Today I
serendipitously came upon another one of Jane Austen’s remarkable puns – always
a special treat – and, as I’ll explain tomorrow in Part Two, I owe my discovery
to someone who, in May 1813, was among the first readers of P&P – Maria Edgeworth!
PART
ONE: The Subtle Pun in Pride & Prejudice
The pun
occurs at the end of Mr. Collins’s courtship career in Meryton, but first, some
setup. After pursuing Elizabeth so persistently and obliviously for a half
dozen chapters, the new rector of Hunsford finally gets the memo that she’s not
that into him, and she is greatly relieved. But then, seemingly out of nowhere,
Elizabeth’s dearest friend, Charlotte, swoops in and snags the red-blooded rector
before he cools down from Eliza’s rejection of his delicate wooing.
Here’s
how Elizabeth feels in Chapter 22 right after Charlotte personally delivers her
the shocking news:
“…Charlotte
did not stay much longer, and Elizabeth was then left to reflect on what she
had heard. It was a long time before she became at all reconciled to the idea
of so unsuitable a match. The strangeness of Mr. Collins’s making two offers of
marriage within three days was nothing in comparison of his being now accepted.
She had always felt that Charlotte’s opinion of matrimony was not exactly like
her own, but she had not supposed it to be possible that, when called into
action, she would have sacrificed every better feeling to worldly advantage.
Charlotte the wife of Mr. Collins was a most humiliating picture! And to the
pang of a friend disgracing herself and sunk in her esteem, was added the
distressing conviction that it was impossible for that friend to be tolerably
happy in the lot she had chosen….”
Since
2010, I’ve been arguing that the magnitude of Elizabeth’s distress is disproportionate
to ordinary concern for her friend’s marital future with a husband like Mr.
Collins. Instead it also reflects her painful sense of betrayal arising from
the abrupt severing of her longstanding quasi-romantic attachment to Charlotte.
Elizabeth isn’t consciously aware of the romantic part, but Charlotte most
assuredly is, and always has been – and ultimately, it’s Charlotte’s oblique but
relentless pursuit of her beloved Elizabeth that drives the rest of the plot of
the shadow story of the novel.
But
that lesbian subtext in the shadow story of P&P is not my topic today–
it’s the pun. To get to it, let’s look next at how Elizabeth feels after she’s had
a chance to sleep on this shocking news. We see a clear deepening of Elizabeth’s
emotional withdrawal from Charlotte in Chapter 23, pulling back in pain:
“Between
Elizabeth and Charlotte there was a restraint which kept them mutually silent
on the subject; and Elizabeth felt persuaded that no real confidence could ever
subsist between them again. Her disappointment in Charlotte made her turn with
fonder regard to her sister, of whose rectitude and delicacy she was sure her
opinion could never be shaken, and for whose happiness she grew daily more
anxious, as Bingley had now been gone a week and nothing more was heard of his
return.”
And now
we’ve come to the point – in that paragraph of narration, see if you can spot
the subtle pun in it. To help, I gave you an additional hint in my initial
exposition. Try to spot it, or when you’ve had enough of puzzling, scroll down a
bit to read my take:
SCROLL
DOWN…..
SCROLL
DOWN…..
The pun
is in the very unusual word “rectitude”, which only appears twice in all six
Austen novels put together – in Chapter 23 of P&P, and in a passage in
S&S. That “rectitude” is a pun on the “rector” of Hunsford, Mr. Collins, who
is, in a real sense, a “rector” who lacks “rectitude”!
But that’s
only the first layer of the punny onion. What makes this pun more than just superficial
wit is the character psychology behind it. Elizabeth has begun to contemplate
the permanent loss of Charlotte, who has been one of the two pillars of female intimacy
in her life. So it is only natural that, in reaction, Eliza doubles down on the
other of the two – her dearest sister Jane.
Look at
the two words which come to Elizabeth’s mind as she pictures her sister: “rectitude”
and “delicacy”. These are words which have not previously been associated with
Jane in the novel -- indeed, we only read of Jane’s delicacy once later on, far
ahead in Chapter 61. So, why do these two words occur to Elizabeth? Because, I
suggest to you, by negative implication these are two positive qualities that
Elizabeth now believes are absent in Charlotte, in the aftermath of
Charlotte’s having “sunk” in Elizabeth’s “esteem”.
And why
would those two qualities be lacking in Charlotte? Here we have Austen’s subtle
masterful artistry on full display; because these two words have, for the previous
ten chapters, been associated repeatedly with the person whom Charlotte has now
chosen as her life partner – Mr. Collins. In short, he’s the suitor whose false “delicacy”
in unctuous flattery, and fake ‘rectitude” in his pious platitudes, has been
giving Elizabeth a very bad case of heartburn! So now, in Eliza’s mind, Charlotte
is yoked to her new husband’s defining, worst character traits!
To
fully appreciate this psychological effect, look now at how JA has subliminally
prepared her readers for this particular turn of phrase in a half dozen earlier
passages:
Chapter 13: “About a month ago I received this letter; and about a
fortnight ago I answered it, for I thought it a case of some DELICACY, and
requiring early attention. It is from my cousin, Mr. Collins, who, when I am
dead, may turn you all out of this house as soon as he pleases.”
