Here is the link for the hints to my latest quiz: http://tinyurl.com/ngh4mok
Two people responded, and here is the answer to my quiz:
Elissa
wrote: “Obviously the quiz writer is alluding to Christian Salvation..”
To be
more precise, the verbiage I put in ALL CAPS (in those numerous quoted passages
in Pride & Prejudice) all works together to generate a striking,
but subliminal portrayal of the trial, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus!
The
primary allusion I have excavated is to Darcy as Jesus, and to Elizabeth as
Mary Magdalene, and the heart of that allusion are the scenes of sudden,
astonishing encounter of Darcy by Eliza in the shrubberies and gardens of
Pemberley. These point directly, vividly, and unmistakably to Mary Magdalene in
the garden of Gethsemane being the first person to whom Jesus shows himself after
his resurrection. But there is also a secondary countercurrent of Elizabeth as
Jesus being successfully tempted by Satan (Darcy). It’s a very rich and complex
allusion.
I had
first spotted Darcy as a Jesus like figure a decade ago, but only in a vague
sense of his quietly and humbly performing the “miracle” of forcing Wickham to
marry Lydia and thereby save the Bennet family from eternal ruin. It was only
last week that I had my own first epiphany about all the textual clues for
Eliza as Mary Magdalene seeing Darcy as Jesus.
Before
going further, I also want to give credit to two scholars who indirectly and
unwittingly paved the way for this latest interpretation of mine:
First,
Joel Marcus, a prof at the Duke Divinity School, way back in 1989, wrote a
brilliant scholarly article which he began as follows:
“As a New Testament scholar, I was struck, while re-reading Pride
and Prejudice recently, by the many parallels between, on the one hand, the
crisis of perception undergone by Elizabeth Bennet in the course of the book,
and, on the other hand, the epistemological crisis evidently suffered by some
first-century men and women whose experience has left its mark on the New
Testament.”
And second,
in 2011, our very own Anielka Briggs wrote this in Janeites:
“Back
with Mansfield Park. Now recall what Mary says about having the key. Mary very
specifically imagines that not everyone can wander about in the wilderness. She
imagines that one person is likely to be able to get easily into the garden
"in these great places the gardeners are the only people who can go where
they like." Anyone spotted the allusion yet? Well, there is a very
specific New Testament allusion to a Mary who mistakes someone in a garden as a
gardener: Mary meets the resurrected Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane and
mistakes him for a gardener. Note which Mary though. It's Mary Magdalene. Look
again at the chapter and you'll see that the allusions continue.”
It
never occurred to Prof. Marcus that it wasn’t just Elizabeth’s conversion to “Darcyism”
in P&P, it was the whole package of Jesus’s final week, that floats over
P&P. And, similarly, it never occurred to Anielka that while she was
spot-on in suggesting that Mary Crawford has Mary Magdalene in mind at
Sotherton, this was not Jane Austen’s first literary “stroll” in the garden of Gethsemane—she
had already gone there once before in P&P!
I
will post in more detail later today or tomorrow about the nitty-gritty of the
textual details of this extraordinary allusion in P&P. However, in the
interim, for those of you who are following along here, I think it will more
fun, and more valuable, if you just read through the ALL CAPS verbiage I’ve
presented one more time now on your own, this time holding my interpretation
firmly in hand as a “lens” to bring it into clear focus. You may also want to first
take a short digression, and refresh your memories as to the (brief, poetic) descriptions
of Jesus’s trial, crucifixion, and resurrection in the synoptic Gospels, so
that you will be able to readily identify the punning wordplay that JA
repeatedly deploys in order to constantly remind the reader of Darcy as Jesus. I promise you that the Jesus allusions will leap
off the page at you.
And
speaking of allusions leaping off the page at you, that brings me to one of
Diane’s excellent guesses:
Diane:
“I don't know how the fish and fishing fits in--I had noticed that yesterday,
the many references to fishing (which sounds biblical), a subject which had not
come up before as I can remember--clearly Austen is pointing to something
there. Maybe she is referencing To Penshurst ... but that would not be so dark.
:) “
Yes, Diane,
the Biblicality is exactly why I put all the “fish” usages in P&P in ALL
CAPS! And your comment also fits perfectly with my discovery last year…
…that
“To Penshurst” was clearly an allusive source for the mythical aura of
Pemberley. In particular, Jonson scholars have oft noted the Christian imagery
of the fish who literally “run into thy net” at Penshurst, which is Jonson’s
sly way of reminding us of the resurrected Jesus miraculously generating nets
full of fish for the apostles. I had not connected Pemberley as Penshurst to
Darcy as Jesus, so thanks for leading me to do so!
Diane
also wrote: “I will guess Dante's Inferno and the ninth circle of
hell--pride--with Satan (Darcy) at the center--as the allusion? “
Diane,
that is also brilliant! Although, as you can see, above, it is not what I had
in mind, I also have long seen the shadow Darcy as Satan (Lucifer), and so your
take on him as Satan at the center of the 9th circle of Dante’s
Inferno fits perfectly with that! Especially so, given that I did write only
last month about the Dante and Milton in Charles Lamb’s “Triumph of the Whale”,
which is of course a key source for the “Prince of Whales” secret answer to the
main charade in Emma.—there’s no
question that the shadow Darcy is another “whale”, alongside Mr. Knightley.
Diane
also wrote: “I did see the typical JA
sleight of hand in Darcy described as just as good and generous as his father
...”
As in
“THE Father” and “THE Son”! ;) Which perhaps is why my personal favorite
among all the parodic Jesus-drenched passages in P&P that I identified might
just be:
"HIS
FATHER WAS AN EXCELLENT MAN," SAID MRS. GARDINER.
"Yes, ma'am, that he was indeed; and HIS SON WILL BE JUST LIKE HIM—JUST AS AFFABLE TO THE POOR."
"Yes, ma'am, that he was indeed; and HIS SON WILL BE JUST LIKE HIM—JUST AS AFFABLE TO THE POOR."
In conclusion,
I will only respond to Elissa’s other lucubrations as follows, as usual merely
to avoid confusion. My seeing Darcy as the convicted, crucified, and
resurrected Jesus fits perfectly with my longstanding vision of Jane Austen’s
radical feminist, subversive Christian shadow stories. Eliza as Mary, and Darcy
as Jesus, as I see them, is Jane Austen’s dark vision of smart but clueless
young women like Elizabeth being seduced and tempted into become “converts” to
a religion of worship of false idols, who, Satan-like, take the disguised form
of rich, powerful, handsome men like Mr. Darcy.
Jane
Austen’s novels are a virtual encyclopedia of the dangers faced by women in her
world, and the artful and alluring shadow Darcy in the garden of Pemberley is
one of the most dangerous of all.
Cheers,
ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode
on Twitter
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