The following is a response by me to another comment made by Jill Heydt-Stevenson (quoted by me, immediately below) in the Janeites and Austen-L groups:
“I've come to learn a *little* -- truly a little--about the tradition of women and keeping chickens, etc. I've discovered that it has quite a history. But this is pure conjecture: I'm not sure what I would find when I looked closely."
Jill, I have found that most conjectures regarding aspects of daily life hinted at in passing in JA’s novels, particularly those relating to life in a country village (as opposed to the big city), usually turn out to be very fruitful avenues of inquiry, on multiple levels, so thanks for inducing me to stroll down this one.
It turned out to be a fairly short stroll for me, because the “shadow” of your question that interests me most is the metaphorical one, as opposed to the actual poultry-keeping practices of real women in JA’s world. But as your book illustrates, the metaphorical and the sociohistorical are NEVER separate questions, and I would bet a good amount that once I throw out this, my own metaphorical response to your conjecture,, my interpretation will rapidly be deepened in a variety of interesting and unexpected ways, once others come forward, as I am sure that Nancy and others will, with details about real world Regency Era hens and chickens, of which I am currently quite ignorant.
And, as I just browsed in your chapter on S&S in Unbecoming Conjuinctions, at ppg. 65-66, I see that you have already set the stage for my own comments with your own wonderful and spot-on metaphorical analysis of Willoughby as the "fox" who raids the Dashwood "hen house" (i..e, cottage) in S&S. What I wish to suggest is that your brilliant take on the Dashwood henhouse is a direct precursor to what I believe is the most memorable event associated with poultry in all of JA’s novels, which is described in the penultimate paragraphs of Emma:
“In this state of suspense they were befriended, not by any sudden illumination of Mr. Woodhouse's mind, or any wonderful change of his nervous system, but by the operation of the same system in another way. Mrs. Weston's poultry-house was robbed one night of all her turkies -- evidently by the ingenuity of man. Other poultry-yards in the neighbourhood also suffered. Pilfering was housebreaking to Mr. Woodhouse's fears. He was very uneasy; and but for the sense of his son-in-law's protection, would have been under wretched alarm every night of his life. The strength, resolution, and presence of mind of the Mr. Knightleys, commanded his fullest dependance. While either of them protected him and his, Hartfield was safe. But Mr. John Knightley must be in London again by the end of the first week in November. The result of this distress was, that, with a much more voluntary, cheerful consent than his daughter had ever presumed to hope for at the moment, she was able to fix her wedding-day…”
I claim that JA’s narrator is winkingly whispering in our ear that what has happened here, metaphorically, (but only in the shadow story, I immediately add!), right under Mr. Woodhouse’s (and the unwary reader’s) nose, is that (whether or not Mrs. Weston’s poultry-house was actually raided or not--and I think not) Mr. Woodhouse’s “henhouse” (i.e., Hartfield, which is the residence of the solitary hen of Highbury who bears “golden” eggs—i.e., Emma) is the one which has been "raided"!
And, if Emma is the golden "hen", then the “fox” must be none other than Mr. Knightley himself, who has, with a little help from his friend Mrs. Weston, so effortlessly deployed his “ingenuity” in order to work such a “wonderful change” in Mr. Woodhouse! And what an ironic Chinese-Box sort of tour de force this really is on JA's part, to deploy this device of a theft to covertly illustrate the very act of "matrimonial larceny" which , on the surface, is what that theft triggers! And all of it hiding in plain sight!
So Nancy, when you wrote yesterday, on the subject of Mary Wollstonecraft's condemnation of the inequality of male and female power in England two centuries ago, that the great Vindicatrix had cast her net too wide, I beg to differ--JA is, to my mind, was very much of Wollstonecraft's mind on this subject, and was just begging the sharp reader to infer that it's not just the Willoughbys who were the foxes of JA's world, but also, potentially, the likes of George Knightley as well.
JA's LETTERS:
And I would be remiss if I did not also quote the one sentence in JA’s letters that belonged in Unbecoming Conjunctions, but which somehow slipped through your wide-flung net, Jill--- the one which relates directly to all of the above allegorizing about animals and ingenious men. It is also the one that I discussed in Janeites several years ago, an excerpt from the 11/13/1800 Letter 26 which JA wrote to Martha Lloyd:
"Mrs. Stent will now & then ejaculate some wonder about the Cocks & Hens, what can we want?"
I believe that my interpretations of this line from Letter 26 as a sexual innuendo (and, as I recall, I am not the first to suggest this, by the way) and the above passage from Emma bolster each other, in that the "theft" of Emma by Knightley is one with a distinctly sexual aspect which would not, I would imagine, be the case with a fox and a hen---the most important act which the "hen" Emma will perform on behalf of the "fox" Knightley will be to give birth to an heir to both Hartfield and Donwell Abbey--and that led me to a thought which I just double checked, and found JA herself winking at me, as I finally paid attention to the meaning of a passage from the novel itself, as Emma contemplates her future with Knightley:
"It is remarkable, that Emma, in the many, very many, points of view in which she was now beginning to consider Donwell Abbey, was never struck with any sense of injury to her nephew Henry, whose rights as heir expectant had formerly been so tenaciously regarded. Think she must of the possible difference to the poor little boy; and yet she only gave herself a saucy conscious smile about it, and found amusement in detecting the real cause of that violent dislike of Mr. Knightley's marrying Jane Fairfax, or any body else, which at the time she had wholly imputed to the amiable solicitude of the sister and the aunt." (Chapter 51, Emma)
What I wonder is, when Emma and Knightley marry, and then Knightley moves into Hartfield, while he still retains ownership of Donwell Abbey, does this not mean that Knightley has become owner of BOTH Donwell Abbey AND Hartfield? It seems to me that it leaves Emma's two nephews even FURTHER out in the testamentary cold!
Cheers, Arnie
P.S.: By the way, the quotation from Letter 26, above, is another example, like the passage about Princess Caroline and the Prince Regent which I quoted the other day from another of JA’s letters to Martha, Letter 82, of how the precious tiny handful of surviving letters that JA wrote to Martha (I think there are three?) are the very ones which are most likely to contain the most overt innuendoes, because they did not have to run the gauntlet of the censorious flames of CEA’s chimney in order to survive.
But as the recent discussion of Letter 57 to CEA reveals, even JA’s letters to CEA contained coded messages of real significance, and in that regard, and in relation to the above-quoted passage from Chapter 55 of Emma, I give you one of the three or four most famous lines from all of JA’s letters, in Letter 79 to CEA dated 01/29/1813 (not long before JA began the final composition of Emma), but with a little discreet addition of ALL CAPS:
“I do not write for such dull Elves As have not a great of INGENUITY themselves”
Mr. Woodhouse, who could be victimized by the “ingenuity of man”, was one of those dull Elves….
P.P.S: And Elissa, this is your cue to somehow tie in any or all of the above to Chaucer’s Parliament of Foules! ;)
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Thirty two short words about Mansfield Park (and a children's story)
The following is my response to Jill Heydt-Stevenson's posting a brilliant logline (in quotes, immediately below) for Mansfield Park:
"...Fanny is acting all the time, and doing a brilliant job at it, for she cannot let others see her love for Edmund, or she knows that punishment and banishment will follow."
Jill, I think you've set a record---you've managed to distill the essence of (the overt story of) Mansfield Park down to thirty two short words--reminding me of one of those encapsulations of famous stories I've seen, like the following famous gag logline (which is Hollywood's term of art, so Google just informed me, for such an encapsulation):
""Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first woman she meets, then teams up with three complete strangers to do it again."
Can you guess which famous story that is a famous gag logline for? (If you can't, just Google that logline, and you will see the answer.)
Jill, I will be thinking about your logline for MP for a while to come, because a really good logline is not merely a stunt, it can, as yours does, shed "dramatic" (ha ha) new light on a familiar story---bravo and thank you!
There was also a serendipitous bonus for me this morning courtesy of Jill's logline, and Google. Before I sharpened my search terms and found the proper logline Wikipedia page, my first search led me to something even more interesting, when my subconconscious drew my eyes to this title among several listed there:
http://www.storyarts.org/library/nutshell/stories/whoisking.html
Who is King of the Forest? (A Tale from India)
When Tiger jumped on Fox, Fox cried out, "How dare you attack the King of the Jungle!"
Tiger looked at him in amazement, "Nonsense! You are not King!"
"Certainly I am," replied Fox, "All the animals run from me in terror! If you want proof, come with me." Fox went into the forest with Tiger at his heels. When they came to a herd of deer, the deer saw Tiger behind Fox and ran in all directions.
They came to a group of monkeys. The monkeys saw Tiger behind Fox and they fled. Fox turned to Tiger and said, "Do you need more proof than that? See how the animals flee at the very sight me?!"
"I'm surprised, but I've seen it with my own eyes. Forgive me for attacking you, Great King." Tiger bowed low and with great ceremony he let Fox go.
There, my friends, you have a capsule version of everything (and I mean, EVERYTHING) that is going on in Emma, the whole shebang....if you really think about it...... ;)
For starters, now that I myself think about it a bit more, I realize, e.g., that it's NOT a coincidence with Who Is The King, that Mrs. Elton recites a line from The Hare and his Many Friends......
With a tip of the hat to perhaps the best movie title ever, Thirty Two Short Films about Glenn Gould----thanks again, Jill, for starting my day so delightfully!
ARNIE
"...Fanny is acting all the time, and doing a brilliant job at it, for she cannot let others see her love for Edmund, or she knows that punishment and banishment will follow."
Jill, I think you've set a record---you've managed to distill the essence of (the overt story of) Mansfield Park down to thirty two short words--reminding me of one of those encapsulations of famous stories I've seen, like the following famous gag logline (which is Hollywood's term of art, so Google just informed me, for such an encapsulation):
""Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first woman she meets, then teams up with three complete strangers to do it again."
Can you guess which famous story that is a famous gag logline for? (If you can't, just Google that logline, and you will see the answer.)
Jill, I will be thinking about your logline for MP for a while to come, because a really good logline is not merely a stunt, it can, as yours does, shed "dramatic" (ha ha) new light on a familiar story---bravo and thank you!
There was also a serendipitous bonus for me this morning courtesy of Jill's logline, and Google. Before I sharpened my search terms and found the proper logline Wikipedia page, my first search led me to something even more interesting, when my subconconscious drew my eyes to this title among several listed there:
http://www.storyarts.org/library/nutshell/stories/whoisking.html
Who is King of the Forest? (A Tale from India)
When Tiger jumped on Fox, Fox cried out, "How dare you attack the King of the Jungle!"
