ALERT!:
This post is ONLY for those who enjoy Austenian shadow story subtext, all
others should ignore!
I
will now give my answers to the quiz I posed Friday, when I began thusly:
“Think
of Pride & Prejudice as a vast network of textual riddles which, when solved,
collectively point toward a coherent, radically alternative version of the
storyline (which I call the “shadow story”) in a variety of significant ways.
In that light, I bring you one of those riddles today in the form of a quiz,
and suggest to you that there is a common thread among all the following EIGHT
groups of passages in P&P, which at first may seem to have absolutely
nothing to do with each other. However, I claim they are connected clues in a literary scavenger hunt,
deliberately left scattered in the text of the novel by JA so that puzzle
loving readers would eventually, upon a sufficient number of rereadings,
glimmer upon the common denominator among these passages and solve that particular
riddle…”
I
will begin my answer globally, and then move to the specific sets of clues
which support that global interpretation. And so, the common thread that I see
running through both the overt and the shadow stories of P&P is THE ENTAIL
of Longbourn.
Now,
the way this thread plays out in the version of P&P that everyone knows
does not require any explanation at all—indeed, you may be thinking I have made
much ado about nothing in this quiz. We begin hearing about the horrors of the
entail from Mrs. Bennet as soon as we meet her, and we don’t stop hearing about
it thereafter for very long for about ¾ of the novel—it’s not just Mrs.
Bennet—it ‘s also Mr. Bennet, Mr. Collins and (most curiously) even Lady
Catherine, too. So what’s the big deal?
Well,
the beginning of the mystery is that in the whirlwind of marriages that sweeps
up the Bennet family in the final volume, and leaves three Bennet girls married
by the end of it, the entail of Longbourn, once so central, seems to get
strangely lost in the shuffle during the climax. This is especially so in the
final chapters, when the narrator tidies up the plot in a dozen or more ways, yet
there is not (unless I have missed it?) even a sentence about the entail, not even to say, as one might have expected at a minimum,
that
the entail no longer mattered, because if
Mr. Bennet died, it was obvious that Lizzy and Jane would provide
comfortable homes to Mrs. Bennet and any unmarried daughter for the rest of
their lives.
Strangest
of all, Mrs. Bennet, she who was most persistently upset about the entail, and
who was ready at the drop of a mobcap to
make all sorts of inappropriate, boasting pronouncements which embarrassed
Elizabeth in the extreme, does NOT say something like, “Now we need never worry
again about being thrown out of
Longbourn if your poor father should die”. Not a word about it. Strange, but,
like so many strange things in P&P, completely unnoted by the narrator.
Now I
will walk you through the clues which, I will argue, provide some explanation
for all this strangeness. But this time I will present the clues in a logical
progression, to allow the overall reading to emerge organically, step by step.
CLUE ONE:
The passages in Chapters 15 and 29, which (I claimed in my post yesterday) are
evidence of Mr. Collins being JA’s version of Bottom, and Lady Catherine JA’s
version of Titania, Bottom and Titania
being of course, the brief, absurdly incongruous, spell-bound “lovers” from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
CLUE
ONE, DECODED: Viewing the marriage of Mr. Collins and Charlotte through the
lens of Bottom and Titania’s brief strange
romance made me much of my previous research about P&P in a fresh light, in particular the
absurdity of the match between Collins and Charlotte. And just as Shakespeare
scholars and directors have for centuries debated whether or not Bottom and
Titania “do it” in her bower before he is
turned back from a jackass to a human being, so too have I wondered
about Charlotte and Collins in that same
vein. Which brings me to…
CLUE SEVEN:
These two passages in Chapters 17 and 57 regarding two letters written by Mr.
Collins to Mr. Bennet, (curiously) almost exactly one year apart (in
mid-October of two consecutive years):
“…As
a clergyman, moreover, I feel it my duty to promote and establish the blessing
of peace in all families within the reach of my influence; and on these grounds
I flatter myself that my present overtures are highly commendable, and that the
circumstance of my being next in the entail of Longbourn estate will be kindly
overlooked on your side, and not lead you to reject the offered olive-branch. I
cannot be otherwise than concerned at being the means of injuring your amiable
daughters, and beg leave to apologise for it, as well as to assure you of my
readiness to make them every possible amends—but of this hereafter.” …. "In point of composition," said
Mary, "the letter does not seem defective. The idea of the olive-branch
perhaps is not wholly new, yet I think it is well expressed."
