A Safe Place

A SAFE PLACE: JANE AUSTEN AND THE RICHARDSONIAN INHERITANCE A SAFE PLACE: JANE AUSTEN AND THE RICHARDSONIAN INHERITANCE by NANCY RUTH FAWCETT, B. A., M.A. A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy McMaster University September 1987 DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (1987) McMASTER UNIVERSITY (English) Hamilton, Ontario TITLE: A Safe Place: Jane Austen and the Richardsonian Inheritance AUTHOR: Nancy Ruth Fawcett, B. A. (Wilfrid Laurier University) M. A. (McMaster University) SUPERVISOR: Doctor D. Blewett NUMBER OF PAGES: vi, 233 ii ABSTRACT Jane Austen's novels have often been viewed as realistic portrayals of the time in which she lived. This paper attempts to modify this view by examining her work in the context of the novels of Samuel Richardson, the writer whom she reportedly admired above all others. There are many differences between the two au thors, but their subject matter is essentially the same: the hearts and minds of marriageable young women. Richardson's heroines, however, are threatened and harassed while Austen's are free to experience without fear, and to learn without danger. In "Sir Char les Grandison or The Happy Man", a parody she wrote of Richardson's Sir Charles Grandison, Austen satirizes Richardson's timorous hero ines and aggressive heroes; in her novels, women are self-assured and men are not frightening. An examination of the social history of the eighteenth ce n tu ry and the letters of Jane Austen, however, demonstrates that the world of her novels is not the one she knew. Her much misunder stood letters, in particular, show that her attitudes towards sexual relationships have much in common with those of Samuel Richardson. In addition, her letters illustrate the source and sig nificance of her celebrated irony. Finally, this study concentrates on Mansfield Park, the novel that appears to contradict Austen's other novels. Mansfield iii Park is didactic and unironic; it has an oppressed heroine, powerful male characters, and a society that neither appreciates nor defends women. In Mansfield Park the Richardsonian inheritance and Austen's social and sexual views come together and provide insights into her work. Jane Austen's heroines, with the exception of Fanny Price, inhabit a safe place she creates for them. Her rejection of the dangers of women's lives, which Richardson depicts so well, is proof, not of her realism, but of her artistry. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank Dr. Blewett, the supervisor of this thesis, for his guidance and for his invariably helpful advice. I also thank Dr. King and Dr. Morton, who took the time to read this study and to make many useful suggestions. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v I. INTRODUCTION: FROM SIR CHARLES GRANDISON TO MANSFIELD PARK 1 11. THE EVIDENCE OF "SIR CHARLES GRANDISON" 7 111. JANE AUSTEN AND WOMEN IN DISTRESS 38 IV. "THE TRUE ART OF LETTER-WRITING" 74 V. DANGEROUS GROUND: MANSFIELD PARK 11 0 VI. SEXUAL DIFFERENCES: THE HEROINES AND HEROES OF JANE AUSTEN 141 V 11. PARADOXICAL CONCLUSIONS 175 V 111. CONCLUSION: JANE AUSTEN'S GARDEN 212 BIBLIOGRAPHY 218 vi CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION: FROM SIR CHARLES GRANDISON TO MANSFIELD PARK This study of Jane Austen's novels grew out of my first reading of her parody of Samuel Richardson's last novel, shortly after it was published in 1981. Austen's "Sir Charles Grandison or The Happy Man", a play intended for private performance, is a small but significant addition to her canon for it provides a new perspec tive on her relationship to Samuel Richardson, which in turn raises questions about the underlying assumptions of her own work. "Sir Charles Grandison" is a parody of Richardson's Sir Charles Grandison (1754), and is unremarkable except for the object of the only sus tained satire it contains: Richardson's depiction of the sexes. Faintly at first, but with growing vigour as the play progresses, Austen ridicules his arrogant men who are capable of superhuman deeds and his beleaguered women who are praised as the best of their sex. Special scorn is reserved for the fear and subservience that characterizes women's attitudes to men; Austen's Harriet Byron flutters and faints before a bored villain and a boring hero. It is hardly surprising that Austen would parody Richardson's heroes and heroines, for her heroines are seldom afraid, and her heroes are rarely intimidating. It is comforting to turn to a naveI by Jane 1 2 Austen after finishing Clarissa or Sir Charles Grandison; the air of fear and anxiety that permeates even Richardson's comedies is re placed by an atmosphere of what seems to be reassuring normality. Yet a growing body of evidence suggests that