“Prudence forbad the disclosure” is undercut by “Selfishness is prudence”: Elizabeth Bennet unwittingly hoists herself on her own rhetorical petard!

 In followup to my two preceding posts about Elizabeth Bennet’s selfish rationalizations for not telling sister Jane about Darcy’s interference…

http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2014/11/does-lizzy-wrongly-rationalize-not.html

http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2014/12/lizzy-bennet-selfish-being-who-never.html

…I dug around in my files and found a snippet from a 2004 law review article written by a law professor named Rosanna Cavallaro, which discussed Pride & Prejudice from the point of view of legal rules of evidence and proof. In the following two paragraphs, Cavallaro shows herself to be the only Austen scholar prior to myself to have any awareness that Elizabeth had other valid options open to her besides withholding (from Jane) Darcy’s disclosure to Elizabeth about his having interfered between Bingley and Jane:

“Austen explores the notion of privilege…when she permits Elizabeth to withhold from Jane not only Darcy’s secret regarding his sister, but also the details of Darcy’s role in thwarting Charles Bingley’s feelings for Jane….Austen does not condemn Elizabeth for withholding the ignoble role that her own lover has played in dividing Bingley from Jane. Instead, she permits the reader to approve the balancing of confidentiality against the free flow of information, facilitating the central match of this marriage comedy, even as it thwarts fulfillment of the secondary match. Jane is never permitted to learn of or to express anger about Darcy’s meddling, although Elizabeth accuses him of being “the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most beloved sister.”  Instead, Austen writes of Elizabeth:  “The tumult of Elizabeth’s mind was allayed by this conversation. She had got rid of two of the secrets which had weighed on her for a fortnight, and was certain of a willing listener in Jane, whenever she might wish to talk again of either. But there was still something lurking behind, of which prudence forbad the disclosure. She dared not relate the other half of Mr Darcy’s letter, nor explain to her sister how sincerely she had been valued by his friend. Here was knowledge in which no one could partake; and she was sensible that nothing less than a perfect understanding between the parties could justify her in throwing off this last incumbrance of mystery. “And then,” said she, “if that very improbable event should ever take place, I shall merely be able to tell what Bingley may tell in a much more agreeable manner himself. The liberty of communication cannot be mine till it has lost all value!”

In ruminating over how to proceed with this important confidence, Elizabeth here overlooks a critical aspect of the “knowledge” that she withholds: It is not that Bingley indeed loves Jane, but that Darcy has persuaded him that Jane does not love him. Indeed, so far from being condemned for his meddling, Darcy himself is credited with righting things by reassuring Bingley that Jane reciprocates his feelings for her.  He does not even share the credit with Elizabeth, who had first put him on notice of his own error of judgment as to Jane’s feelings.  Nor does he thank her for keeping his “absurd and impertinent” “interference” a secret from Jane. The connection is simply reestablished, with surprise and joy on the part of both Jane and Bingley, and the novel ends with two marriages...”  END QUOTE FROM CAVALLARO ARTICLE

From my perspective, Cavallaro has opened the door wide with this brilliant analysis—and she zeroes in on that very passage in Chapter 40 which I flagged in my first post, the crucial passage in which Elizabeth rationalizes (like Perry Mason’s casuistry in representing a guilty client) that “prudence forbad the disclosure”. But Cavallaro lacked the crucial knowledge that there was a shadow story (parallel fictional universe version) of P&P in which Jane Austen meant for her knowing readers to view Elizabeth in a very negative light for this decision, and not (as has been the conventional Austen scholarly response) as evidence of Elizabeth’s admirable independence and courage.  All the same, big kudos to Cavallaro for even reaching this question in the first place a decade ago!

I was also thinking some more overnight about the theme of Elizabeth’s rationalizing selfishness in P&P, and I did a quick search of the word “selfish” in the novel, to see what else might pop up as additional ironic shadowing by JA, and I found the mother lode immediately in the following passage in Chapter 24, when Elizabeth responds with great vitriol to Aunt Gardiner about Charlotte’s decision to marry Mr. Collins, and appears particularly triggered by her aunt’s saying “Consider Mr. Collins's respectability, and Charlotte's steady, PRUDENT character.”:

"To oblige you, I would try to believe almost anything, but no one else could be benefited by such a belief as this; for were I persuaded that Charlotte had any regard for him, I should only think worse of her understanding than I now do of her heart. My dear Jane, Mr. Collins is a conceited, pompous, narrow-minded, silly man; you know he is, as well as I do; and you must feel, as well as I do, that the woman who married him cannot have a proper way of thinking. You shall not defend her, though it is Charlotte Lucas. You shall not, for the sake of one individual, change the meaning of principle and integrity, nor endeavour to persuade yourself or me, that SELFISHNESS IS PRUDENCE, and insensibility of danger security for happiness."

