Two
weeks ago, I posted about Janine Barchas’s plenary address to the JASNA Annual
General Meeting in Minneapolis, providing my extension of Barchas’s fantastic
discoveries, which she described in loving detail in her new book Matters of Fact in Jane Austen about
Jane Austen’s clustered historical allusions to the famous
Wentworths/Watsons/Darcys of Yorkshire:
Today
I am back with my extension of another one of Barchas’s excellent finds, her
work (which actually dates back to an article she published in 2009) excavating
the thinly veiled allusion in S&S to Sir Francis Dashwood’s “Hellfire-Club”.
Specifically,
I start from Barchas’s brilliant analysis (at p. 200 of her book) of the sacrilege
of Fanny Dashwood’s tearing down walnut trees at Norland:
“…Fanny’s
felling emblematically recalls Dashwood’s diabolism. Levelling a whole grove of
‘old walnut trees’ constituted an assault upon the sacred, as John Evelyn urged
in An Historical Account of the
Sacredness and Use of Standing Groves. …With West Wycombe Park and its
history of black masses as the novel’s primary touchstone, Fanny Dashwood’s
arboreal sacrilege neatly echoes the doings of her moral twin and namesake,
Francis Dashwood… For, example, NOT ONLY DOES FANNY
PLAY SATAN (and Sir Francis) when her garden plan, metaphorically, attacks
Christ, but later, and with the requisite number of denials from her betrayer,
MARIANNE RISES FROM THE THIRD DAY of her near-fatal illness, while in the
netherworld below stairs, the fork-tongued Willoughby speaks to Elinor of
"the devil" in one breath and "God" in the next (359–60).
In such scenes, Austen may draw upon the known history of the Hell-Fire Club's
mock-Catholic ceremonies, infusing Sense and Sensibility with a
heightened religious quality..."
In 2009, I quoted from the latter
part of the above passage (from Barchas’s earlier article) in a post about the “Crown
of Thorns” hidden answer to the Second Charade in Chapter 9 of Emma….
…and
in that post, I pointed to how perfectly Barchas’s claims about the
Hellfire-Club allusion in S&S dovetail with my claims about Lucy Ferrars’
married name as “Lucifer”, which I’ve posted out countless times by now, in
various ways.
Today,
I am ready to add another buttress to my claims about Lucy-Fer by pointing out
the extremely sacrilegious, hidden significance of the following passage at the
very end of Chapter 24 of S&S:
“The
visit of the Miss Steeles at Barton Park was lengthened far beyond what the
first invitation implied. Their favour increased; they could not be spared; Sir
John would not hear of their going; and in spite of their numerous and long
arranged engagements in Exeter, in spite of the absolute necessity of returning
to fulfill them immediately, which was in full force at the end of every week,
they were prevailed on to stay nearly two months at the park, and to assist in
the due celebration of that festival which requires a more than ordinary share
of private balls and large dinners to proclaim its importance.”
As my
Subject Line suggests, when you think Lucy Steele as Lucifer, what JA is saying
here, with her tongue deeply in her cheek, is that the devil was prevailed upon
to stick around at Barton Park for an extra two months, especially so as to be
able to celebrate Christmas chez Sir
John with his merry social circle. Do you see the sexual pun hiding in plain
sight? ----“private balls”? I.e., Lucy aka the devil would delight in
proclaiming the importance of Christmas, one of the two most sacred Christian
holidays, by engaging in orgies during all twelve days of Christmas. Lucy and Nancy
were apparently “featured guest stars” at
those revels.
I sincerely
question how is it possible for anyone to still suggest, in light of the above,
that Jane Austen’s personal brand of Christianity was one of strict adherence
to Anglican dogma & propriety. I
have trouble imagining a more sacrilegious passage than the above, which
involves a giant blasphemy on Christmas, just as, apparently, Sir Francis
Dashwood handled things in real life for many many years. And it’s particularly
sacrilegious, because Lucy winds up getting exactly what she wants at the end
of the novel—in nowise does Lucy qua Lucifer
suffer any adverse consequences or punishment for this blasphemous behavior.
In
fact, the Devil actually becomes Elinor’s sister in law!
Cheers,
ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode
on Twitter
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