Tiger looked at him in amazement, "Nonsense! You are not King!"
"Certainly I am," replied Fox, "All the animals run from me in terror! If you want proof, come with me." Fox went into the forest with Tiger at his heels. When they came to a herd of deer, the deer saw Tiger behind Fox and ran in all directions.
They came to a group of monkeys. The monkeys saw Tiger behind Fox and they fled. Fox turned to Tiger and said, "Do you need more proof than that? See how the animals flee at the very sight me?!"
"I'm surprised, but I've seen it with my own eyes. Forgive me for attacking you, Great King." Tiger bowed low and with great ceremony he let Fox go.
There, my friends, you have a capsule version of everything (and I mean, EVERYTHING) that is going on in Emma, the whole shebang....if you really think about it...... ;)
For starters, now that I myself think about it a bit more, I realize, e.g., that it's NOT a coincidence with Who Is The King, that Mrs. Elton recites a line from The Hare and his Many Friends......
With a tip of the hat to perhaps the best movie title ever, Thirty Two Short Films about Glenn Gould----thanks again, Jill, for starting my day so delightfully!
ARNIE
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The Bread of Idleness....and Indifference
The following is my response to comments by Derrick Leigh (in quotes) in the Janeites group:
"This is well detected."
Thank you very much, Derrick! ;)
"Austen's use of the "bread of idleness" phrase is probably not just an allusion to Clarissa. I feel sure she was aware of its origins in the King James translation of Proverbs, and her own use of it is just as ironic as Richardson's."
Derrick, I see now that I inadvertently was ambiguous---let me now clarify. I was well aware that JA intended BOTH the Biblical AND the Richardsonian allusion! And that JA was as entirely ironic as Richardson was! The only point I was speculating about was whether there might be a SECOND Biblical Proverb allusion in MP in ADDITION to the Crawford heresy. --so, you see, you and I entirely agree on this point. ;)
As for the allusion to Richardson, there are a number of scholarly commentators who have commented before on the many striking parallels between the character and actions of Henry Crawford and Lovelace, and it has been obvious to many that this is one of JA's most complex, multifaceted, and thematically significant literary allusions. It is in that context that this double allusion by JA, that includes both Lovelace AND the Proverb, is (forgive my punning tic) the icing on that particular literary layer cake!
And for those who might argue, as I have seen, that JA was "unconscious" of alluding in this sophisticated covert way to the likes of Richardson and the Bible, but somehow inhaled the "trope", like a spore, as it wafted past, and then inavertently wrote the allusion while in some zombie-like trance---well, this Proverb allusion is Exhibit 1,000 in the daily growing mass of evidence that pretty much all such allusions were entirely conscious and elaborately orchestrated by JA. Yes, out of such a large number, surely a small minority of them could have been inadvertent....but not such a large army of allusions. As I have opined earlier, JA's imagination surely generated all these allusions, but her very solid faculty of reason and reflection then shaped the products of her imagination in a highly conscious way, as she dovetailed all her allusions together in a complex, gorgeous web.
PRIOR CRITICAL AWARENESS OF THIS ALLUSION IN MP:
"It is infused with a sense of Fanny as the female embodiment of Holy Wisdom. Ishru bederekh binah, Go in the way of understanding, Derrick "
And you too, my friend, and keep in mind, in regard to what you just said, and also in regard to Henry Crawford's planned assault on Fanny's virtue, that Proverbs 31:10 reads as follows in the King James Bible:
"Who can find a virtuous woman? for her [Fanny] PRICE is far above rubies." ;)
But putting aside the allusion to Lovelace for the moment, which does tentatively appear to be my own original discovery, I was just checking around to see which scholars have even noticed the Proverbs allusion in Henry Crawford's "bread of idleness'--very very few as it turns out.
As far as I can tell, it was first noticed by Wendy Craik in 1965, but with almost no discussion of same. Since then, almost NONE of the editions of MP with footnotes have a footnote for that allusion. Astounding.
What is genuinely funny is that in Jane Austen and Food, Maggie Lane refers to "bread" TWENTY THREE times, but here is all she has to say about Henry's "bread of idleness" at P. 149:
"In Mansfield Park, the characters even occasionally employ food metaphors themselves.....When [Henry] concocts his plan to make 'a small hole in Fanny Price's heart', he again uses metaphors of consumption. 'I do not like to eat the bread of idleness,' he tells Mary."
And Irene Collins, in Jane Austen and the Clergy, a 230-page book, never mentions Henry's line, and in fact never so much as suggests that JA might in any way have ever alluded to ANYTHING in the Bible in her writings!
Howard Babb quotes Henry, but does not realize it is a Biblical allusion, and merely refers to it as Henry putting his wit on parade.
In the same volume of essays in which Joseph Wiesenfarth describes Henry's reference to "bread in idleness" as a gallant wooer, Alistair Duckworth goes into detail about how the vulgar characters of JA's novels use proverbs as a crutch to conceal their ignorance. But nobody connects the dots.
David Holbrook quotes Henry, but purely in terms of Henry's moving fast to woo Fanny.
And similarly Reeta Sahney quotes Henry, but with no awareness of an allusion.
And Deborah Klenck notes the allusion in passing, as a satirical embellishment, in the most recent Persuasions Online, before moving on immediately to other matters.
There is one other published commentator I can find online, who may just have gotten close. Penny Gay, in her Jane Austen and the Theatre, footnotes Henry's "bread in idleness" ---but I can't access the footnote--does anyone have a copy of Gay's book? If so, it would be fn 4 to her quotation of Henry's line on p. 99. Why I suspect that Gay's footnote is a good one is that, on p. 101, she goes into a wonderful discussion of the parallels between Henry Crawford and Lovelace-what I wonder is whether it is possible that she could have seen those parallels and yet not have seen the allusion to Lovelace? When I see the footnote, I will know the answer to that mystery!
Aside from Gay, is it any wonder that so many of JA's secrets have remained secret for 200 years, when something as obviously significant as Henry Crawford talking about "the bread of idleness" has drawn so little attention, and, when it does, it is not given any indepth consideration?
Ironically, the best analysis of the allusion I have found prior to my own current one is not even in a book or an article--it's what the late June Shaw wrote in this Janeites group 10 years ago: "When he shifts his interest to Fanny he tells Mary he must not "eat the bread of idleness (MP 229). "He phrase is taken from Proverbs (31:27) where it is said of a virtuous woman, the good wife, "She looketh well to the ways of her household and eateth not the bread of idleness." The comic misapplication of scripture is clever, as he intend it, though our amusement is no doubt qualified by the kind of idle indulgence he is planning; it is more than a folly, as Mary calls it here, the same word she uses for his later sin." Mary and Henry cannot share our amusement because that virtuous woman of his proverb is going to become his desired good wife. As Tave says when Henry finds that the hole is in his heart, there is a twist upon twist here, because being caught in this way is the best thing that has ever happened to Henry. Caught himself, he will not catch her because she knows him too well."
Nancy, you and Anne can be genuinely proud that you have provided a venue where some of the most original and creative thinking about Jane Austen has occurred during the relatively short space of a decade.
RELATED VEILED EMMA PROVERB ALLUSION:
And, as further evidence of JA's interest in that particular Biblical proverb.....it occurred to me as I was responding to you, above, Derrick, that JA must have also played ironically with that same Proverbial "bread of idleness", but from an entirely different angle, in yet another of her novels---EMMA!
In Emma, the bread is in a different oven, so to speak, because the allusion involves not a privileged man, but an unprivileged WOMAN--Jane Fairfax--and the irony turns on the muted, but unceasing and distinct, drumbeat of Miss Bates making sure that Highbury is aware (even if Emma is NOT listening) that Jane, as a woman without a fortune, did NOT have the luxury of idleness if she wished to avoid.........literal starvation!
"...Miss Campbell....was eligibly and happily settled, while Jane Fairfax had yet her BREAD to earn...........The aunt was as tiresome as ever...they had to listen to the description of exactly how little BREAD and butter she ate for breakfast, and how small a slice of mutton for dinner.........And it cannot be for the value of our custom now, for what is our consumption of BREAD, you know?"
Those with ears and minds wide open will hear what Miss Bates is really saying. But how many readers of the novel are swept up in the seductive wave of Emma's grotesque indifference to what is "tiresome" and fail to hear? The problem is not the trivial equivalent of the narcissistic injury Emma sustains while waiting for the Coles to invite her to the party she does not want to attend----Jane is not sitting around Miss Bates's walkup, waiting for a visit from a friend to gossip with---it's a matter of literal bread to eat---from a feminist point of view, Emma (and readers who identify closely with Emma) spends the entire novel merrily fiddling while Jane burns!
It is instructive sometimes to read along in a group read at a fansite like Republic of Pemberley, to see the reactions of first time readers of Emma--and not just the young naive readers, but also older ones who should know better--and to see how readily the readers embrace the narcissistic prejudices of Emma. And that is JA's main point--injustice persists in society in a pyramidal fashion, with a handful of genuine conscious tyrants running the show, and a mass of naive, inattentive beneficiaries of privilege who never notice the injustice to others, and therefore never remedy the injustice, because, for all they can see, everything is just fine as it is.
But JA, via Miss Bates, is echoing Hillel: "If not now, when?" Perhaps if Emma is not careful, she will wake up one day and find herself buried under a pile of young children, and with a husband who has taken all her money to pay for the improvement of his estate.
And, speaking of a pile of young children, the poignancy of Miss Bates's cryptic koans about Janes' bread is DOUBLED when you realize that in the shadow story, Miss Bates is also trying to tell us that there are TWO human beings (one born, one as yet unborn) who will starve if Jane does not eat enough bread during her (last) two trimesters in Highbury----or will she be confined to a diet of leftover wedding cake?
Anyway, thanks again, Derrick, for your interesting response!
Cheers,
ARNIE
"This is well detected."
Thank you very much, Derrick! ;)
"Austen's use of the "bread of idleness" phrase is probably not just an allusion to Clarissa. I feel sure she was aware of its origins in the King James translation of Proverbs, and her own use of it is just as ironic as Richardson's."