This might just be the biggest textual irony of all the ones I’ve catalogued in these three posts—why? Because, in this passage in Chapter 24, Elizabeth condemns Charlotte harshly for calling herself “prudent” as a “pretty face” to cover the ugly “selfishness” of the decision. Austen scholars and ordinary Janeites alike have long been at a loss to explain how exactly Charlotte was being “selfish” in marrying Mr. Collins.

But JA’s deeper intention in putting this speech in Elizabeth’s mouth is now clear—this speech actually functions as Lizzy’s own unwitting condemnation of her own rationalizing in Chapter 40 (when Lizzy actually thinks “PRUDENCE forbad the disclosure”), and, for that matter, of Lizzy’s decision to accept Darcy’s second proposal not long afterwards!  To demonstrate this, with a minimum of editing, I will turn that fiery little speech into what Mary Bennet (the “whisperer”  who tried in vain to warn Elizabeth to beware of Darcy’s seductive charms) might have said to Mr. Bennet at the end of the novel, if Mr. Bennet had tried to defend Lizzy’s acceptance of Darcy’s proposal:

"To oblige you, I would try to believe almost anything, but no one else could be benefited by such a belief as this; for were I persuaded that Elizabeth had any regard for him, I should only think worse of her understanding than I now do of her heart. My dear FATHER, Mr. DARCY is a conceited, SELFISH, narrow-minded, MACHIAVELLIAN man; you know he is, as well as I do; and you must feel, as well as I do, that the woman who married him cannot have a proper way of thinking. You shall not defend her, though it is YOUR BELOVED LIZZY. You shall not, for the sake of one individual, change the meaning of principle and integrity, nor endeavour to persuade yourself or me, that SELFISHNESS IS PRUDENCE, and insensibility of danger security for happiness."

That all of the textual points I’ve laid out in these three posts have never been properly understood before as a package intentionally embedded in the text of P&P by the Machiavellian art of Jane Austen, is only a sign of how brilliantly she hid it all in plain sight for two centuries!

Cheers, ARNIE

@JaneAustenCode on Twitter

Lizzy Bennet the “selfish being” who (never) knows herself!

In my previous post....
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2014/11/does-lizzy-wrongly-rationalize-not.html

....I argued that Elizabeth selfishly rationalizes, not once but repeatedly, her own total and unforgiveable concealment from sister Jane, of Darcy's interference that wound up separating Jane from Bingley for several months before Darcy undid his interference.

I.e. Elizabeth, in her heart of hearts, is more concerned for her own chances with Darcy than she is for Jane's chances with Bingley. Sad but true that Lizzy puts herself ahead of Jane—and it's only because Darcy reforms that HE chooses, entirely on his own initiative (i.e., without ANY prompting whatsoever from Lizzy) to undo his interference and press the Reset Button on Bingley's head that responds only to Darcy’s fingerprint (so to speak). 

Here are two lines of followup thinking that have occurred to me, the first with respect to ironic overtones in P&P, the second with respect to another Austen novel with a parallel situation:

FURTHER IRONY IN TWO PASSAGES IN P&P:

Jane Austen’s razor-sharp irony is on full and spectacular display in the following famous passage in Chapter 36, when Lizzy is in the process of reading and rereading Darcy’s letter. Just read this passage keeping firmly in mind my claim that Lizzy has absolutely no self-awareness whatsoever as to her selfishness vis a vis Jane, as I described in my previous post, and then you will clearly see what is so devastatingly ironic about the ALL CAPS sentence:

“She grew absolutely ashamed of herself. Of neither Darcy nor Wickham could she think without feeling that she had been blind, partial, prejudiced, absurd.

   "How despicably have I acted!" she cried; "I, who have prided myself on my discernment! I, who have valued myself on my abilities! who have often disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified my vanity in useless or blameable distrust. How humiliating is this discovery! yet, how just a humiliation! Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly. Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance, I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were concerned. TILL THIS MOMENT I NEVER KNEW MYSELF."

