This
post is both a correction and an updating of my 04/17/14 post… http://tinyurl.com/gp7kgwj
…on the
topic of Mrs. Norris’s strong rejection of sister Lady Bertram’s suggestion
that niece Fanny move in with Mrs. Norris. Specifically, in that post a few
years ago, I wrote about the hidden, riddling, meaning behind Mrs. Norris’s
repeated insistence on her need to always keep “a bed for a friend” at her snug
new accommodations at the White House on the Mansfield Park estate, as an
excuse for her not acceding to her sister Lady Bertram’s suggestion.
In that
earlier post, I suggested that Mrs. Norris was a lesbian, who wasted no time,
upon her husband Mr. Norris happening to “pop off” (to use Tom Bertram’s quaint
–and ultimately prophetic--phrase about Dr. Grant’s likely short tenure as Mr.
Norris’s successor), to move into Sir Thomas’s snug cottage, called “the White
House”, in Mansfield’s nearby village, where she’d have privacy to pursue her
preferred lifestyle.
And
that interpretation was trebly interesting, because it directly connects to the
lesbian interpretation first presented by Patricia Rozema in the controversial
scene in her 1999 film adaptation of Mansfield
Park when Mary Crawford welcomes the rain-drenched Fanny into the parsonage
(scroll halfway through the video clip): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Opd19AZWLlI And, in turn, I and Aintzain
Legaretta-Mentxaca have both extended Rozema’s implicit interpretation with our
own, each presenting additional textual evidence --- see my 2013 post here http://tinyurl.com/q4za84g --- that such lesbian subtext was fully
intentional on Jane Austen’s part, reflecting that Mary was actually in love
with Fanny all along, not with Edmund!
With
that background, I wish to now acknowledge that in my above-linked April 2014
post, I was under a mistaken belief that
the following sexually suggestive exchange between Mrs. Norris and Lady Bertram
had appeared in the 1814 first edition of Mansfield
Park, but had then been deleted in the 1816 edition:
["Dear Lady
Bertram! what am I fit for but solitude? Now
and then I shall hope to have a friend in my little cottage (I shall always
have a bed for a friend); but the most part of my future days will be
spent in utter seclusion. If I can but
make both ends meet, that's all
I ask for."
"I hope, sister,
things are not so very bad with you neither, considering Sir Thomas says you
will have six hundred a-year." ]
In
fact, the above exchange was not deleted
in the 1816 edition --- nor, for that matter, was it deleted in any of the
later 19th century editions of MP. It turns out that it was only
deleted (apparently as a simple transcription error) in the modern Project
Gutenberg version which I’ve been using for years because it’s so convenient
for word searching during my research: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/141/141-h/141-h.htm So, I retract my assertion in that earlier
post that such passage was deleted in order to reduce the chance that a
contemporary reader would notice Jane Austen’s broad hint at Mrs. Norris’s “unspeakable”
alternative sexual preference. But I otherwise 100% stand by my interpretation
as to JA’s intended covert meaning.
And….as
it happens, by serendipity, today I’ve happened upon not one, not two, but three fresh textual clues in the text of
MP, which do collectively support my
claim that Mrs. Norris was a lesbian.
Lady
Bertram’s and Mr. Rushworth’s parallel ‘considering’s’:
First,
I learned about the following, at first seemingly trivial, emendation that did
occur between the 1814 and 1816 editions of MP, in that very same scene in
Chapter 3 which I was already focused on. Can you spot the difference between
the two?:
1814
version: "I
hope, sister, things are not so very bad with you neither --- considering. Sir
Thomas says you will have six hundred a-year."
1816
version: "I hope, sister, things are not so very
bad with you neither, considering Sir Thomas says you will have six
hundred a-year."
In the
1814 version, there are two sentences; in the 1816, they are combined into one.
So what, you ask?
John
Wiltshire, in his 2005 edition of MP, observed: “[T]hough the 1816 text does make sense, the 1814 reading
is more probably correct. Later there is a parallel use by Mr Rushworth when he
speaks of Crawford as 'gentleman-like, considering' [Chapter 19].” However, Wiltshire expressed no opinion as to
whether the 1816 emendation changed the meaning of Lady Bertram’s comment. I
believe it did, most emphatically so, and I’ll now explain why I’m so sure.
First,
here is that latter passage with a dangling “considering”, which I believe
Wiltshire was spot-on in bringing forward as a parallel to aid in choosing
between the 1814 and 1816 versions of Lady B’s “considering”:
“[Sir
Thomas] tranquilly said, “Mr. and Miss Crawford were mentioned in my last
letters from Mansfield. Do you find them agreeable acquaintance?”