Derrick, I see now that I inadvertently was ambiguous---let me now clarify. I was well aware that JA intended BOTH the Biblical AND the Richardsonian allusion! And that JA was as entirely ironic as Richardson was! The only point I was speculating about was whether there might be a SECOND Biblical Proverb allusion in MP in ADDITION to the Crawford heresy. --so, you see, you and I entirely agree on this point. ;)
As for the allusion to Richardson, there are a number of scholarly commentators who have commented before on the many striking parallels between the character and actions of Henry Crawford and Lovelace, and it has been obvious to many that this is one of JA's most complex, multifaceted, and thematically significant literary allusions. It is in that context that this double allusion by JA, that includes both Lovelace AND the Proverb, is (forgive my punning tic) the icing on that particular literary layer cake!
And for those who might argue, as I have seen, that JA was "unconscious" of alluding in this sophisticated covert way to the likes of Richardson and the Bible, but somehow inhaled the "trope", like a spore, as it wafted past, and then inavertently wrote the allusion while in some zombie-like trance---well, this Proverb allusion is Exhibit 1,000 in the daily growing mass of evidence that pretty much all such allusions were entirely conscious and elaborately orchestrated by JA. Yes, out of such a large number, surely a small minority of them could have been inadvertent....but not such a large army of allusions. As I have opined earlier, JA's imagination surely generated all these allusions, but her very solid faculty of reason and reflection then shaped the products of her imagination in a highly conscious way, as she dovetailed all her allusions together in a complex, gorgeous web.
PRIOR CRITICAL AWARENESS OF THIS ALLUSION IN MP:
"It is infused with a sense of Fanny as the female embodiment of Holy Wisdom. Ishru bederekh binah, Go in the way of understanding, Derrick "
And you too, my friend, and keep in mind, in regard to what you just said, and also in regard to Henry Crawford's planned assault on Fanny's virtue, that Proverbs 31:10 reads as follows in the King James Bible:
"Who can find a virtuous woman? for her [Fanny] PRICE is far above rubies." ;)
But putting aside the allusion to Lovelace for the moment, which does tentatively appear to be my own original discovery, I was just checking around to see which scholars have even noticed the Proverbs allusion in Henry Crawford's "bread of idleness'--very very few as it turns out.
As far as I can tell, it was first noticed by Wendy Craik in 1965, but with almost no discussion of same. Since then, almost NONE of the editions of MP with footnotes have a footnote for that allusion. Astounding.
What is genuinely funny is that in Jane Austen and Food, Maggie Lane refers to "bread" TWENTY THREE times, but here is all she has to say about Henry's "bread of idleness" at P. 149:
"In Mansfield Park, the characters even occasionally employ food metaphors themselves.....When [Henry] concocts his plan to make 'a small hole in Fanny Price's heart', he again uses metaphors of consumption. 'I do not like to eat the bread of idleness,' he tells Mary."
And Irene Collins, in Jane Austen and the Clergy, a 230-page book, never mentions Henry's line, and in fact never so much as suggests that JA might in any way have ever alluded to ANYTHING in the Bible in her writings!
Howard Babb quotes Henry, but does not realize it is a Biblical allusion, and merely refers to it as Henry putting his wit on parade.
In the same volume of essays in which Joseph Wiesenfarth describes Henry's reference to "bread in idleness" as a gallant wooer, Alistair Duckworth goes into detail about how the vulgar characters of JA's novels use proverbs as a crutch to conceal their ignorance. But nobody connects the dots.
David Holbrook quotes Henry, but purely in terms of Henry's moving fast to woo Fanny.
And similarly Reeta Sahney quotes Henry, but with no awareness of an allusion.
And Deborah Klenck notes the allusion in passing, as a satirical embellishment, in the most recent Persuasions Online, before moving on immediately to other matters.
There is one other published commentator I can find online, who may just have gotten close. Penny Gay, in her Jane Austen and the Theatre, footnotes Henry's "bread in idleness" ---but I can't access the footnote--does anyone have a copy of Gay's book? If so, it would be fn 4 to her quotation of Henry's line on p. 99. Why I suspect that Gay's footnote is a good one is that, on p. 101, she goes into a wonderful discussion of the parallels between Henry Crawford and Lovelace-what I wonder is whether it is possible that she could have seen those parallels and yet not have seen the allusion to Lovelace? When I see the footnote, I will know the answer to that mystery!
Aside from Gay, is it any wonder that so many of JA's secrets have remained secret for 200 years, when something as obviously significant as Henry Crawford talking about "the bread of idleness" has drawn so little attention, and, when it does, it is not given any indepth consideration?
Ironically, the best analysis of the allusion I have found prior to my own current one is not even in a book or an article--it's what the late June Shaw wrote in this Janeites group 10 years ago: "When he shifts his interest to Fanny he tells Mary he must not "eat the bread of idleness (MP 229). "He phrase is taken from Proverbs (31:27) where it is said of a virtuous woman, the good wife, "She looketh well to the ways of her household and eateth not the bread of idleness." The comic misapplication of scripture is clever, as he intend it, though our amusement is no doubt qualified by the kind of idle indulgence he is planning; it is more than a folly, as Mary calls it here, the same word she uses for his later sin." Mary and Henry cannot share our amusement because that virtuous woman of his proverb is going to become his desired good wife. As Tave says when Henry finds that the hole is in his heart, there is a twist upon twist here, because being caught in this way is the best thing that has ever happened to Henry. Caught himself, he will not catch her because she knows him too well."
Nancy, you and Anne can be genuinely proud that you have provided a venue where some of the most original and creative thinking about Jane Austen has occurred during the relatively short space of a decade.
RELATED VEILED EMMA PROVERB ALLUSION:
And, as further evidence of JA's interest in that particular Biblical proverb.....it occurred to me as I was responding to you, above, Derrick, that JA must have also played ironically with that same Proverbial "bread of idleness", but from an entirely different angle, in yet another of her novels---EMMA!
In Emma, the bread is in a different oven, so to speak, because the allusion involves not a privileged man, but an unprivileged WOMAN--Jane Fairfax--and the irony turns on the muted, but unceasing and distinct, drumbeat of Miss Bates making sure that Highbury is aware (even if Emma is NOT listening) that Jane, as a woman without a fortune, did NOT have the luxury of idleness if she wished to avoid.........literal starvation!
"...Miss Campbell....was eligibly and happily settled, while Jane Fairfax had yet her BREAD to earn...........The aunt was as tiresome as ever...they had to listen to the description of exactly how little BREAD and butter she ate for breakfast, and how small a slice of mutton for dinner.........And it cannot be for the value of our custom now, for what is our consumption of BREAD, you know?"
Those with ears and minds wide open will hear what Miss Bates is really saying. But how many readers of the novel are swept up in the seductive wave of Emma's grotesque indifference to what is "tiresome" and fail to hear? The problem is not the trivial equivalent of the narcissistic injury Emma sustains while waiting for the Coles to invite her to the party she does not want to attend----Jane is not sitting around Miss Bates's walkup, waiting for a visit from a friend to gossip with---it's a matter of literal bread to eat---from a feminist point of view, Emma (and readers who identify closely with Emma) spends the entire novel merrily fiddling while Jane burns!
It is instructive sometimes to read along in a group read at a fansite like Republic of Pemberley, to see the reactions of first time readers of Emma--and not just the young naive readers, but also older ones who should know better--and to see how readily the readers embrace the narcissistic prejudices of Emma. And that is JA's main point--injustice persists in society in a pyramidal fashion, with a handful of genuine conscious tyrants running the show, and a mass of naive, inattentive beneficiaries of privilege who never notice the injustice to others, and therefore never remedy the injustice, because, for all they can see, everything is just fine as it is.
But JA, via Miss Bates, is echoing Hillel: "If not now, when?" Perhaps if Emma is not careful, she will wake up one day and find herself buried under a pile of young children, and with a husband who has taken all her money to pay for the improvement of his estate.
And, speaking of a pile of young children, the poignancy of Miss Bates's cryptic koans about Janes' bread is DOUBLED when you realize that in the shadow story, Miss Bates is also trying to tell us that there are TWO human beings (one born, one as yet unborn) who will starve if Jane does not eat enough bread during her (last) two trimesters in Highbury----or will she be confined to a diet of leftover wedding cake?
Anyway, thanks again, Derrick, for your interesting response!
Cheers,
ARNIE
Monday, March 1, 2010
BREAD GOTTEN SECRETLY IS PLEASING (edited to correct two errors in earlier posting)
© Arnold Perlstein 2010
As promised, albeit a few hours late--- here is an explanation of what I hope you’ll agree is the very cool allusion to Chapter 10 of the Biblical Book of Proverbs that I stumbled across on Friday in one of JA's novels—more specifically, Persuasion—while I was looking for something else entirely.
But before I unpack this Biblical allusion in Persuasion, to provide a little context for same, I want to first say a few words about an already previously discovered allusion to a Biblical Proverb which occurs in the novel most Janeites would have guessed most likely, all things being equal, to contain such a Biblical allusion if I hadn’t given any other clues---of course I am referring to Mansfield Park.
The Known Proverb Allusion in MP:
MP is, far and away, the work of fiction by JA which is most preoccupied with religion, including several scenes with intense discussions of religious practice and thought. It is also, of course, the one with a hero who is a clergyman, AND….with the heroine who was most preoccupied of all with matters of the soul, and with the sorts of moral questions that have historically been in the purview of religion.
And so no one can be surprised that MP has already been known for at least a few decades to contain a very obvious allusion to a Biblical proverb, although it is not an allusion that would warm the heart of a believer.
In Ch. 24 of MP, Henry has a very disturbing tete a tete with sister Mary, in which he tells her of his plans to occupy his downtime chez les Grants in between hunts with his canine hunters, besides walking and riding with Mary:
“….I shall be happy to do both, but THAT would be exercise only to my body, and I must take care of my mind. Besides, THAT would be all recreation and indulgence, without the wholesome alloy of labour, and I do not like to eat the bread of idleness. No, my plan is to make Fanny Price in love with me.”
This is, of course, a most disturbing and sacrilegious quotation of Scripture by the Satanic Henry Crawford---specifically the description of the good wife in Proverbs 31:27 “She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness.”
It immediately gets worse when Henry comes out and frankly reveals that his school for matrimony will be a harsh one indeed for Fanny:
““But I cannot be satisfied without Fanny Price, without making a small hole in Fanny Price’s heart.”
Perhaps as he said this, Henry recalled the line from The Merchant of Venice (curiously, not one of the plays he suggests for performance in the Mansfield theatricals) where Antonio opined to Bassanio about Shylock: “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose”.