Richardson's view of the sexual relationships of his time is not as perverse as it is often assumed to be. Eighteenth-century authors of conduct books and present day social historians agree that women did have much to fear from the aggressiveness and arrogance of men. Richardson's emphasis on women's vulnerability to violence and coercion is not misplaced, although the form it took in his novels - the famous scenes of abduction and rape - is heightened and exaggerated. Ab duction and rape were real problems, but the greatest danger by far was the violence done to women's minds and wills by restrictive definitions of femininity and callous men. Richardson documented this kind of violence too, but tried in his comedies to reconcile it with the patriarchal order of his society. The letters of Jane Austen show a woman who took a conventional view of marriage and sexual roles. Like Richardson, she holds out the hope that an exceptional and lucky woman may marry the man she loves, but believes that most marriages are and should be made on the basis of liking and respect. Parental approval is necessary, as are considerations of rank and wealth, and differ ences in temperament or taste are much less significant. She has little sympathy for women who are unhappily married; like Sir Char les Grandison's mother, a woman should create her own happiness 3 and not burden her husband or friends with her disappointments. From her letters it is clear that Jane Austen did not substantially disagree with Richardson's assessment of how women should live in their society, and the Austen family tradition that, as a reader, she admired Richardson above all other novelists makes sense. He wrote about women as they were in the society she knew, and she re spected the truth of his observations. As an artist, though, Jane Austen had a more ambivalent attitude to Richardson. Her own novels stress women's possibilities rather than their limitations, and depict societies which, if unfairly prejudiced against women, present no insurmountable obstacles to the intelligent woman. Her heroines are free of tyrannical fathers and encroaching suitors, and enjoy both fine minds and the opportu nity to exercise them. Yet one novel, written after she had published Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, is different. In Mansfield Park she turns back to Richardson and acknowledges her debt to him while criticizing his belief that women can flourish in the patriarch al society that he describes. The nove I is partly a trib ute to and partly a parody of Sir Charles Grandison, and copies the situation, characters, and relationships of Richardson's work but withholds his acceptance of the contradictions that govern women's lives. Like Richardson, Austen contrives a happy ending for her no v e I ; h owev e r, s h e m a k e s h e r di st as t e fo r t h e a rt ifi c i a I re so I u ti o n plain. Mansfield Park is a perplexing hybrid of a novel, but it is an - - - - ------- 4 invaluable guide to Austen's attitude to Richardson and to her novel istic technique. "Sir Charles Grandison" is a failed parody, a weak effort that is too insignificant to carry the weight of her reaction to Richardson's achievement. Mansfield Park, however, demonstrates that Jane Austen's so-called limitations and her characteristic mode of irony are wrapped up in her response to Richardson. In order to write comedies about the hearts and minds of women she had to avoid emphasizing the restrictive, frightening conditions that Richardson describes so well: the fathers, husbands, and brothers who demand obedience; the suitors who are deceitful and aggressive; the contradictory expectations that reduce women to passive i m mo bility. If it is a relief to turn to Jane Austen after Samuel Richardson it is because her novels are free of paradoxical situ ations that cannot be resolved. Her novels are about women and, in fact, there are few men in them and little interest in male concerns such as war, business, or politics. Finally, her heroines have few restrictions. Fathers are either too silly or too alienated to inter fere with their daughters' lives, while the few brothers that appear are absorbed in problems of their own. A heroine may have one problem to contend with - usually a lack of money - but every hero ine is blessed with intelligence and self-confidence, and her finan cial situation is not dire enough to threaten her with the prospect of becoming a governess or paid companion. In all but one of her nov els, Jane Austen sanitizes her society so that her work can cele brate women's potential; she repudiates Richardson's emphasis on ----- - - 5 fear and Ii mitation in order to achieve her goals.

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