…‘…I have
been so fortunate as to be distinguished by the patronage of the RIGHT
Honourable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, widow of Sir Lewis de Bourgh, whose bounty
and beneficence has preferred me to the valuable RECTORY of this parish…”
Chapter
14: “…you may imagine that I am happy on every occasion to offer those little DELICATE
compliments which are always acceptable to ladies…These are the kind of little
things which please her ladyship, and it is a sort of attention which I conceive
myself peculiarly bound to pay.”
“You
judge very properly,” said Mr. Bennet, “and it is happy for you that you
possess the talent of flattering with DELICACY. May I ask whether these
pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are the result
of previous study?”
Chapter
15: A fortunate chance had recommended him to Lady Catherine de Bourgh when the
living of Hunsford was vacant; and the respect which he felt for her high rank,
and his veneration for her as his patroness, mingling with a very good opinion
of himself, of his authority as a clergyman, and his RIGHT as a RECTOR, made
him altogether a mixture of pride and obsequiousness, self-importance and
humility.
Chapter
18:” …I do not mean, however, to assert that we can be justified in devoting
too much of our time to music, for there are certainly other things to be
attended to. The RECTOR of a parish has much to do….”
…He
assured her, that as to dancing, he was perfectly indifferent to it; that his
chief object was by DELICATE attentions to recommend himself to her and that he
should therefore make a point of remaining close to her the whole evening.
There was no arguing upon such a project. She owed her greatest relief to her
friend Miss Lucas, who often joined them, and good-naturedly engaged Mr.
Collins’s conversation to herself….”
Chapter
19: “…You can hardly doubt the purport of my discourse, however your natural DELICACY
may lead you to dissemble; my attentions have been too marked to be mistaken.
Almost as soon as I entered the house, I singled you out as the companion of my
future life…”
…“…In
making me the offer, you must have satisfied the DELICACY of your feelings with
regard to my family, and may take possession of Longbourn estate whenever it
falls, without any self-reproach. This matter may be considered, therefore, as
finally settled.”
“….I am
far from accusing you of cruelty at present, because I know it to be the
established custom of your sex to reject a man on the first application, and
perhaps you have even now said as much to encourage my suit as would be
consistent with the true DELICACY of the female character.”
Chapter
20: Mr. Collins received and returned these felicitations with equal pleasure,
and then proceeded to relate the particulars of their interview, with the
result of which he trusted he had every reason to be satisfied, since the refusal
which his cousin had steadfastly given him would naturally flow from her
bashful modesty and the genuine DELICACY of her character.
Again,
Mr. Collins, the rector with false delicacy and fake rectitude. The effect is
subliminal – the words ring a faint bell, and the reader must pause and think
about it, to know why they ring so true. Charlotte’s character has been tainted
by this shocking new association with Mr. Collins, and so of course Elizabeth
will ascribe to her dear sister Jane the very qualities which Mr. (and now, also
Mrs.) Collins merely pretends to have.
And Jane
Austen cannot resist a brief reminder of this pun near the end of the novel, in
Chapter 57, when we read Mr. Collins’ highly indelicate, theologically incorrect
verdict on Lydia:
“ ‘… I
must not, however, neglect the duties of my station, or refrain from declaring
my amazement at hearing that you received the young couple into your house as
soon as they were married. It was an encouragement of vice; and had I been the RECTOR
of Longbourn, I should very strenuously have opposed it. You ought certainly to
forgive them, as a Christian, but never to admit them in your sight, or allow
their names to be mentioned in your hearing.’ That is his notion of
Christian forgiveness!...”
But
take note that Mr. Collins’s false notion of “rectitude” is no more harsh than
Elizabeth’s writing off of Charlotte back in Chapter 23! JA hates pictures of imperfection,
too, and so she elects to unnerve us with a subtle suggestion that he is not as
bad, nor is Elizabeth as good, as we might like to think.
And there
is an even deeper meaning in Elizabeth contrasting Charlotte to Jane, which casts
an even darker shade on Elizabeth’s character. It’s not only that she is too
quick to write Charlotte off – after all, that turns out to be short-term,
because she does come visit Charlotte at Hunsford, and is sorry to leave her to return to Meryton.
Let’s
take a second look:
“Her
disappointment in Charlotte made her turn with fonder regard to her sister, of
whose rectitude and delicacy she was sure her opinion could never be shaken,
and for whose happiness she grew daily more anxious, as Bingley had now been
gone a week and nothing more was heard of his return.”
Yes,
consciously Elizabeth tells herself she is anxious for Jane; but unconsciously,
I suggest that Jane’s reassuring “rectitude and delicacy” arises not so much
from Jane’s impeccable character, so much as from Jane’s bleak romantic
prospects with Bingley – i.e., Jane will not marry and abruptly vanish from
Eliza’s life, as Charlotte’s did!
And
this ties in with one of the great conundra of P&P – why is it that Eliza
never tells Jane about Darcy’s interference? Sure, she rationalizes keeping this
secret all along, but there is a piece of this, I suggest, which is Elizabeth’s
jealousy of the “more beautiful, almost saintly” Jane. And part of that jealousy
is what is behind Jane’s “rectitude and delicacy” in her misery.
And note
that all of this complex insight is the fruit of that one subtle little pun.
I will
post Part Two tomorrow, which is amazing, in a different way.
Cheers,
ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode
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