   From herself to Jane -- from Jane to Bingley, her thoughts were in a line which soon brought to her recollection that Mr. Darcy's explanation there had appeared very insufficient, and she read it again. Widely different was the effect of a second perusal. How could she deny that credit to his assertions, in one instance, which she had been obliged to give in the other. He declared himself to have been totally unsuspicious of her sister's attachment; and she could not help remembering what Charlotte's opinion had always been. Neither could she deny the justice of his description of Jane. She felt that Jane's feelings, though fervent, were little displayed, and that there was a constant complacency in her air and manner not often united with great sensibility. “ END QUOTE

Did you see it? Lizzy is blaming herself for having believed Wickham’s version of his history with Darcy, and for having therefore blasted Darcy about his mistreatment of Wickham when Darcy first proposed. But she doesn’t just change her mind about this point, Elizabeth goes overboard and tells herself that she has suddenly had her eyes opened, a powerful epiphany, as if Darcy were Moses who had just delivered his own autographed version of the 10 Commandments to her personally, straight from the mountaintop. Lizzy has been converted to Darcy’s way of thinking, and she believes she truly knows herself for the first time. Hmm….

And yet, Jane Austen does not waste a second in thoroughly undermining the validity of Lizzy’s “epiphany”. She does this by showing us that Elizabeth’s chain of thought moves immediately “from herself to Jane”----and what exactly does Lizzy think about Darcy’s interference in Jane’s and Bingley’s romance? That Jane was too complacent—i.e., Darcy did not do wrong after all, his interference was justified, it was all Jane’s fault! Hmm….

Talk about a monstrous self-delusion arising at the very moment when Lizzy believes she has become completely self-aware—now THAT’S major league irony, and also sound psychology! I.e., in the act of Lizzy unconsciously repressing awareness of how selfish she is being toward Jane, it is indeed the perversity of human nature that Lizzy will in that moment be extra motivated to slide her feelings of self-blame from where they belong (re Jane) to where they don’t belong (re Darcy, who actually has wronged Jane).

And the best (or worst) part of it is, that JA does not beat the reader over the head with this irony, quite the contrary—she HIDES the irony, and actually leads the passive reader down the garden path of accepting Lizzy’s twisted logic as gospel truth—so in effect, the passive reader is right there alongside Lizzy sharing in her self-delusion whole-hog! Only the reader who can peer around the wizard’s curtain, and see the machinery of self-delusion that JA subtly leaves in the lines under her words (so to speak)_can get free of the spell cast by Lizzy’s deluded reading.

This is JA’s didacticism at its most spectacular, this is how JA wished to teach her readers to read life better—but her lesson was not for all readers, only those willing to doubt their own first impressions, and to read very very closely and think about the complex motivations of the heroine, and how easily they can be misread. This is how JA teaches her readers what is worth knowing, not by preaching, but by winking.

And I also now see yet another ironic wrinkle of Elizabeth's lack of solicitude for Jane --i.e., it never even enters Elizabeth's mind after Darcy's first proposal that if Lizzy had accepted it, it would have given her a great deal of leverage to push Darcy to undo his interference that put the kibosh on Bingley's romance with Jane.

Now I am not suggesting that Elizabeth SHOULD have accepted Darcy's proposal solely for that purpose---that would have gone way beyond the call of duty of a loving sister, it would have made Elizabeth a martyr- but since we are privy to all of Elizabeth's thoughts in regard to these romances, it is striking that she never entertains that idea even for a second. Further evidence that in her heart of hearts, Elizabeth loves herself better than she loves Jane.

And here’s another textual irony—when Darcy makes his second, successful proposal to Elizabeth, he famously makes the following impassioned confession:

 “I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. As a child I was taught what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit. Unfortunately an only son (for many years an only child), I was spoilt by my parents, who, though good themselves (my father, particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable), allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing; to care for none beyond my own family circle; to think meanly of all the rest of the world; to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own.”

The great irony here is that this very same confession is one that Lizzy could have made herself, if she were self-aware! She has been a selfish being all her life, she was not taught by either parent to correct her temper, she was left to follow her principles in pride and conceit! And, she was of course spoilt by her father, etc etc etc. Lizzy been a selfish being, and her utter passivity vis a vis Jane and Bingley is the best example of it.

ROMANTIC SELFISHNESS IN ANOTHER AUSTEN HEROINE

So much for P&P in this post---it's also been tickling my memory since I wrote my previous post, that there was SOME other parallel situation in another Austen novel, in which another Austen heroine besides Elizabeth selfishly conceals important romantic information –and it was only in writing the above portion of this post, that I suddenly remembered who that heroine was—Emma!