But for sure Henry, being the well read gentleman he was, knew very well that he was channeling the character from literature whom he most closely resembles, Richardson’s Lovelace, who describes to HIS confidant, Belford, what he had in store for Clarissa:
'Nobody can say, that I eat the bread of idleness. I take true pains for all the pleasure I enjoy.”
(and by the way, I am not sure if I am the first to spot this striking and significant allusion to Clarissa in MP)
So Henry is well aware that his purpose is as vile as that of his “role model” Lovelace, i.e., the desire to defile a pure heart in order to satisfy his sick heart. The irony of his quoting the proverb about the good wife is exquisite. He wants to subjugate Fanny in accordance with his own modern perverse conception of how that subjugation might be effected upon the wife of a jaded husband, who cannot be satisfied with humdrum obeisance.
And so much for those romantics who still think Fanny made a big mistake in not marrying Henry!
And by the way, I consider it very possible that there is another covert allusion to a Biblical proverb in MP, which neither I, nor any other reader of the novel, has ever discovered. It seems so likely to me that it would be there, and so likely also that it would be very very difficult to detect.
I find such is the pleasure of literary sleuthing in JA’s novels—there always seems to be more to find.
THE UNKNOWN PROVERB ALLUSION IN PERSUASION
Let me recap the additional hints I gave you on Friday, besides pointing you to Chapter 10 of Proverbs, but this time with Anne’s name shown instead of merely “the heroine”.
I told you that the allusion was in three parts, which appear in the novel in the following order, in chapters separated by at least two intervening chapters, and therefore the connections between the parts were very unlikely to be noticed due to proximity.
The first part is very slyly, but also very extensively, embedded in the narration of an interaction between Anne and the male character who is the secret “cad” (“villain” is perhaps too strong a word for him) of the proverb.
The second part is spoken by a female character, and the third part is spoken by a male character. Both of these latter parts are spoken in the presence of Anne, and both of the statements which she hears which are part of the allusion ALREADY overtly characterize the “cad” in an UNflattering light, even if you are entirely unaware of the allusion to the proverb. However, when you see and understand the allusion to the proverb, you readily perceive that the allusion underscores the negative depiction of the “cad”, raising the level of criticism of his character and behavior to (literally) Biblical proportions.
The third part of the allusion is actually extensive, and at that late stage of the novel, it truly hides in plain sight.
OK, last chance to solve it on your own, with these extra clues……but those who don’t want to try, just scroll down…..
……
……
…… (scroll down)
……
……
……
…… (scroll down)
Did you guess Cousin Elliot? If so, that was an eminently plausible and logical guess--- but it happens NOT to be the correct one! JA has crossed us up once again in our expectations, after first leading us down the garden path….
And now it is time to tell you which proverb in Chapter 10 was covertly alluded to by JA, followed immediately by the three parts of the allusion in the text of the novel itself
THE PROVERB ITSELF (with the relevant part in ALL CAPS):
Proverbs 10:20: The tongue of the righteous is choice silver; THE HEART OF THE WICKED IS OF LITTLE WORTH.
FIRST PART OF THE ALLUSION:
[At the end of Chapter 11, Anne and Benwick have a literary discussion. However, it has never occurred to any previous reader of Persuasion that the Bible might just be one of the works of literature on Anne’s mind]:
“His looks shewing him not pained, but pleased with this allusion to his situation, she was emboldened to go on; and feeling in herself the right of seniority of mind, she ventured to recommend a larger allowance of prose in his daily study; and on being requested to particularize, mentioned such works of our best moralists, such collections of the finest letters, such memoirs of characters of worth and suffering, as occurred to her at the moment as calculated to rouse and fortify the mind by the highest precepts, and the strongest examples of moral and religious endurances. Captain Benwick listened attentively, and seemed grateful for the interest implied; and though with a shake of the head, and sighs which declared his little faith in the efficacy of any books on grief like his, noted down the names of those she recommended, and promised to procure and read them. When the evening was over, Anne could not but be amused at the idea of her coming to Lyme to preach patience and resignation to a young man whom she had never seen before; nor could she help fearing, on more serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination.
SECOND PART OF THE ALLUSION:
[Near the beginning of Chapter 14, a conversation at the Lodge amongst Anne, Charles and Mary, shortly after the latter two returned from Lyme with news]:
“ But Mary did not give into it very graciously, whether from not considering Captain Benwick entitled by birth and situation to be in love with an Elliot, or from not wanting to believe Anne a greater attraction to Uppercross than herself, must be left to be guessed. Anne's goodwill, however, was not to be lessened by what she heard. She boldly acknowledged herself flattered, and continued her enquiries.
"Oh! he talks of you," cried Charles, "in such terms -- " Mary interrupted him. "I declare, Charles, I never heard him mention Anne twice all the time I was there. I declare, Anne, he never talks of you at all."
"No," admitted Charles, "I do not know that he ever does, in a general way; but, however, it is a very clear thing that he admires you exceedingly. His head is full of some books that he is reading upon your recommendation, and he wants to talk to you about them; he has found out something or other in one of them which he thinks -- oh! I cannot pretend to remember it, but it was something very fine -- I overheard him telling Henrietta all about it; and then "Miss Elliot" was spoken of in the highest terms! Now Mary, I declare it was so, I heard it myself, and you were in the other room. 'Elegance, sweetness, beauty.' Oh! there was no end of Miss Elliot's charms."
"And I am sure," cried Mary warmly, "it was very little to his credit if he did. Miss Harville only died last June. Such a HEART is very LITTLE WORTH having, is it, Lady Russell? I am sure you will agree with me."
"I must see Captain Benwick before I decide," said Lady Russell, smiling. “
THIRD PART OF THE ALLUSION
[And finally, in the immortal climactic love scene in Chapter 23, the scene at the White Hart Inn that JA added when she rewrote the ending of the novel, we have the famous discussion of the comparative constancy of the two sexes]:
"True," said Anne, "very true; I did not recollect; but what shall we say now, Captain Harville? If the change be not from outward circumstances, it must be from within; it must be nature, man's nature, which has done the business for Captain Benwick."
…..
“But let me observe that all histories are against you, all stories, prose and verse. If I had such a memory as Benwick, I could bring you fifty quotations in a moment on my side of the argument, and I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman’s inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman’s fickleness.”
…….
She could not immediately have uttered another sentence: her heart was too full, her breath too much oppressed.
"You are a good soul," cried Captain Harville, putting his hand on her arm, quite affectionately. "There is no quarrelling with you. And when I think of Benwick, my tongue is tied."
BRIEF EXPLANATION:
I have not flagged the key words relating to the Biblical Proverb which pop up in the cleverest ways in all these three parts, because it will be more fun, I think, for you to spot them yourselves. The bottom line is that BENWICK is the “wicked” man whose “heart is of little worth”, who is described in Proverb 10:20. Enjoy!
It is also relevant that Chapter 9 (which of course immediately precedes Chapter 10) of Proverbs sets up the extended allegorical conceit of wisdom and folly as two women who invite travelers into their homes, who at first may seem the same, but who then become known in their true colors to their guests, by the very different effects of their “hospitality”! Here is the end of Ch. 9, describing Folly’s hospitality:
"Let whoever is simple turn in here, or who lacks understanding; for to him I say, Stolen water is sweet, and bread gotten secretly is pleasing!" Little he knows that the shades are there, that in the depths of the nether world are her guests!”
I find that literary sleuthing in JA’s novels is truly “bread gotten secretly” and is truly “pleasing”!
And, conversely, here is the end of the description of Wisdom’s invitation:
“He who corrects an arrogant man earns insult; and he who reproves a wicked man incurs opprobrium. Reprove not an arrogant man, lest he hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you. Instruct a wise man, and he becomes still wiser; teach a just man, and he advances in learning. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the LORD, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. If you are wise, it is to your own advantage; and if you are arrogant, you alone shall bear it.”
CONCLUSION:
The gestalt of the above allusion is a particularly beautiful and powerful example of how JA spread her allusions across her novels to be perceived in a subliminal way, which was however legitimately accessible, via a variety of clever hints, to a reader who was familiar with the Book of Proverbs, as she so obviously was, and who enjoyed a game of literary sleuthing. Plus, JA, like Agatha Christie, played fair with her readers by giving lots of clues, scattered here and there in an apparently random fashion.
And it is also characteristic of all the other elements of her shadow stories that I have discovered, such that when you assemble all the pieces of the verbal "jigsaw puzzle" and fit them together in their original order and significance before she jumbled them up, just as Frank, Jane, Harriet and Emma do at Box Hill, you find that they "spell" a meaning which is powerful and which flies straight and true to the moral and psychological center and heart of the novel.
JA's writing was truly a treasure beyond rubies.
Cheers, ARNIE
P.S.: There is, by the way, one other allusion to an ancient proverb in Persuasion, which I just found while I was writing up this explanation…..but I am not quite sure how to interpret it. In Chapter 10, we read the following conversation between Wentworth and Louisa, about Charles Musgrove’s proposal to Anne, which was rejected:
After a moment's pause, Captain Wentworth said -- "Do you mean that she refused him?"
"Oh! yes; certainly."
"When did that happen?"
"I do not exactly know, for Henrietta and I were at school at the time; but I believe about a year before he married Mary. I wish she had accepted him. We should all have liked her a great deal better; and papa and mamma always think it was her great friend Lady Russell's doing, that she did not. They think Charles might not be learned and bookish enough to please Lady Russell, and that, therefore, she persuaded Anne to refuse him."
The sounds were retreating, and Anne distinguished no more. Her own emotions still kept her fixed. She had much to recover from before she could move. The listener's proverbial fate was not absolutely hers: she had heard no evil of herself, but she had heard a great deal of very painful import. She saw how her own character was considered by Captain Wentworth, and there had been just that degree of feeling and curiosity about her in his manner which must give her extreme agitation. “
One might at first assume that the proverb Anne thinks of is the famous Chinese or Japanese proverb “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”—except that I cannot find anything that suggests that a person who disobeys this proverb by eavesdropping will as a result hear nothing bad about him or herself.
I cannot find any of the Biblical proverbs which fits this description, but it is possible, although a stretch, that Anne has in mind the following line from Isaiah, 33:15:
“he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil;”
In any event, it could just be there because JA had proverbs on the brain as she wrote Persuasion, and this was simply a playful bonus for the literary sleuth that she tossed in for the sheer fun of it, and perhaps, as a sly clue that those of her readers who neither see nor hear all the evil which lurks in the shadow of her novels are perhaps missing out on half the fun and meaning!