Tom was
the only one at all ready with an answer, but he being entirely without
particular regard for either, without jealousy either in love or acting, could
speak very handsomely of both. “Mr. Crawford was a most pleasant,
gentleman-like man; his sister a sweet, pretty, elegant, lively girl.”
Mr.
Rushworth could be silent no longer. “I do not say he is not gentleman-like,
considering; but you should tell your father he is not above five feet eight,
or he will be expecting a well-looking man.”
Sir
Thomas did not quite understand this, and looked with some surprise at the
speaker.”
What
exactly does Mr. Rushworth mean when he blurts out, in apparent anger, the word
“considering”? I suggest that it has nothing to do with Mr. Crawford’s height –
that semicolon after “considering” is like the dash after “considering” in the
1814 version of Lady Bertram’s speech. It’s a pause, interrupting what he was
going to blurt out, before he caught himself, and then quickly came up with a
safe, plausible, but insincere alternative ---that Henry is too short to be “gentleman-like”.
But I
suggest that what Mr. Rushworth was about to blurt out had everything to do
with the way that Henry Crawford’s appearance is described by the sly narrator
of MP when Henry makes his initial entrance into the action of the novel:
“[Mary’s]
brother was not handsome: no, when they first saw him he was absolutely plain,
black and plain; but still he was the gentleman, with a pleasing address. The
second meeting proved him not so very plain: he was plain, to be sure, but then
he had so much countenance, and his teeth were so good, and he was so well
made, that one soon forgot he was plain; and after a third interview, after
dining in company with him at the Parsonage, he was no longer allowed to be
called so by anybody. He was, in fact, the most agreeable young man the sisters
had ever known, and they were equally delighted with him.”
Several
years ago, I first suggested that “black and plain” was not a reference to
Henry’s having black hair or generally unpleasing feature-- no, it pointed
instead to his very dark skin color and to his African features, such as, e.g.,
a broad nose. I.e., the negative initial appraisal of Henry’s looks by the
collective of white eyes at Mansfield Park—the opulent English estate financed
by a slave plantation in Antigua—was nothing less than a veiled racist slur on
Henry’s no less than half African descent – Henry is a Creole, a group with
which we know very well that Austen’s England was replete.
And so,
if Mr. Rushworth’s “considering” was a racist innuendo, I believe Lady
Bertram’s hanging “considering” was, analogously, homophobic. I.e., she’s broadly
hinting to her sister that “considering” Mrs. Norris was not heterosexual, she
ought to stop complaining about the expiration of a husband which also meant the
expiration of Mrs. Norris’s noxious conjugal duties, and the simultaneous
opening up of new, more desirable sexual vistas for her sister going forward! That’s
rich satire, isn’t it? Black humor (so to speak) at its blackest!
And by
the way, in passing, I will note that there are two other “considering” usages
in MP which also tantalizingly point to undisclosed concerns, which warrant
further exploration in future posts:
Edmund
to Tom re putting on Lovers Vows in
Sir Thomas’s absence:
“It
would shew great want of feeling on my father’s account, absent as he is, and
in some degree of constant danger; and it would be imprudent, I think, with regard
to Maria, whose situation is a very delicate one, considering everything,
extremely delicate.”
“Considering
everything”? Considering, e.g., not only
that Maria is engaged to marry Mr. Rushworth, but also that Maria is, shall we
say, in “a very, extremely DELICATE” physical
condition? Hmmm…
Mrs.
Norris to Edmund re Fanny’s initial refusal to act in Lovers Vows:
“I am
not going to urge her,” replied Mrs. Norris sharply; “but I shall think her a
very obstinate, ungrateful girl, if she does not do what her aunt and cousins
wish her—very ungrateful, indeed, considering who and what she is.”
“considering
who and what she is”? Is this about more than Fanny being a poor relation? I
believe it is also about Fanny parentage, which may account for why she in
particular was selected to be plucked from Portsmouth to Mansfield Park….
And
there I’ll leave off considering the “considerings” of Mansfield Park, and move on to Clue #2.