“The
rest of his letter is only about his dear Charlotte's situation, and his
expectation of a young olive-branch.”
SIGNIFICANCE
OF CLUE SEVEN: It has long been recognized that “expectation of a young
olive-branch” refers to Charlotte being pregnant, a fact which has a very high ick
quotient for many readers. Ruth Perry in her 2000 Persuasions Online article “Sleeping
With Mr. Collins” writes the following:
““That
they share the conjugal embrace is proved by their “‘expectation of a young
olive-branch’”. There is not the slightest whiff of sexual disgust about
the matter: not from Charlotte, nor from Elizabeth, nor the narrator….the
physical repugnance that we in the present century feel at the idea of sleeping
with Mr. Collins is entirely absent in Jane Austen’s treatment of the
matter. The “better feelings” that Charlotte Lucas is said to have
sacrificed do not, apparently, include squeamishness about sex with a pompous
and sycophantic man.”
What
occurred to me in early 2006, i.e., within a year of my realizing that Mrs.
Weston was not the biological mother of Anna Weston, was that Charlotte Lucas
was NOT really pregnant, either, she was only pretending to be---therefore,
Charlotte never really had to sleep with Mr. Collins after all, he was a
foolish enough man that I can readily imagine Charlotte convincing this foolish,
naive man that a non-penetrative form of physical intimacy was sufficient to
cause pregnancy.
But
was it merely sexual disgust at having sex with such a man as Mr. Collins, or
fear of death in pregnancy, that would have motivated Charlotte Lucas not to
want to have sex with Collins? I have
long understood Charlotte’s not sleeping with Collins as ALSO being driven by a
third reason why Charlotte in particular would feel sexual disgust at actually having
sex with Mr. Collins, which some of you have already guessed is…
CLUE TWO:
My previous claims that numerous passages in P&P point to Charlotte Lucas
as being (romantically) in love with Elizabeth Bennet, i.e., Charlotte is a
lesbian. That is why Charlotte agrees to marry the sexless Mr. Collins, and
that is also why Charlotte, via Mr. Collins, plants the false rumor of Darcy
and Elizabeth being engaged in Lady Catherine’s mind, so that Lady Catherine
will be hoist on her own petard, when she succeeds only in driving Darcy and
Elizabeth into each other’s arms. Think in particular about the implications of
the above for Charlotte’s marriage to Mr. Collins.
So,
now, if the “olive-branch” was taken from another female tree, who was the
mother?
Had
you asked me the question in 2006, my answer would have been Anne de Burgh,
because her oft-noted sickliness reminds of Jane Fairfax’s telltale illness in Emma. But it was in 2009, i.e., four
years ago, that another, far more disturbing possibility occurred to me, which I
now am firmly convinced is the interpretation Jane Austen intended---Jane
Bennet!
I
first spoke publicly about this interpretation in 2010 when I spoke about it to
the JASNA chapter in LA, and the evidence I’ve gathered in support of this
reading is, while not nearly as extensive as the case for Jane Fairfax’s
concealed pregnancy, still highly probative. I will today only give you a brief
sampler.
The
full argumennt is for another time.
CLUE THREE:
These two passages from Chapters 47 (when Elizabeth returns to Longbourn) and
49 (when Elizabeth and Jane become aware that Mr. Bennet has received a letter
from Mr. Gardiner), respectively:
“Elizabeth
jumped out; and, after giving each of them a hasty kiss, hurried into the
vestibule, where Jane, who came running down from her mother's apartment,
immediately met her.”
“Jane,
who was not so light nor so much in the habit of running as Elizabeth, soon
lagged behind, while her sister, panting for breath, came up with him, and
eagerly cried out…”
CLUE
THREE, DECODED: JA makes a point of showing us TWICE in Chapter 47, that Jane,
who at this point is about to give birth to her baby, is unable to run without
panting for breath.
And I
will now also add another clue set which pervades P&P:
CLUE
SET NINE: All the passages in P&P
which contain the word “expect” or variants thereof (especially “expectation”) and which
associate that word with Mrs. Bennet, Jane Bennet, and Charlotte Lucas both
before and after she becomes Charlotte Collins. These are classic Jane Austen Code usages, designed
to subliminally wink at the theme of pregnancy in the Bennet family.
But,
what about the scandalous implications that
Jane Bennet, she of the purest and saintly character, might have gotten
pregnant out of wedlock? How about this….