As promised, albeit a few hours late--- here is an explanation of what I hope you’ll agree is the very cool allusion to Chapter 10 of the Biblical Book of Proverbs that I stumbled across on Friday in one of JA's novels—more specifically, Persuasion—while I was looking for something else entirely.
But before I unpack this Biblical allusion in Persuasion, to provide a little context for same, I want to first say a few words about an already previously discovered allusion to a Biblical Proverb which occurs in the novel most Janeites would have guessed most likely, all things being equal, to contain such a Biblical allusion if I hadn’t given any other clues---of course I am referring to Mansfield Park.
The Known Proverb Allusion in MP:
MP is, far and away, the work of fiction by JA which is most preoccupied with religion, including several scenes with intense discussions of religious practice and thought. It is also, of course, the one with a hero who is a clergyman, AND….with the heroine who was most preoccupied of all with matters of the soul, and with the sorts of moral questions that have historically been in the purview of religion.
And so no one can be surprised that MP has already been known for at least a few decades to contain a very obvious allusion to a Biblical proverb, although it is not an allusion that would warm the heart of a believer.
In Ch. 24 of MP, Henry has a very disturbing tete a tete with sister Mary, in which he tells her of his plans to occupy his downtime chez les Grants in between hunts with his canine hunters, besides walking and riding with Mary:
“….I shall be happy to do both, but THAT would be exercise only to my body, and I must take care of my mind. Besides, THAT would be all recreation and indulgence, without the wholesome alloy of labour, and I do not like to eat the bread of idleness. No, my plan is to make Fanny Price in love with me.”
This is, of course, a most disturbing and sacrilegious quotation of Scripture by the Satanic Henry Crawford---specifically the description of the good wife in Proverbs 31:27 “She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness.”
It immediately gets worse when Henry comes out and frankly reveals that his school for matrimony will be a harsh one indeed for Fanny:
““But I cannot be satisfied without Fanny Price, without making a small hole in Fanny Price’s heart.”
Perhaps as he said this, Henry recalled the line from The Merchant of Venice (curiously, not one of the plays he suggests for performance in the Mansfield theatricals) where Antonio opined to Bassanio about Shylock: “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose”.
But for sure Henry, being the well read gentleman he was, knew very well that he was channeling the character from literature whom he most closely resembles, Richardson’s Lovelace, who describes to HIS confidant, Belford, what he had in store for Clarissa:
'Nobody can say, that I eat the bread of idleness. I take true pains for all the pleasure I enjoy.”
(and by the way, I am not sure if I am the first to spot this striking and significant allusion to Clarissa in MP)
So Henry is well aware that his purpose is as vile as that of his “role model” Lovelace, i.e., the desire to defile a pure heart in order to satisfy his sick heart. The irony of his quoting the proverb about the good wife is exquisite. He wants to subjugate Fanny in accordance with his own modern perverse conception of how that subjugation might be effected upon the wife of a jaded husband, who cannot be satisfied with humdrum obeisance.
And so much for those romantics who still think Fanny made a big mistake in not marrying Henry!
And by the way, I consider it very possible that there is another covert allusion to a Biblical proverb in MP, which neither I, nor any other reader of the novel, has ever discovered. It seems so likely to me that it would be there, and so likely also that it would be very very difficult to detect.
I find such is the pleasure of literary sleuthing in JA’s novels—there always seems to be more to find.
THE UNKNOWN PROVERB ALLUSION IN PERSUASION
Let me recap the additional hints I gave you on Friday, besides pointing you to Chapter 10 of Proverbs, but this time with Anne’s name shown instead of merely “the heroine”.
I told you that the allusion was in three parts, which appear in the novel in the following order, in chapters separated by at least two intervening chapters, and therefore the connections between the parts were very unlikely to be noticed due to proximity.
The first part is very slyly, but also very extensively, embedded in the narration of an interaction between Anne and the male character who is the secret “cad” (“villain” is perhaps too strong a word for him) of the proverb.
The second part is spoken by a female character, and the third part is spoken by a male character. Both of these latter parts are spoken in the presence of Anne, and both of the statements which she hears which are part of the allusion ALREADY overtly characterize the “cad” in an UNflattering light, even if you are entirely unaware of the allusion to the proverb. However, when you see and understand the allusion to the proverb, you readily perceive that the allusion underscores the negative depiction of the “cad”, raising the level of criticism of his character and behavior to (literally) Biblical proportions.
The third part of the allusion is actually extensive, and at that late stage of the novel, it truly hides in plain sight.
OK, last chance to solve it on your own, with these extra clues……but those who don’t want to try, just scroll down…..
……
……
…… (scroll down)
……
……
……
…… (scroll down)
Did you guess Cousin Elliot? If so, that was an eminently plausible and logical guess--- but it happens NOT to be the correct one! JA has crossed us up once again in our expectations, after first leading us down the garden path….
And now it is time to tell you which proverb in Chapter 10 was covertly alluded to by JA, followed immediately by the three parts of the allusion in the text of the novel itself
THE PROVERB ITSELF (with the relevant part in ALL CAPS):
Proverbs 10:20: The tongue of the righteous is choice silver; THE HEART OF THE WICKED IS OF LITTLE WORTH.
FIRST PART OF THE ALLUSION:
[At the end of Chapter 11, Anne and Benwick have a literary discussion. However, it has never occurred to any previous reader of Persuasion that the Bible might just be one of the works of literature on Anne’s mind]:
“His looks shewing him not pained, but pleased with this allusion to his situation, she was emboldened to go on; and feeling in herself the right of seniority of mind, she ventured to recommend a larger allowance of prose in his daily study; and on being requested to particularize, mentioned such works of our best moralists, such collections of the finest letters, such memoirs of characters of worth and suffering, as occurred to her at the moment as calculated to rouse and fortify the mind by the highest precepts, and the strongest examples of moral and religious endurances. Captain Benwick listened attentively, and seemed grateful for the interest implied; and though with a shake of the head, and sighs which declared his little faith in the efficacy of any books on grief like his, noted down the names of those she recommended, and promised to procure and read them. When the evening was over, Anne could not but be amused at the idea of her coming to Lyme to preach patience and resignation to a young man whom she had never seen before; nor could she help fearing, on more serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination.
SECOND PART OF THE ALLUSION:
[Near the beginning of Chapter 14, a conversation at the Lodge amongst Anne, Charles and Mary, shortly after the latter two returned from Lyme with news]:
“ But Mary did not give into it very graciously, whether from not considering Captain Benwick entitled by birth and situation to be in love with an Elliot, or from not wanting to believe Anne a greater attraction to Uppercross than herself, must be left to be guessed. Anne's goodwill, however, was not to be lessened by what she heard. She boldly acknowledged herself flattered, and continued her enquiries.
"Oh! he talks of you," cried Charles, "in such terms -- " Mary interrupted him. "I declare, Charles, I never heard him mention Anne twice all the time I was there. I declare, Anne, he never talks of you at all."
"No," admitted Charles, "I do not know that he ever does, in a general way; but, however, it is a very clear thing that he admires you exceedingly. His head is full of some books that he is reading upon your recommendation, and he wants to talk to you about them; he has found out something or other in one of them which he thinks -- oh! I cannot pretend to remember it, but it was something very fine -- I overheard him telling Henrietta all about it; and then "Miss Elliot" was spoken of in the highest terms! Now Mary, I declare it was so, I heard it myself, and you were in the other room. 'Elegance, sweetness, beauty.' Oh! there was no end of Miss Elliot's charms."
"And I am sure," cried Mary warmly, "it was very little to his credit if he did. Miss Harville only died last June. Such a HEART is very LITTLE WORTH having, is it, Lady Russell? I am sure you will agree with me."
"I must see Captain Benwick before I decide," said Lady Russell, smiling. “
THIRD PART OF THE ALLUSION
[And finally, in the immortal climactic love scene in Chapter 23, the scene at the White Hart Inn that JA added when she rewrote the ending of the novel, we have the famous discussion of the comparative constancy of the two sexes]:
"True," said Anne, "very true; I did not recollect; but what shall we say now, Captain Harville? If the change be not from outward circumstances, it must be from within; it must be nature, man's nature, which has done the business for Captain Benwick."
…..
“But let me observe that all histories are against you, all stories, prose and verse. If I had such a memory as Benwick, I could bring you fifty quotations in a moment on my side of the argument, and I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman’s inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman’s fickleness.”
…….
She could not immediately have uttered another sentence: her heart was too full, her breath too much oppressed.
"You are a good soul," cried Captain Harville, putting his hand on her arm, quite affectionately. "There is no quarrelling with you. And when I think of Benwick, my tongue is tied."
BRIEF EXPLANATION:
I have not flagged the key words relating to the Biblical Proverb which pop up in the cleverest ways in all these three parts, because it will be more fun, I think, for you to spot them yourselves. The bottom line is that BENWICK is the “wicked” man whose “heart is of little worth”, who is described in Proverb 10:20. Enjoy!
It is also relevant that Chapter 9 (which of course immediately precedes Chapter 10) of Proverbs sets up the extended allegorical conceit of wisdom and folly as two women who invite travelers into their homes, who at first may seem the same, but who then become known in their true colors to their guests, by the very different effects of their “hospitality”! Here is the end of Ch. 9, describing Folly’s hospitality:
"Let whoever is simple turn in here, or who lacks understanding; for to him I say, Stolen water is sweet, and bread gotten secretly is pleasing!" Little he knows that the shades are there, that in the depths of the nether world are her guests!”
I find that literary sleuthing in JA’s novels is truly “bread gotten secretly” and is truly “pleasing”!
And, conversely, here is the end of the description of Wisdom’s invitation:
“He who corrects an arrogant man earns insult; and he who reproves a wicked man incurs opprobrium. Reprove not an arrogant man, lest he hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you. Instruct a wise man, and he becomes still wiser; teach a just man, and he advances in learning. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the LORD, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. If you are wise, it is to your own advantage; and if you are arrogant, you alone shall bear it.”
CONCLUSION:
The gestalt of the above allusion is a particularly beautiful and powerful example of how JA spread her allusions across her novels to be perceived in a subliminal way, which was however legitimately accessible, via a variety of clever hints, to a reader who was familiar with the Book of Proverbs, as she so obviously was, and who enjoyed a game of literary sleuthing. Plus, JA, like Agatha Christie, played fair with her readers by giving lots of clues, scattered here and there in an apparently random fashion.