Here goes:  Just as Elizabeth utterly fails to lift a finger to try to arrange for Bingley to know about Jane’s strong feelings for him, so also does Emma fail to speak a single word that would alert Knightley to Harriet’s strong feelings for him! And Emma goes through exactly the same sort of pretzel logic to rationalize away any duty toward Harriet to make such a disclosure to Knightley. And in the end, Harriet winds up with Robert Martin (we are never allowed to know how Harriet feels about having to settle for him after having her sights set on Knightley), through absolutely no positive action whatsoever on Emma’s part. From Emma’s point of view, it just happens as if by magic, and she is let off the hook of her own stunted conscience, for having elbowed Harriet aside in snagging Knightley.

CONCLUSION

You can go to the bank on the assurance that not only was JA fully cognizant of this parallel to Lizzy’s selfishness when she wrote Emma, she was, she did it on purpose. In P&P we have the heroine’s romantic selfishness under the surface, but in Emma it is foregrounded. Perhaps this was in part JA’s way of saying to her readers who had missed the irony about Lizzy, “Why don’t you reread P&P and see if you see how much Lizzy really is like Emma?”

But apparently I am the first to notice these ironies and parallels, and (as Alanis Morisette said) isn’t THAT ironic?

Cheers, ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode on Twitter

Does Lizzy wrongly rationalize NOT telling Jane about Darcy's interference re Jane & Bingley?

Yesterday I noticed a recent thread in another Austen online discussion of P&P, which reminded me of an important interpretive question, which, as far as I can recall, has never been discussed in these groups:  i.e., do you find Lizzy to have been justified in her rationale for deciding NOT to tell Jane about Darcy’s interference in dividing Jane from Bingley? And there is also the closely related question, did JA herself and/or the narrator approve of Lizzy’s decision?  I think this will make an excellent topic for discussion.

Here’s my take. I’ve just revisited all the textual evidence, which can be found in bits and pieces spread across a half dozen chapters scattered throughout the second half of P&P, and my conclusion is that Lizzy very definitely rationalizes away her clear moral duty to tell Jane—she rationalizes it away when it matters most, i.e., before Darcy gives Bingley the green light to “go to it” (that  great line in Davies’s P&P2, delivered with such brio by Colin Firth), and Lizzy continues to rationalize it away even when it is largely moot, i.e., after Jane and Bingley are already engaged.

And despite all the tortured logic she tosses around in her mind, the simplest explanation for her decision, the one that best conforms to Occam’s Razor, is that Lizzy is simply afraid that Jane will not forgive Darcy for his devastating meddling—i.e., after Darcy has proposed to her, and then written her The Letter, Lizzy is simply more concerned for Darcy’s feelings and reputation than Lizzy is for Jane’s feelings and romantic future. Of course, Lizzy does not see it this way, but  then, that is JA’s genius, as she subtly draws the reader into Lizzy’s self-deluding thought processes, and “sells” it to us so well that most Janeites tend to uncritically accept Lizzy’s thinking as what the narrator (and JA) thinks is best, and also what we the reader ought to think is best.

One key to my thinking is that it is not true that there was (as Lizzy tells herself, in various ways) nothing that could have been done to at least try to bring Jane and Bingley together long before Darcy’s corrective action late in the novel. After all, the Bennet family goes to extreme lengths to try to put the fire out when Lydia runs off with Wickham, including Mr. Bennet traipsing off to London in desperate, futile search of the missing couple.

So, why would it not have been desirable and possible, several chapters earlier, as soon as Lizzy returns to Longbourn from Hunsford, and before she leaves on her tour with the Gardiners, for Mr. Bennet to go to London and pay a visit to Bingley and set the young man straight about Jane’s strong love for him? Why exactly would that have been inappropriate?  And there would be a kind of poetic justice in such an action, since we’d instantly be reminded of Mr. Bennet’s secret mission early in the novel when he pays a visit to Netherfield to check in with Mr. Bingley and, as he drily jokes,  “offer” one of his daughters as a wife.

And…I think such a discreet diplomatic mission would have had a high probability of success, given that Mr. Bennet was no slouch in the realm of rhetoric and persuasion, and Bingley was so easily persuaded by male authority figures.  

