In followup to my two
preceding posts about Elizabeth Bennet’s selfish rationalizations for not
telling sister Jane about Darcy’s interference…
…I dug around in my files
and found a snippet from a 2004 law review article written by a law professor
named Rosanna Cavallaro, which discussed Pride
& Prejudice from the point of view of legal rules of evidence and
proof. In the following two paragraphs, Cavallaro shows herself to be the only
Austen scholar prior to myself to have any awareness that Elizabeth had other
valid options open to her besides withholding (from Jane) Darcy’s disclosure to
Elizabeth about his having interfered between Bingley and Jane:
“Austen explores the notion of privilege…when she permits Elizabeth
to withhold from Jane not only Darcy’s secret regarding his sister, but also
the details of Darcy’s role in thwarting Charles Bingley’s feelings for Jane….Austen
does not condemn Elizabeth for withholding the ignoble role that her own lover
has played in dividing Bingley from Jane. Instead, she permits the reader to approve
the balancing of confidentiality against the free flow of information, facilitating
the central match of this marriage comedy, even as it thwarts fulfillment of
the secondary match. Jane is never permitted to learn of or to express anger about
Darcy’s meddling, although Elizabeth accuses him of being “the means of
ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most beloved sister.” Instead, Austen writes of Elizabeth: “The tumult of Elizabeth’s mind was allayed
by this conversation. She had got rid of two of the secrets which had weighed
on her for a fortnight, and was certain of a willing listener in Jane, whenever
she might wish to talk again of either. But there was still something lurking
behind, of which prudence forbad the disclosure. She dared not relate the other
half of Mr Darcy’s letter, nor explain to her sister how sincerely she had been
valued by his friend. Here was knowledge in which no one could partake; and she
was sensible that nothing less than a perfect understanding between the parties
could justify her in throwing off this last incumbrance of mystery. “And then,”
said she, “if that very improbable event should ever take place, I shall merely
be able to tell what Bingley may tell in a much more agreeable manner himself.
The liberty of communication cannot be mine till it has lost all value!”
In ruminating over how to proceed with this important confidence, Elizabeth
here overlooks a critical aspect of the “knowledge” that she withholds: It is
not that Bingley indeed loves Jane, but that Darcy has persuaded him that Jane
does not love him. Indeed, so far from being condemned for his meddling, Darcy
himself is credited with righting things by reassuring Bingley that Jane
reciprocates his feelings for her. He
does not even share the credit with Elizabeth, who had first put him on notice
of his own error of judgment as to Jane’s feelings. Nor does he thank her for keeping his “absurd
and impertinent” “interference” a secret from Jane. The connection is simply
reestablished, with surprise and joy on the part of both Jane and Bingley, and
the novel ends with two marriages...”
END QUOTE FROM CAVALLARO ARTICLE
From my perspective, Cavallaro
has opened the door wide with this brilliant analysis—and she zeroes in on that
very passage in Chapter 40 which I flagged in my first post, the crucial passage
in which Elizabeth rationalizes (like Perry Mason’s casuistry in representing a
guilty client) that “prudence forbad the disclosure”. But Cavallaro lacked the
crucial knowledge that there was a shadow story (parallel fictional universe
version) of P&P in which Jane Austen meant for her knowing readers to view Elizabeth
in a very negative light for this decision, and not (as has been the conventional
Austen scholarly response) as evidence of Elizabeth’s admirable independence
and courage. All the same, big kudos to
Cavallaro for even reaching this question in the first place a decade ago!
I was also thinking some
more overnight about the theme of Elizabeth’s rationalizing selfishness in
P&P, and I did a quick search of the word “selfish” in the novel, to see
what else might pop up as additional ironic shadowing by JA, and I found the
mother lode immediately in the following passage in Chapter 24, when Elizabeth responds
with great vitriol to Aunt Gardiner about Charlotte’s decision to marry Mr.
Collins, and appears particularly triggered by her aunt’s saying “Consider Mr.
Collins's respectability, and Charlotte's steady, PRUDENT character.”:
"To oblige you, I
would try to believe almost anything, but no one else could be benefited by
such a belief as this; for were I persuaded that Charlotte had any regard for
him, I should only think worse of her understanding than I now do of her heart.
My dear Jane, Mr. Collins is a conceited, pompous, narrow-minded, silly man;
you know he is, as well as I do; and you must feel, as well as I do, that the
woman who married him cannot have a proper way of thinking. You shall not
defend her, though it is Charlotte Lucas. You shall not, for the sake of one
individual, change the meaning of principle and integrity, nor endeavour to
persuade yourself or me, that SELFISHNESS IS PRUDENCE, and insensibility of
danger security for happiness."
This might just be the
biggest textual irony of all the ones I’ve catalogued in these three posts—why?
Because, in this passage in Chapter 24, Elizabeth condemns Charlotte harshly
for calling herself “prudent” as a “pretty face” to cover the ugly “selfishness”
of the decision. Austen scholars and ordinary Janeites alike have long been at
a loss to explain how exactly Charlotte was being “selfish” in marrying Mr.
Collins.
But JA’s deeper intention
in putting this speech in Elizabeth’s mouth is now clear—this speech actually
functions as Lizzy’s own unwitting condemnation of her own rationalizing in Chapter 40 (when Lizzy actually thinks “PRUDENCE
forbad the disclosure”), and, for that matter, of Lizzy’s decision to accept Darcy’s
second proposal not long afterwards! To
demonstrate this, with a minimum of editing, I will turn that fiery little
speech into what Mary Bennet (the “whisperer”
who tried in vain to warn Elizabeth to beware of Darcy’s seductive
charms) might have said to Mr. Bennet at the end of the novel, if Mr. Bennet
had tried to defend Lizzy’s acceptance of Darcy’s proposal:
"To oblige you, I
would try to believe almost anything, but no one else could be benefited by
such a belief as this; for were I persuaded that Elizabeth had any regard for
him, I should only think worse of her understanding than I now do of her heart.
My dear FATHER, Mr. DARCY is a conceited, SELFISH, narrow-minded, MACHIAVELLIAN
man; you know he is, as well as I do; and you must feel, as well as I do, that
the woman who married him cannot have a proper way of thinking. You shall not
defend her, though it is YOUR BELOVED LIZZY. You shall not, for the sake of one
individual, change the meaning of principle and integrity, nor endeavour to
persuade yourself or me, that SELFISHNESS IS PRUDENCE, and insensibility of
danger security for happiness."
That all of the textual
points I’ve laid out in these three posts have never been properly understood
before as a package intentionally embedded in the text of P&P by the
Machiavellian art of Jane Austen, is only a sign of how brilliantly she hid it
all in plain sight for two centuries!
Cheers, ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode on Twitter
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