And it is also characteristic of all the other elements of her shadow stories that I have discovered, such that when you assemble all the pieces of the verbal "jigsaw puzzle" and fit them together in their original order and significance before she jumbled them up, just as Frank, Jane, Harriet and Emma do at Box Hill, you find that they "spell" a meaning which is powerful and which flies straight and true to the moral and psychological center and heart of the novel.
JA's writing was truly a treasure beyond rubies.
Cheers, ARNIE
P.S.: There is, by the way, one other allusion to an ancient proverb in Persuasion, which I just found while I was writing up this explanation…..but I am not quite sure how to interpret it. In Chapter 10, we read the following conversation between Wentworth and Louisa, about Charles Musgrove’s proposal to Anne, which was rejected:
After a moment's pause, Captain Wentworth said -- "Do you mean that she refused him?"
"Oh! yes; certainly."
"When did that happen?"
"I do not exactly know, for Henrietta and I were at school at the time; but I believe about a year before he married Mary. I wish she had accepted him. We should all have liked her a great deal better; and papa and mamma always think it was her great friend Lady Russell's doing, that she did not. They think Charles might not be learned and bookish enough to please Lady Russell, and that, therefore, she persuaded Anne to refuse him."
The sounds were retreating, and Anne distinguished no more. Her own emotions still kept her fixed. She had much to recover from before she could move. The listener's proverbial fate was not absolutely hers: she had heard no evil of herself, but she had heard a great deal of very painful import. She saw how her own character was considered by Captain Wentworth, and there had been just that degree of feeling and curiosity about her in his manner which must give her extreme agitation. “
One might at first assume that the proverb Anne thinks of is the famous Chinese or Japanese proverb “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”—except that I cannot find anything that suggests that a person who disobeys this proverb by eavesdropping will as a result hear nothing bad about him or herself.
I cannot find any of the Biblical proverbs which fits this description, but it is possible, although a stretch, that Anne has in mind the following line from Isaiah, 33:15:
“he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil;”
In any event, it could just be there because JA had proverbs on the brain as she wrote Persuasion, and this was simply a playful bonus for the literary sleuth that she tossed in for the sheer fun of it, and perhaps, as a sly clue that those of her readers who neither see nor hear all the evil which lurks in the shadow of her novels are perhaps missing out on half the fun and meaning!
Friday, February 26, 2010
An allusion to Chapter 10 of the Biblical Book of Proverbs in One of JA's novels
If anyone who is interested in Jane Austen's deployment of her Biblical knowledge in her novels would like to play a little guessing game over the weekend, I just discovered a very cool allusion to Chapter 10 of the Biblical Book of Proverbs in one of JA's novels.
Besides pointing you to Chapter 10 of Proverbs, here are a few further hints that will give you a fair chance of discovering it with a reasonable amount of effort, if you enjoy this sort of sleuthing. The allusion is in two parts--the first part is spoken by a female character in one chapter, and the other part is spoken by a male character in a later chapter. Both parts are spoken in the presence of a heroine, and both of the statements which comprise the allusion ALREADY overtly characterize a third (male) character in an UNflattering light, even if you are entirely unaware of the allusion to the proverb. However, when you see the allusion, you readily perceive that the allusion underscores the negative depiction of that third (male) character, raising the level of criticism of his character and behavior to (literally) Biblical proportions.
If you get the answer, please send it to me by private email at arnieperlstein@myacc.net. I will give the answer here on Monday at 5 pm EST.
Quick P.S. to the above:
In following up on the above allusion to Chapter 10 of the Biblical Book of Proverbs, I just discovered that the allusion actually is in THREE parts--the part which I just found now is actually the first of the three to appear in the chronology of the chapters in JA's novel. It is very slyly, but extensively, embedded in the narration of an interaction between the heroine and the male character unflatteringly depicted by that very proverb. And....I also discovered during my quick followup that the third part of the allusion is actually more extensive than I at first realized. The allusion is truly hiding in plain sight!
The gestalt is a particularly beautiful and powerful example of how JA spread her allusions across her novels to be perceived in a subliminal way, which was however legitimately accessible, via a variety of clever hints, to a reader who was familiar with the Book of Proverbs, as she so obviously was, and who enjoyed a game of literary sleuthing. Plus, JA, like Agatha Christie, played fair with her readers by giving lots of clues, scattered here and there in an apparently random fashion.
And it is also characteristic of all the other elements of her shadow stories that I have discovered, such that when you assemble all the pieces of the verbal "jigsaw puzzle" and fit them together in their original order and significance before she jumbled them up, just as Frank, Jane, Harriet and Emma do at Box Hill, you find that they "spell" a meaning which is powerful and which flies straight and true to the moral and psychological center and heart of the novel.
JA's writing was truly a treasure beyond rubies.
Cheers, ARNIE
Besides pointing you to Chapter 10 of Proverbs, here are a few further hints that will give you a fair chance of discovering it with a reasonable amount of effort, if you enjoy this sort of sleuthing. The allusion is in two parts--the first part is spoken by a female character in one chapter, and the other part is spoken by a male character in a later chapter. Both parts are spoken in the presence of a heroine, and both of the statements which comprise the allusion ALREADY overtly characterize a third (male) character in an UNflattering light, even if you are entirely unaware of the allusion to the proverb. However, when you see the allusion, you readily perceive that the allusion underscores the negative depiction of that third (male) character, raising the level of criticism of his character and behavior to (literally) Biblical proportions.
If you get the answer, please send it to me by private email at arnieperlstein@myacc.net. I will give the answer here on Monday at 5 pm EST.
Quick P.S. to the above:
In following up on the above allusion to Chapter 10 of the Biblical Book of Proverbs, I just discovered that the allusion actually is in THREE parts--the part which I just found now is actually the first of the three to appear in the chronology of the chapters in JA's novel. It is very slyly, but extensively, embedded in the narration of an interaction between the heroine and the male character unflatteringly depicted by that very proverb. And....I also discovered during my quick followup that the third part of the allusion is actually more extensive than I at first realized. The allusion is truly hiding in plain sight!
The gestalt is a particularly beautiful and powerful example of how JA spread her allusions across her novels to be perceived in a subliminal way, which was however legitimately accessible, via a variety of clever hints, to a reader who was familiar with the Book of Proverbs, as she so obviously was, and who enjoyed a game of literary sleuthing. Plus, JA, like Agatha Christie, played fair with her readers by giving lots of clues, scattered here and there in an apparently random fashion.
And it is also characteristic of all the other elements of her shadow stories that I have discovered, such that when you assemble all the pieces of the verbal "jigsaw puzzle" and fit them together in their original order and significance before she jumbled them up, just as Frank, Jane, Harriet and Emma do at Box Hill, you find that they "spell" a meaning which is powerful and which flies straight and true to the moral and psychological center and heart of the novel.
JA's writing was truly a treasure beyond rubies.
Cheers, ARNIE
The Gatekeeper in the Jane Austen Duplex
"I'm sorry Arnie, but I cannot follow your reasoning; it's too tenuous and unsupported."
And first I also thank you, David, for your usual courteous (and utterly predictable) disagreement, and second, I add that I am certain that JA would have both expected, and been fascinated by, the utterly different cognitive/perceptual universes in which her current readers live. Truly two different worlds. For you, there is only one door to a one-story "house", for me, a half dozen doors to a two-story "house".
Yes, it is undeniable that you represent the current majority of Janeites, and I represent a significant minority, of those respective groups. However, it is also clear to anyone who has, as I have, read most of the scholarly literature about JA, that the demographics have been slowly but steadily shifting in my group's favor for over half a century. And if we take as our benchmark Janeites who have actually read all of the novels themselves, the demographics are more favorable still to my "family". It is only under the spell of the actual written words of Jane Austen, as opposed to film adaptations, however well done, that some readers find ourselves drawn to the squeaky doors which lead to the second story.
And I hasten to add, the differences between our two opposed camps are NOT a matter of either intelligence, literacy, or passionate engagement with JA's novels. It is clear that both perceptual camps are populated by folks who have an abundance of all these worthy characteristics.
What divides us, I believe, is that some of us are wearing the spectacles that, as in the film National Treasure, make the other story consciously visible, and others, like you, refuse to don the spectacles, claiming that the spectacles are not lenses, but mirrors.
It's no coincidence in this regard that we hear a great deal about Mrs. Bates's spectacles, but also Sir Walter's mirrors--JA was perfectly cognizant that she was confronting all of her readers with this dilemma of choosing between helpful lenses or self-deluding mirrors.
I pointed out the following recent and dramatic illustration of this trend several months ago--when Rozema's Mansfield Park came out a decade ago, it was greeted with widespread dismay and condemnation, among amateur and academic Janeites alike, for its depiction of the slavery subtext of the novel. At the July 2009 conference at Chawton, however, fully ten percent of the 70 presenters had as their topic some aspect of that same slavery subtext. And the 1999 Janeite world's leading denier of the existence of such slavery subtext, John Wiltshire, was there, a decade later, in the audience at several of those sessions at Chawton House, not merely not denying its existence, but actively embracing it in questions and comments posed to the presenters.
Those of you who participated in, or at least observed, the massive 2006 thrash in this our own Janeites group, on the subject of the MP slavery subtext, where widespread denial was the norm, will find this news interesting, I think.
I am a firm believer in Thomas Kuhn's model of paradigm shifts, so I believe this trend will only continue, and I will continue to do my best to help it along. As will, each in our own way, well-known pioneers of Austen scholarship such as Jill Heydt-Stevenson, Brian Southam, Jocelyn Harris, David Nokes, Claudia Johnson, Kathryn Sutherland, and Fiona Stafford, as well as less well known, but equally creative, Janeite scholarly pioneers such as Jim Heldman, John Dussinger, Barbara Thaden, WJ Harvey, and many others---amongst which group I, as well as several other members of our own Janeites group, aspire to belong, each in our own distinctive way.
I believe more firmly than ever before that JA created her parallel fictional universes for reasons which she found (and I find still to be) compelling, and I am doing my best to honor and celebrate her efforts, and to bring those reasons to the attention of the Janeite world.
Until then, I imagine the great Janeite Rudyard Kipling's dichotomy will continue to hold for a good while longer---the only place where the (Mark) Twain between our respective "families" shall meet is is in this group, which is, in a way, very much like the narrow, twisting staircase between the two stories--where we will find Miss Bates as the gatekeeper, garrulously and hospitably keeping us all company! ;)
Cheers,
Arnie
And first I also thank you, David, for your usual courteous (and utterly predictable) disagreement, and second, I add that I am certain that JA would have both expected, and been fascinated by, the utterly different cognitive/perceptual universes in which her current readers live. Truly two different worlds. For you, there is only one door to a one-story "house", for me, a half dozen doors to a two-story "house".