Lizzy also concludes that Jane would suffer more knowing Bingley loved her but was not going to marry her, than Jane’s believing Bingley had forgotten her. I think that is a HIGHLY dubious conclusion on Lizzy’s part, but even if I concede it for argument’s sake, it is nonetheless a red herring, because Lizzy could have imparted this crucial intelligence privately to her father, so that he could make his attempt without telling Jane, so that Jane’s hopes would not be prematurely revived, in case the mission failed.

Not even to try was a guarantee of Jane and Bingley never getting together, based on all that Lizzy knew after receiving Darcy’s letter. After all, Darcy’s letter gave Lizzy zero hope that Darcy himself would undo the effects of his interference--Darcy remained emphatic and resolute in the correctness and good morality of his interference, as far as Lizzy knew.

So, I expect there to be some disagreement with one or more of my points, anyone else care to chime in?

Cheers, ARNIE

@JaneAustenCode  on Twitter

Mrs. Norris and Mrs. Churchill (aka Aunt Leigh Perrot) as Baby Barterers

In Janeites, Linda Thomas picked up on my earlier suggestion that Mrs. Norris might just be the biological mother of her (apparent) niece Maria Bertram, and suggested that the grant of the Mansfield living to Mr. Norris might have been part of a quid pro quo whereby Mrs. Norris could remain in close contact as a kind of de facto mother to Maria. 

Linda then wrote: “This what Austen writes:

"Miss Ward, after half a dozen years,  found "herself obliged to be attached to the Rev. Mr. Norris, a friend of her brother-in-law, with scarcely any private fortune, and Miss Frances fared yet worse. Miss Ward's match, indeed, when it came to the point, was not contemptible: Sir Thomas being happily able to give his friend an income in the living of Mansfield ..."
At the AGM, Peter Sabor said there were about 70 changes between 1st edition MP and 2nd edition MP.  Do you know which edition this text is from, and if it differs in the other?”

Diane Reynolds then responded: “The Cambridge edition is based on the second edition of 1816 but shows all the variants with the 1814 text. The text I quoted, according to Cambridge, is the same in both editions: " "herself obliged to be attached to the Rev. Mr. Norris, a friend of her brother-in-law, with scarcely any private fortune, and Miss Frances fared yet worse. Miss Ward's match, indeed, when it came to the point, was not contemptible: Sir Thomas being happily able to give his friend an income in the living of Mansfield ..." JA changed nothing there.

…Of course, the only way to truly sure there were no changes would be to look at the first and second editions myself, but I have neither the capacity to do so nor the inclination to distrust the Cambridge editors. Linda, just out of curiosity, did you have a reason to believe there was a substantive change in the history of Mrs. Norris between the two editions? It would be interesting if Austen had thought to change that backstory. If there is concern about these issues, we can keep checking quotes against the Cambridge.”

And here is my response to both of these excellent posts:

 

I also attended that breakout session given by Peter Sabor (who, in addition to giving a very strong presentation, also has an orator’s voice and strong English accent tailor-made for Masterpiece Theatre), and found it very interesting—What I like about Linda’s textual history question is that I have taken that very same strategy of checking changes between different published versions of some of Shakespeare’s plays, and I found it very fruitful in some cases in elucidating aspects of Shakespeare’s shadow stories.

Plus, as my friend Jim Heldman was the first to point out 20 years ago, the cancelled chapters of Persuasion  provide a giant window into the shadow story of that novel, because you clearly see therein the Crofts playing clumsy matchmakers for  Anne and Wentworth, which then spurs the reader to spot the hidden clues of similar import scattered throughout several of the EARLIER chapters of Persuasion.

As I just explained to Louise, it’s all about the reader’s point of  view, being able and willing to look at the texts of JA’s novels through the lenses of different assumptions, and testing to see if any of the reexamined text “lights  up” under those different assumptions.

So even though Linda’s question didn’t lead to a discovery of a material change in this instance, I love that she asked a great question!—Indeed, if you don’t ask the question, you never even get to the point of learning whether there is an interesting answer to that question lurking in the shadows….

And…what also just occurred to me as I reread this thread again this morning is how much the above quoted passage about how Mr. Norris got the living at Mansfield, with its winking ambiguities, reminds me of a comparable passage very early in the next novel JA wrote, Emma, in which another man comes into a competence via a murky transaction with a wealthy family, whereby a young child is quietly transferred from its biological parent.

