who use social manners to disguise
immoral intentions to deceive and manipulate are Mrs Clay and Mr Elliot.
Mrs Clay
Anne sees through Mrs Clay very quickly:
Mrs. Clay had freckles, and a projecting
tooth, and a clumsy wrist, which he [Sir Walter] was continually making severe
remarks upon, in her absence; but she was young, and certainly altogether
well-looking, and possessed, in an acute mind and assiduous pleasing manners,
infinitely more dangerous attractions than any merely personal might have been.
(33)
(Note that personal
means ‘physical’ here.)
Anne fears that Mrs Clay is scheming to lure Sir Walter into
a second marriage with her. This would be an indignity too far (note that Anne
herself has a sense of what is proper to her class), and Sir Walter’s lack of
self-knowledge leaves him vulnerable to such a plan.
Mr Elliot
There is a possible warning that Mr Elliot is not all he
seems on his very first appearance at Lyme:
It was evident that the gentleman,
(completely a gentleman in manner) admired her exceedingly. (87)
The parenthetical comment, with the telling phrase in manner, hints that he may not be a
gentleman in character.
Anne later suspects that Mr Elliot is hiding something
behind his smooth manner. Her suspicions of his nature are reported on
p.130-31:
There was never any burst of feeling, any
warmth of indignation or delight, at the evil or good of others. This, to Anne,
was a decided imperfection. Her early impressions were incurable. She prized
the frank, the open-hearted, the eager character beyond all others …
…Mr. Elliot was too generally agreeable.
Various as were the tempers in her father’s house, he pleased them all. He
endured too well, - stood too well with everybody. (131)
From this point Mr Elliot is no real temptation to Anne,
taking a potential tension away from the novel (ie will she make the right
choice, the good man or the cad?). Later, the vices of misleading others are
called by their name, in the conversation with Mrs Smith:
‘Yes,’ said Anne, ‘you tell me nothing which
does not accord with what I have known, or could imagine. There is always
something offensive in the details of cunning. The manoeuvres of selfishness
and duplicity must ever be revolting, but I have heard nothing which really
surprises me. (167)
Here the sins are usefully listed: cunning, selfishness, duplicity. They contrast with the
openness and straightforwardness which Anne prizes, and make Mr Elliot the
opposite of the emotional Captain Wentworth.
Dullness
Sometimes praise itself can carry an undertone of criticism.
In the passage describing the Musgroves (37-38), we have this description of
Henrietta and Louisa
… who had brought from a school at Exeter all the usual stock
of accomplishments, and were now, like thousands of other young ladies, living
to be fashionable, happy, and merry. Their dress had every advantage, their
faces were rather pretty, their spirits extremely good, their manners
unembarrassed and pleasant; they were of consequence at home, and favourites
abroad. Anne always contemplated them as some of the happiest creatures of her
acquaintance …
Airheads, in other words. Anne can’t avoid the realization
that her mind is superior:
But still, saved as we all are by some
comfortable feeling of superiority from wishing for the possibility of
exchange, she would not have given up her own more elegant and cultivated mind
for all their enjoyments;
Yet she does acknowledge that they have a much better
relation with each other than she does with her silly snobbish sisters:
And envied them nothing but that seemingly
perfect good understanding and agreement together, that good-humoured mutual
affection, of which she had known so little herself with either of her sisters.
This passage is a good example of rational judgement in
action: first praise, then implied criticism, then balancing praise. This is balanced judgment, setting one thing
against each other. It is reflected in the shape of the sentences: the rhythm
is even and unhurried, slowing down towards the end. This evokes a calm and
scrupulously attentive mind. The vocabulary is full of abstract words denoting
personal qualities: fashionable, happy, merry, pretty, good (spirits), unembarrassed, pleasant, of consequence; elegant, cultivated
(mind). These are the kinds of terms by which characters in Austen are
analysed. Which of them perhaps have negative connotations?
Selfishness,
Self-Pity
Anne’s sister Mary is an epitome of selfishness and
self-pity, though this seems to be foolish rather than malicious. We get a
clear account of her character failings in Chapter 5:
Though better endowed than the elder sister,
Mary had not Anne’s understanding or temper. While well, and happy, and
properly attended to, she had great good humour and excellent spirits; but any
indisposition sunk her completely; she had no resources for solitude; and
inheriting a considerable share of the Elliot self-importance, was very prone
to add to every other distress that of fancying herself neglected and ill-used.
(35)
Note the praise then criticism shape of the writing again.
Mary’s self-pity is then shown in her first speech:
‘So,
you are come at last! I began to think I should never see you. I am so ill I
can hardly speak. I have not seen a creature the whole morning!’ (35)
Of course she gets better very rapidly (37). Mary’s pathetic
lack of resourcefulness when alone, and whingeing self-pity, makes her the
contrast to Mrs Smith, who has borne her troubles alone with great fortitude.
Charles is felt not to have made a very good match to Mary,
who has prevented him from developing as he might have done (40). Later, there
is a set-piece scene in which both she and Charles justify leaving their
injured child behind so they can go to dinner at Uppercross (Chapter 7, pages
49-51). This is a marvellous example of showing, not telling. Mary’s letter to
Anne (vol 2, chapter 3, pages 132-33) continues the tone.