CLUE EIGHT:
Last but not least, this passage from JA’s Letter 85 dated May 24, 1813, or 4
months after publication of P&P, in which JA describes a painting which
reminds her of Jane after she has married Bingley:
“…very well pleased – particularly (pray tell Fanny) with a small
portrait of Mrs. Bingley, excessively like her; I went in hopes of seeing one
of her Sisters, but there was no Mrs. Darcy; — perhaps however, I may find her
in the Great Exhibitions which we shall go to, if we have time;… Mrs. Bingley’s
is exactly like herself, size, shaped face, features & sweetness; there
never was a greater likeness.”
CLUE
EIGHT DECODED: What I discovered four years ago was that the portrait Jane
Austen very likely was referring to was one which was associated with the famous
Regency Era courtesan, Harriette Wilson!
But
now some of you are asking, what does all of this have to do with the entail of
Longbourn? Because at some point during the
story the accident of Jane’s pregnancy was recognized by various female characters
(Jane herself, Mrs. Bennet, Charlotte Lucas, and Mrs. Gardiner) as an
opportunity for solving the entail problem once and for all—IF…..Jane’s baby
turned out to be a boy!
Which
brings me to…
CLUE FOUR:
These two passages about Mrs. Bennet, in Chapters 47 and 50, respectively:
“…And,
above all, keep Mr. Bennet from fighting. Tell him what a dreadful state I am
in, that I am frighted out of my wits—and have such tremblings, such flutterings,
all over me—such spasms in my side and pains in my head, and such beatings at
heart, that I can get no rest by night nor by day….”
“When first Mr. Bennet had married, economy
was held to be perfectly useless, for, of course, they were to have a son. The
son was to join in cutting off the entail, as soon as he should be of age, and
the widow and younger children would by that means be provided for. Five
daughters successively entered the world, but yet the son was to come; and Mrs.
Bennet, for many years after Lydia's birth, had been certain that he would.
This event had at last been despaired of, but it was then too late to be
saving. Mrs. Bennet had no turn for economy, and her husband's love of
independence had alone prevented their exceeding their income.”
I
believe that Mrs. Bennet, in her reference to her own “tremblings” and “flutterings”
and “spasms” was laying the groundwork for the possibility of “revealing” that
a baby boy was actually her own baby!
Which
brings me to…
CLUE
SIX: A fiction in the Regency Era law of
entails which was described in an article in a past issue of Persuasions, the JASNA journal, which created
a curious loophole.
CLUE
SIX, DECODED: In Persuasions #11 1989 Luanne Bethke Redmond “Land, Law and
Love” , we read: “Mr. Collins could not do anything about the entail during Mr.
Bennet’s life either, because he had a future interest which was not vested.
“Vesting” is a legal concept which is hard to define; in this case it
means that Mr. Collins had no right to take Longbourn and treat it as his own
until Mr. Bennet died without having had a son.
Jane
Austen tells us that the Bennets had despaired of having a son. However,
at common law there was no such thing as menopause. Both men and women
were held legally able to have children until death. As evidence for this
rule, judges often quoted the example of Sarah in the Bible, who conceived and
gave birth to Isaac when she was 90 years old.”
I
think you see the connection without further explanation by me, except I will
add that this “bed-trick” was in part inspired by Helena’s bedtrick in Shakespeare’s
Alls Well That Ends Well, to which JA
slyly alludes in several key passages in P&P.
And I
conclude with…
FIVE:
This passage from Chapter 61:
“Mary
was the only daughter who remained at home; and she was necessarily drawn from
the pursuit of accomplishments by Mrs. Bennet's being quite unable to sit
alone. Mary was obliged to mix more with the world, but she could still
moralize over every morning visit; and as she was no longer mortified by
comparisons between her sisters' beauty and her own, it was suspected by her
father that she submitted to the change without much reluctance.
I
suggest to you that Mrs. Bennet has not stopped thinking about that entail of
Longbourn, because she knows that strange things happen in the world, such as sons
(or sons-in-law) inexplicably and
inexcusably not taking care of their mother and sisters after the death of a
father resulting in loss of home (e.g., what happened after Reverend Austen
died, for starters!), and hence she still has a backup plan to hold on to
Longbourn till she dies—I for one am worried about “the change” to which Mary is submitting “without
much reluctance”!
And
there I will leave off.
Cheers,
ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode
onTwitter
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