“Captain Weston, who had been considered, especially by the Churchills, as making such an amazing match, was proved to have much the worst of the bargain; for when his wife died, after a three years' marriage, he was rather a poorer man than at first, and with a child to maintain. From the expense of the child, however, he was soon relieved. The boy had, with the additional softening claim of a lingering illness of his mother's, been the means of a sort of reconciliation; and Mr. and Mrs. Churchill, having no children of their own, nor any other young creature of equal kindred to care for, offered to take the whole charge of the little Frank soon after her decease. Some scruples and some reluctance the widower-father may be supposed to have felt; but as they were overcome by other considerations, the child was given up to the care and the wealth of the Churchills, and he had only his own comfort to seek, and his own situation to improve as he could.

A complete change of life became desirable. He quitted the militia and engaged in trade, having brothers already established in a good way in London, which afforded him a favourable opening. It was a concern which brought just employment enough. He had still a small house in Highbury, where most of his leisure days were spent; and between useful occupation and the pleasures of society, the next eighteen or twenty years of his life passed cheerfully away. He had, by that time, realised an easy competence—enough to secure the purchase of a little estate adjoining Highbury, which he had always longed for—enough to marry a woman as portionless even as Miss Taylor, and to live according to the wishes of his own friendly and social disposition. “

It was in 2004 that I first noticed that telltale phrase about how Captain Weston’s scruples about giving up Frank to his sister-in-law “were overcome by other considerations” .  EVERY real estate lawyer working within the English common law system immediately recognizes that JA is winking broadly at a SALE of the child for some sort of monetary consideration, as in this standard verbiage from a million contracts and deeds:

“For Ten Dollars ($10.00) and other good and valuable consideration, the receipt and sufficiency of which are hereby acknowledged, the parties hereto hereby agree as follows, etc…..”

So….I find that striking parallelism to be very suggestive evidence that Linda’s instincts were spot on in connecting the grant by Sir Thomas of the living to Mr. Norris with the marriage of Mr. Norris to (so I suggest) the “grant” of baby Maria to Lady Bertram. JA sorta makes it sound like a coincidence, but for me, every apparent coincidence in a JA novel is a giant clue pointing to the shadows….

And….what’s also interesting about Linda’s suggestion of a linkage between Mrs. Norris as Maria’s bio mother and Mr. Norris’s receiving the living at Mansfield is that in the end of MP, we read:

“…[Maria] must withdraw with infinitely stronger feelings to a retirement and reproach which could allow no second spring of hope or character.

Where she could be placed became a subject of most melancholy and momentous consultation. Mrs. Norris, whose attachment seemed to augment with the demerits of her niece, would have had her received at home and countenanced by them all. Sir Thomas would not hear of it; and Mrs. Norris's anger against Fanny was so much the greater, from considering her residence there as the motive. She persisted in placing his scruples to her account, though Sir Thomas very solemnly assured her that, had there been no young woman in question, had there been no young person of either sex belonging to him, to be endangered by the society or hurt by the character of Mrs. Rushworth, he would never have offered so great an insult to the neighbourhood as to expect it to notice her. As a daughter, he hoped a penitent one, she should be protected by him, and secured in every comfort, and supported by every encouragement to do right, which their relative situations admitted; but farther than that he could not go. Maria had destroyed her own character, and he would not, by a vain attempt to restore what never could be restored, by affording his sanction to vice, or in seeking to lessen its disgrace, be anywise accessory to introducing such misery in another man's family as he had known himself.

It ended in Mrs. Norris's resolving to quit Mansfield and devote herself to her unfortunate Maria, and in an establishment being formed for them in another country, remote and private, where, shut up together with little society, on one side no affection, on the other no judgment, it may be reasonably supposed that their tempers became their mutual punishment…..”

Note the narrative hedge with “it  may be reasonably supposed….”—what if this is a wink that tells us that the removed life of Mrs.Norris and Maria will not be the Sartrean hell that Fanny perceives it to be, but is actually a voluntary, indeed a desired, reuniting of mother and daughter finally free from dictatorial abusive control by Sir Thomas?

And…I conclude by also noting that I have long believed that JA’s Aunt Leigh-Perrot was represented several times, always in a very unfavorable light, in JA’s novels, and two of those characters are….Mrs. Norris (whose kleptomania was of course JA’s aunt’s most notorious foible) and Mrs. Churchill (a family dictator who used inheritance as a club to batter family members into obedience and submission). So, it’s a nice irony to see Mrs. Norris and Mrs. Churchill connected via shady baby-trading transactions as well.

So thanks to Linda for opening this portal so wide!

Cheers, ARNIE

@JaneAustenCode on Twitter