Yes, it is undeniable that you represent the current majority of Janeites, and I represent a significant minority, of those respective groups. However, it is also clear to anyone who has, as I have, read most of the scholarly literature about JA, that the demographics have been slowly but steadily shifting in my group's favor for over half a century. And if we take as our benchmark Janeites who have actually read all of the novels themselves, the demographics are more favorable still to my "family". It is only under the spell of the actual written words of Jane Austen, as opposed to film adaptations, however well done, that some readers find ourselves drawn to the squeaky doors which lead to the second story.
And I hasten to add, the differences between our two opposed camps are NOT a matter of either intelligence, literacy, or passionate engagement with JA's novels. It is clear that both perceptual camps are populated by folks who have an abundance of all these worthy characteristics.
What divides us, I believe, is that some of us are wearing the spectacles that, as in the film National Treasure, make the other story consciously visible, and others, like you, refuse to don the spectacles, claiming that the spectacles are not lenses, but mirrors.
It's no coincidence in this regard that we hear a great deal about Mrs. Bates's spectacles, but also Sir Walter's mirrors--JA was perfectly cognizant that she was confronting all of her readers with this dilemma of choosing between helpful lenses or self-deluding mirrors.
I pointed out the following recent and dramatic illustration of this trend several months ago--when Rozema's Mansfield Park came out a decade ago, it was greeted with widespread dismay and condemnation, among amateur and academic Janeites alike, for its depiction of the slavery subtext of the novel. At the July 2009 conference at Chawton, however, fully ten percent of the 70 presenters had as their topic some aspect of that same slavery subtext. And the 1999 Janeite world's leading denier of the existence of such slavery subtext, John Wiltshire, was there, a decade later, in the audience at several of those sessions at Chawton House, not merely not denying its existence, but actively embracing it in questions and comments posed to the presenters.
Those of you who participated in, or at least observed, the massive 2006 thrash in this our own Janeites group, on the subject of the MP slavery subtext, where widespread denial was the norm, will find this news interesting, I think.
I am a firm believer in Thomas Kuhn's model of paradigm shifts, so I believe this trend will only continue, and I will continue to do my best to help it along. As will, each in our own way, well-known pioneers of Austen scholarship such as Jill Heydt-Stevenson, Brian Southam, Jocelyn Harris, David Nokes, Claudia Johnson, Kathryn Sutherland, and Fiona Stafford, as well as less well known, but equally creative, Janeite scholarly pioneers such as Jim Heldman, John Dussinger, Barbara Thaden, WJ Harvey, and many others---amongst which group I, as well as several other members of our own Janeites group, aspire to belong, each in our own distinctive way.
I believe more firmly than ever before that JA created her parallel fictional universes for reasons which she found (and I find still to be) compelling, and I am doing my best to honor and celebrate her efforts, and to bring those reasons to the attention of the Janeite world.
Until then, I imagine the great Janeite Rudyard Kipling's dichotomy will continue to hold for a good while longer---the only place where the (Mark) Twain between our respective "families" shall meet is is in this group, which is, in a way, very much like the narrow, twisting staircase between the two stories--where we will find Miss Bates as the gatekeeper, garrulously and hospitably keeping us all company! ;)
Cheers,
Arnie
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
The Jane Austen Code
In relevant part, Anielka Briggs also posted the following earlier today in Austen L and Janeites:
"....The joke is either (i) that Mrs. Austen assumes every childbirth is attended with trauma and the potential death of the mother. Not particularly funny as Elizabeth Knight nee Bridges did indeed die as a result of childbirth the day after the letter was completed and so the joke prediction was correct and in very poor taste. Rather surprising Cassandra didn't get her scissors to that one....... Unless she thought it was funny...... or (ii) [re: old "Mrs." Elizabeth Knight]....So unless Mrs. Cassandra Austen was blessed with the prescience of her namesake or the letter is a complete forgery or she and her two daughters are plotting murder in code, she couldn't possibly really have being preparing mourning clothes."
The passage she referred to was, again, the following paragraph in Letter 57:
"“My mother is preparing mourning for Mrs. E. K.; she has picked her old silk pelisse to pieces, and means to have it dyed black for a gown -- a very interesting scheme, though just now a little injured by finding that it must be placed in Mr. Wren's hands, for Mr. Chambers is gone. As for Mr. Floor, he is at present rather low in our estimation. How is your blue gown? Mine is all to pieces. I think there must have been something wrong in the dye, for in places it divided with a touch. There was four shillings thrown away, to be added to my subjects of never-failing regret.”
Here is what I just wrote in response:
Anielka, in my considered opinion, you've gotten close with scenario (i), but... you misread the tea leaves at the last minute. It does not require (to use your own mocking phrase, which you unmistakably directed at me) "a brain as large as a planet" to see it--all you need is a familiarity with what I dubbed, in January 2005, the Jane Austen Code.
But, as Lizzy Bennet suggests in P&P, "Do not let us quarrel about the past", so I will now explain what I see on the subject of Mrs. Austen's mysterious mourning clothes.
What I have found repeatedly to be the case is that JA, in her letters, used her mother (or Martha Lloyd or some other close female acquaintance) as a kind of "straw woman" for put-on messages--here are two instances where JA used the phrase "My mother wants to know...." which I find quite suspicious:
P. 31: "My mother wants to know whether Edward has ever made the Hen House which they planned together"
P. 35: "Pray mention the name of Maria Montresor's Lover when you write next, my Mother wants to know it, & I have not courage to look back into your letters to find it out."
I am skeptical that JA's mother really wanted to know either or both of those facts, partly because they seem rather silly, but partly also because JA gave us all a clue to this sort of playful practice, when, in P&P, she put the following words into Darcy's mouth, describing her favorite heroine Elizabeth Bennet's delight in put-ons:
"....I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance long enough to know, that you find great enjoyment in occasionally professing opinions which in fact are not your own...."
What I am claiming is that JA herself found equal enjoyment in occasionally ATTRIBUTING to others opinions which in fact WERE her own!
So, back to the above passage in Letter 57, I see this reference to her mother's mourning clothes in exactly the same put-on light. I also start from the opinion I have sincerely held for some time, based on all the facts we know about the Austen family history, which is that after the 1805 death of Revd. Austen, the Austen women were condemned to live in a kind of limbo of totally inadequate housing--and the one person who was in the best position to take them from limbo to paradise was Edward Austen Knight-yet he failed to provide them with the keys to Chawton Cottage for FOUR LONG YEARS.
Thnk about it. Edward Austen Knight woke up every day for 1,461 days, and thought, "I am NOT going to provide adequate housing to my mother and sisters today". At least John Dashwood's decision to stiff his mother and sisters out of his father's precatory deathbed request was made during ten minutes of conversation with his wife, and then what was done was done. Edward had to re-make this decision every day for all that long time period. The example of Fanny and John Dashwood's "King Lear" conversation makes you wonder whether JA thought that Edward, perhaps, had not made this decision entirely on his own, and, indeed, did not require repeated reminders from his wife as to why they really could not afford to be too generous to his mother and sisters.
All we know for sure is that when Edward Austen Knight's wife dies, within ELEVEN DAYS thereafter, BOOM!----apparently out of nowhere, EAK makes the decision to provide the Austen women with Chawton Cottage. Look at Letter 60, dated 10/24-25/08, if you don't believe me. It's astoundingly obvious when you connect the dates AND the dots. And that is why I am far, far from being the only scholar to reject the claim of coincidence. I am among the many who believe that it was precisely the death of the sister in law who carried such an animus toward JA which was the salvation of the Austen women.
And it is through the lens of that situation that I view this "mourning" paragraph in Letter 57. It seems totally understandable why JA, writing Letter 57 precisely at the moment when Elizabeth Knight first seemed certain to die in childbirth, but then made an (apparently) miraculous recovery, should indulge in some major humor as black as the dye she suggests her mother wants to apply to her gown.
Talk about a moment of massive moral conflict and turmoil! Here we have JA, being the moral, decent, honorable person she really was, who would not wish for the death of a relative, EVEN a relative who was the sole and inplacable obstacle to the well-being of the Austen women, and, equally important, to JA's own literary aspirations. In that last regard, every Austen scholar has pointed out the undeniable fact that it was only after JA moved to Chawton Cottage that the publications began and then continued in an increasing flow.
But counterpoised against all those considerations, we have the natural, human anticipation that if by the omnipotent hand of god Elizabeth Austen Knight were to die, the Austen women's plight would likely be quickly eased.
Is it any wonder, then, that when the word came down to JA (completely wrong, as it turned out) that Elizabeth was NOT going to die after all, there HAD TO be a lot of crazy, mixed-up feelings churning around inside JA, back there in Southampton, far away from Godmersham, listening to her mother's complaining about this and that--like Jane Bennet holding down the fort at Longbourne waiting for Lizzy aka the cavalry, to arrive to provide crucial reinforcement. It must have made JA feel completely crazy.
And so, out of the cauldron of all that emotional turmoil would naturally bubble up a joke about Mrs. Austen preparing for mourning, something that her mother had probably said the week BEFORE---and it would be very funny indeed, to both JA and CEA, in the darkest way--attributing to their mother what must have been a familiar theme, that of "counting your chickens" (which is exactly what Mrs. Austen--and JA-- did in 1816-7 when Uncle Leigh-Perrot died).
And, by the way, don't be so quick to dismiss the notion that CEA held a pillow over Elizabeth Knight's face the night after she received her marching orders from JA via Letter 57, an event that JA memorialized when she wrote the following about the death of the mistress of another great English country estate:
"An express arrived at Randalls to announce the death of Mrs. Churchill! Though her nephew had had no particular reason to hasten back on her account, she had not lived above six-and-thirty hours after his return. A sudden seizure of a different nature from any thing foreboded by her general state, had carried her off after a short struggle. The great Mrs. Churchill was no more. It was felt as such things must be felt. Every body had a degree of gravity and sorrow; tenderness towards the departed, solicitude for the surviving friends; and, in a reasonable time, curiosity to know where she would be buried. Goldsmith tells us, that when lovely woman stoops to folly, she has nothing to do but to die; and when she stoops to be disagreeable, it is equally to be recommended as a clearer of ill-fame. Mrs. Churchill, after being disliked at least twenty-five years, was now spoken of with compassionate allowances."