“The
first event of any importance”
In
light of the previous section of this post, now we can read the opening
sentence of that same Chapter 3 with new eyes, as a huge clue pointing toward Lady
Bertram’s “considering”:
“The first event of any importance in the
family was the death of Mr. Norris, which happened when Fanny was about
fifteen, and necessarily introduced alterations and novelties. Mrs. Norris on
quitting the parsonage, removed first to the park, and afterwards to a small
house of Sir Thomas's in the village, and consoled herself for the loss of her
husband by, considering that she could do very well without him…”
Beneath
the wittily comic absurdity of the narrator’s comment that no event of any
importance occurred in the large Bertram family for the previous seven years, Jane Austen has actually
hidden in plain sight the fact that Mr. Norris’s death was an earthshaking
event in Mrs. Norris’s life, not because of any reduction in income, but because
of the increase in the intangible quality of the remainder of her life, which
can now be lived free of the burden of a marriage she never wished for, but had
to endure.
And
now, that brings me to the serendipity which led me to revisit all of the
above, Clue #3.
“Kiss
me, Hardy”: Nelson’s rearly vice?
Yesterday,
a Janeite Facebook Friend, Alison Streight, made a passing comment which
directed me to an anecdote of Regency Era naval history I’d previously been
unaware of, because I missed the mention of it in the closing plenary speech
(entitled “ ‘Rears and Vices’: The Georgian Royal Navy”) at the 2014
JASNA AGM in Montreal, delivered by Patrick Stokes, the former chairman of the
English Jane Austen Society. That anecdote is summarized here:
“Nelson,
England's greatest naval hero, died at the Battle of Trafalgar, 21st October
1805. He was hit by a musket ball, fired from a French ship, at about 1.15pm
and died below decks at about 4.30pm. His body was preserved in a barrel of
brandy. The details are relevant in attempting to authenticate whether
Nelson ever spoke those words. The best argument in support of it being
authentic is the fact that the events surrounding Nelson's death were witnessed
by several people at close quarters, all of whom would have had intense
interest in it. There are at least three eye-witness accounts recording that
Nelson asked Hardy to kiss him. The precise words said aren't recorded
verbatim, but "kiss me Hardy" can't have differed in any material way
from reality. The witnesses, William Beatty, Chaplain Alexander Scott and
Walter Burke are shown in Arthur Devis's painting Death of Nelson. As a consequence of Nelson's importance as
a historical and heroic figure, there are many Death
of Nelson paintings.
Devis had the advantage over other painters of being present on the Victory for
the event though and we can be assured that his painting is an accurate
representation of Nelson's death.
According
to the contemporary accounts, Nelson last words were: "Take care of my
dear Lady Hamilton, Hardy, take care of poor Lady Hamilton". He paused
then said very faintly, "Kiss me, Hardy". This, Hardy did, on the
cheek. Nelson then said, "Now I am satisfied. Thank God I have done my
duty".
The
later story that Nelson's last words were "Kismet [fate] Hardy",
aren't supported by any contemporary evidence. In fact, 'kismet' isn't recorded
as being in use in English to mean fate until as late as 1830, a quarter of a
century after Nelson died.That euphemistic version of events is thought to be a
later invention that attempted to avoid embarrassment by covering up the
supposed homo-erotic imagery of men kissing. That was misguided in more ways
than one, not least because platonic kisses between men at times of great
emotion weren't viewed in the way in 19th century England.”
It
turns out that “Sir Thomas” Hardy was a pretty well known fellow in JA’s day:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Thomas_Hardy,_1st_Baronet And, given that Jane Austen was the creator
of Mary Crawford who (in)famously punned on “rears and vices” (as to which I am
steadfast in claiming that Mary was altruistically sending a coded warning of
William being in danger from her uncle the Admiral, a message Fanny, alas, didn’t
understand), it’s no stretch of the imagination to suspect that Jane Austen, sister
of two sailors, was aware of that well-known, salty anecdote about the final
moments of England’s greatest naval war hero.
Based
on much prior experience, I suspected that if JA knew about Nelson’s request
that Hardy kiss him, she’d somehow work it into Mansfield Park somewhere, in some punny way. And sure enough, when
I searched the word “hardy”, it popped up only twice in all six novels
combined, therefore very rarely: once in Emma,
describing John Knightley’s aspirations for his sons; and the other (where else?)
in Chapter 32 of Mansfield Park, in
Sir Thomas’s rationalizations for why Mrs. Norris (who else?) never allowed
Fanny to have a fire in winter in her attic:
“Your aunt Norris has always been an advocate,
and very judiciously, for young people’s being brought up without unnecessary
indulgences; but there should be moderation in everything. She is also very HARDY
herself, which of course will influence her in her opinion of the wants of
others.”
“She is
also very HARDY herself”? I.e., Mrs. Norris is similar to Nelson’s Hardy? Given all that I’ve written about, above, I’d say
that was a “considerable” probability, Sir Thomas!
Cheers,
ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode
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