Snobbishness
Sir Walter of course is a terrible snob, and this vice is
inherited by Elizabeth and Mary, but not by Anne. Mary insists that as an
Elliot she should have pride of place at the table at Uppercross (41); the
rank-obsessed Musgrove girls complain about this. She also feels very superior
to the Hayters (their social position is described in Chapter 9, 63-64; see
also Charles’s speech about them on 65):
She looked down very decidedly upon the
Hayters, and thought it would be quite a misfortune to have the existing
connection between the families renewed – very sad for herself and her children.
(65)
When the young people go for a walk (Chapter 10) and chance
to arrive at Winthrop, the Hayters’ house, Mary does not want to visit. Her
snobbery earns the contempt of Captain Wentworth, as Anne observes:
‘It is very unpleasant, having such
connexions! But I assure you, I have never been in the house above twice in my
life.’
She
received no other answer, than an artificial, assenting smile, followed by a
contemptuous glance, as he turned away, which Anne perfectly knew the meaning
of. (73)
Cant
Cant, in the sense of insincere feeling, earns particular
scorn. One cannot help sensing Austen’s own impatience with pretension and
sentimentality. This leads to a passage which can still seem quite shocking, in
which Mrs Musgrove’s laments are described as ‘her large fat sighings over the
destiny of a son, whom alive nobody had cared for.’ (Chapter 8, p.59). This is
followed by a paragraph saying that bulky blubbers just do look ridiculous,
however unfair that is:
But, fair or not fair, there are unbecoming
conjunctions, which reason will patronize in vain, - which taste cannot
tolerate, - which ridicule will seize.
Romantic Imagination
Anne is not exempt from Austen’s critical eye. In any case,
heroes and heroines who never make mistakes are unbelievable, and those who are
constantly good can be dull. However, when Anne is being held up to gentle
laughter, we obviously cannot see it from her point of view, which is the main
one in the novel. The moments when she is less than perfect are easy to miss.
If there is a flaw in Anne, it is that on occasions she lets
her dramatic, romantic side get the better of her reason. When she is told that
Wentworth finds her ‘altered beyond his knowledge’ (Chapter 7), she seems to be
acting out a part of almost insane virtue. It is not very convincing:
‘So altered that he should not have known her
again!’ These were words which could not but dwell with her. Yet she soon began
to rejoice that she had heard them. They were of sobering tendency; they
allayed agitation; they composed, and consequently must make her happier. (54)
The short sentences suggest her own violent emotions. Rejoice is wildly over the top, and the
list of assertions and conclusion that the words must make her happier suggest
that this is a record of her inner thoughts – that is, it does not necessarily
mean she did rejoice etc., but that this is what she told herself to try to
make herself think this way. Austen’s analysis of character recognises that
much of the time we are internally acting out parts, and trying to persuade or
console ourselves.
Towards the end of the novel, when Anne has realized she
still loves Wentworth and certainly does not love Mr Elliot, we get another
description of her thoughts, in which she seems to be imagining herself as a
heroine in a romantic novel:
How she might have felt, had there been no
Captain Wentworth in the case, was not worth enquiry; for there was a Captain Wentworth
in the case: and be the conclusion of the present suspense good or bad, her
affection would be his for ever. Their union, she believed, could not divide
her more from other men, than their final separation. (vol 2, Chapter 9,
p.155).
The subjunctive (be
the conclusion) and the extravagant her
affection would be his for ever here mark this as corny elevated style. The
novelist / narrator comments wryly on Anne’s little private performance:
Prettier musings of high-wrought love and
eternal constancy, could never have passed along the streets of Bath, than Anne was
sporting with from Camden-place to Westgate-buildings. It was almost enough to
spread purification and perfume all the way. (155)
A final
imaginative flurry comes in the conversation with Mrs Smith (vol 2, chapter 5),
when Anne fantasises about the heroic scenes in sick rooms which nurse Rooke
must be privileged to witness:
What instances must pass before them of
ardent, disinterested, self-denying attachment, of heroism, fortitude,
patience, resignation – of all the conflicts and all the sacrifices that
ennoble us most. A sick chamber may often furnish the worth of volumes. (126)
Yes, well. We are surely meant to agree with Mrs Smith’s dry
reply:
‘Yes,’
said Mrs. Smith more doubtingly, ‘sometimes it may, though I fear its lessons
are not often in the elevated style you describe . Here and there, human nature
may be great in times of trial, but generally speaking it is its weakness and
not its strength that appears in a sick chamber; it is selfishness and
impatience rather than generosity and fortitude, that one hears of. (127)
It is impossible to read this without remembering that Jane
Austen herself knew about sick rooms and was seriously ill when she was writing
this novel. But aside from biography,
this exchange reminds us that Austen is a realist in the sense of wanting to portray
and examine people as they really are, and not falsify them by sentimentality
or melodrama (though arguably she does this with the description of Mr Elliot
as a device for tying up the plot).