In regard to "curiosity to know where she would be buried", is it just a coincidence that in Letter 59, dated 10/15-16/08, JA writes, "I suppose you see the Corpse--how does it appear?'
But.....lest anyone take what I just wrote entirely at face value----even I don't really entertain the possibility that CEA actually murdered Elizabeth Knight---but I DO very much believe that JA subliminally DID joke about it, in the most deliciously macabre way, in the subtext of Emma. Let me explain.
I am not the first person to see Frank Churchill as a representation of Edward Austen Knight, but I do believe I am the first to see Mrs. Churchill as a representation of Mrs. Elizabeth Knight--which fits very nicely with my sense of Elizabeth Knight as wearing the "pants" in terms of the decision to deny the Austen women a decent place to live. Viewed in that light, Elizabeth Knight would in that sense be treating EAK AS IF he were a nephew subject to the caprices of a domineering aunt, powerless to object to her demands. But if this was so, there was strange justice in all of this, because while Elizabeth Knight apparently held this power in that domain of withholding largesse from Edward's relations, this may very well have been a quid quo pro for EAK's decision to keep her, his wife, in continuous childbirth from the day they married till the day she died 17 years later!
Cheers, ARNIE
sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com
(c) Arnold Perlstein 2010
P.S: I will at the AGM in Portland ALSO explain how all of the above relates to the shadow story of Northanger Abbey!
P.P.S.: I also just did a double-take on what JA wrote on P. 35 about looking back into CEA's letters---it means that at least as late as 1799, JA had retained CEA's letters written to her up till that time. One naturally wonders whether JA maintained that practice till her death, and, if she did, it suggests that the bonfire that CEA started shortly after her sister's death included several hundred letters that CEA had written to JA--what a sad fire that must have been!
(c) Arnold Perlstein 2010
"....The joke is either (i) that Mrs. Austen assumes every childbirth is attended with trauma and the potential death of the mother. Not particularly funny as Elizabeth Knight nee Bridges did indeed die as a result of childbirth the day after the letter was completed and so the joke prediction was correct and in very poor taste. Rather surprising Cassandra didn't get her scissors to that one....... Unless she thought it was funny...... or (ii) [re: old "Mrs." Elizabeth Knight]....So unless Mrs. Cassandra Austen was blessed with the prescience of her namesake or the letter is a complete forgery or she and her two daughters are plotting murder in code, she couldn't possibly really have being preparing mourning clothes."
The passage she referred to was, again, the following paragraph in Letter 57:
"“My mother is preparing mourning for Mrs. E. K.; she has picked her old silk pelisse to pieces, and means to have it dyed black for a gown -- a very interesting scheme, though just now a little injured by finding that it must be placed in Mr. Wren's hands, for Mr. Chambers is gone. As for Mr. Floor, he is at present rather low in our estimation. How is your blue gown? Mine is all to pieces. I think there must have been something wrong in the dye, for in places it divided with a touch. There was four shillings thrown away, to be added to my subjects of never-failing regret.”
Here is what I just wrote in response:
Anielka, in my considered opinion, you've gotten close with scenario (i), but... you misread the tea leaves at the last minute. It does not require (to use your own mocking phrase, which you unmistakably directed at me) "a brain as large as a planet" to see it--all you need is a familiarity with what I dubbed, in January 2005, the Jane Austen Code.
But, as Lizzy Bennet suggests in P&P, "Do not let us quarrel about the past", so I will now explain what I see on the subject of Mrs. Austen's mysterious mourning clothes.
What I have found repeatedly to be the case is that JA, in her letters, used her mother (or Martha Lloyd or some other close female acquaintance) as a kind of "straw woman" for put-on messages--here are two instances where JA used the phrase "My mother wants to know...." which I find quite suspicious:
P. 31: "My mother wants to know whether Edward has ever made the Hen House which they planned together"
P. 35: "Pray mention the name of Maria Montresor's Lover when you write next, my Mother wants to know it, & I have not courage to look back into your letters to find it out."
I am skeptical that JA's mother really wanted to know either or both of those facts, partly because they seem rather silly, but partly also because JA gave us all a clue to this sort of playful practice, when, in P&P, she put the following words into Darcy's mouth, describing her favorite heroine Elizabeth Bennet's delight in put-ons:
"....I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance long enough to know, that you find great enjoyment in occasionally professing opinions which in fact are not your own...."
What I am claiming is that JA herself found equal enjoyment in occasionally ATTRIBUTING to others opinions which in fact WERE her own!
So, back to the above passage in Letter 57, I see this reference to her mother's mourning clothes in exactly the same put-on light. I also start from the opinion I have sincerely held for some time, based on all the facts we know about the Austen family history, which is that after the 1805 death of Revd. Austen, the Austen women were condemned to live in a kind of limbo of totally inadequate housing--and the one person who was in the best position to take them from limbo to paradise was Edward Austen Knight-yet he failed to provide them with the keys to Chawton Cottage for FOUR LONG YEARS.
Thnk about it. Edward Austen Knight woke up every day for 1,461 days, and thought, "I am NOT going to provide adequate housing to my mother and sisters today". At least John Dashwood's decision to stiff his mother and sisters out of his father's precatory deathbed request was made during ten minutes of conversation with his wife, and then what was done was done. Edward had to re-make this decision every day for all that long time period. The example of Fanny and John Dashwood's "King Lear" conversation makes you wonder whether JA thought that Edward, perhaps, had not made this decision entirely on his own, and, indeed, did not require repeated reminders from his wife as to why they really could not afford to be too generous to his mother and sisters.
All we know for sure is that when Edward Austen Knight's wife dies, within ELEVEN DAYS thereafter, BOOM!----apparently out of nowhere, EAK makes the decision to provide the Austen women with Chawton Cottage. Look at Letter 60, dated 10/24-25/08, if you don't believe me. It's astoundingly obvious when you connect the dates AND the dots. And that is why I am far, far from being the only scholar to reject the claim of coincidence. I am among the many who believe that it was precisely the death of the sister in law who carried such an animus toward JA which was the salvation of the Austen women.
And it is through the lens of that situation that I view this "mourning" paragraph in Letter 57. It seems totally understandable why JA, writing Letter 57 precisely at the moment when Elizabeth Knight first seemed certain to die in childbirth, but then made an (apparently) miraculous recovery, should indulge in some major humor as black as the dye she suggests her mother wants to apply to her gown.
Talk about a moment of massive moral conflict and turmoil! Here we have JA, being the moral, decent, honorable person she really was, who would not wish for the death of a relative, EVEN a relative who was the sole and inplacable obstacle to the well-being of the Austen women, and, equally important, to JA's own literary aspirations. In that last regard, every Austen scholar has pointed out the undeniable fact that it was only after JA moved to Chawton Cottage that the publications began and then continued in an increasing flow.
But counterpoised against all those considerations, we have the natural, human anticipation that if by the omnipotent hand of god Elizabeth Austen Knight were to die, the Austen women's plight would likely be quickly eased.
Is it any wonder, then, that when the word came down to JA (completely wrong, as it turned out) that Elizabeth was NOT going to die after all, there HAD TO be a lot of crazy, mixed-up feelings churning around inside JA, back there in Southampton, far away from Godmersham, listening to her mother's complaining about this and that--like Jane Bennet holding down the fort at Longbourne waiting for Lizzy aka the cavalry, to arrive to provide crucial reinforcement. It must have made JA feel completely crazy.
And so, out of the cauldron of all that emotional turmoil would naturally bubble up a joke about Mrs. Austen preparing for mourning, something that her mother had probably said the week BEFORE---and it would be very funny indeed, to both JA and CEA, in the darkest way--attributing to their mother what must have been a familiar theme, that of "counting your chickens" (which is exactly what Mrs. Austen--and JA-- did in 1816-7 when Uncle Leigh-Perrot died).
And, by the way, don't be so quick to dismiss the notion that CEA held a pillow over Elizabeth Knight's face the night after she received her marching orders from JA via Letter 57, an event that JA memorialized when she wrote the following about the death of the mistress of another great English country estate:
"An express arrived at Randalls to announce the death of Mrs. Churchill! Though her nephew had had no particular reason to hasten back on her account, she had not lived above six-and-thirty hours after his return. A sudden seizure of a different nature from any thing foreboded by her general state, had carried her off after a short struggle. The great Mrs. Churchill was no more. It was felt as such things must be felt. Every body had a degree of gravity and sorrow; tenderness towards the departed, solicitude for the surviving friends; and, in a reasonable time, curiosity to know where she would be buried. Goldsmith tells us, that when lovely woman stoops to folly, she has nothing to do but to die; and when she stoops to be disagreeable, it is equally to be recommended as a clearer of ill-fame. Mrs. Churchill, after being disliked at least twenty-five years, was now spoken of with compassionate allowances."
In regard to "curiosity to know where she would be buried", is it just a coincidence that in Letter 59, dated 10/15-16/08, JA writes, "I suppose you see the Corpse--how does it appear?'
But.....lest anyone take what I just wrote entirely at face value----even I don't really entertain the possibility that CEA actually murdered Elizabeth Knight---but I DO very much believe that JA subliminally DID joke about it, in the most deliciously macabre way, in the subtext of Emma. Let me explain.
I am not the first person to see Frank Churchill as a representation of Edward Austen Knight, but I do believe I am the first to see Mrs. Churchill as a representation of Mrs. Elizabeth Knight--which fits very nicely with my sense of Elizabeth Knight as wearing the "pants" in terms of the decision to deny the Austen women a decent place to live. Viewed in that light, Elizabeth Knight would in that sense be treating EAK AS IF he were a nephew subject to the caprices of a domineering aunt, powerless to object to her demands. But if this was so, there was strange justice in all of this, because while Elizabeth Knight apparently held this power in that domain of withholding largesse from Edward's relations, this may very well have been a quid quo pro for EAK's decision to keep her, his wife, in continuous childbirth from the day they married till the day she died 17 years later!
Cheers, ARNIE
sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com
(c) Arnold Perlstein 2010
P.S: I will at the AGM in Portland ALSO explain how all of the above relates to the shadow story of Northanger Abbey!
P.P.S.: I also just did a double-take on what JA wrote on P. 35 about looking back into CEA's letters---it means that at least as late as 1799, JA had retained CEA's letters written to her up till that time. One naturally wonders whether JA maintained that practice till her death, and, if she did, it suggests that the bonfire that CEA started shortly after her sister's death included several hundred letters that CEA had written to JA--what a sad fire that must have been!
(c) Arnold Perlstein 2010
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