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Full Screen View THE TYRANNY OF PASSIVE-AGGRESSION IN JANE AUSTEN'S NOVELS by Claudia J. Lockhart A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The Schmidt College of Arts and Humanities in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, Florida April 1993 THE TYRANNY OF PASSIVE-AGGRESSION IN JANE AUSTEN'S NOVELS by Claudia J. Lockhart This thesis was prepared under the direction of the candidate's thesis advisor, Dr. William Coyle, Department of English and Comparative Literature. It was submitted to the faculty of The Schmidt College of Arts and Humanities and was accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE: Dean, The Schmidt College of Arts and Humanities •L~•-r•... K--...._.--. , - '<L- () "' )1~,--&--cA_---- /v ~r 19/J Dean of Graduate Studies Date ll ABSTRACT Author: Claudia J. Lockhart Title: The Tyranny of Passive-Aggression in Jane Austen's Novels Institution: Florida Atlantic University Thesis Advisor: Dr. William Coyle Degree: Master of Arts Year: 1993 Passive-aggression is an insidious form of tyranny that uses hypochondria and other tactics to manipulate. Presumably with her mother in mind, Jane Austen frequently portrays the passive-aggressive character and ridicules hypochondria, as in the satirical Sanditon. Mr. Woodhouse and Mrs. Churchill are life-denying parental figures in Emma, who use illness and hypochondria to manipulate their children, much like Mansfield Park's Lady Bertram, who uses hypochondria and social withdrawal to control her family. In Persuasion Mary Musgrove, a young copy of Lady Bertram, uses hypochondria and hysteria to manipulate, and Mrs. Clay passively ingratiates herself with the Elliot family in an attempt to become the next Lady Elliot. Through her novels Jane Austen shows the effects of this damaging, despotic behavior. lll Table of Contents Abstract . lll Introduction . 1 Chapter One: Mr. Woodhouse 5 Chapter Two: Lady Bertram 22 Chapter Three: Mary Musgrove 31 Chapter Four: Mrs. Churchill 39 Chapter Five: Mrs. Clay 44 Chapter Six: Illness and Hypochondria - Sanditon 47 Conclusion 51 Bibliography 59 lV Introduction Passive-aggression is the tyranny of the weak and powerless who subtly manipulate their victims with tears, reproaches, hypochondria, social withdrawal, depression, and anxiety. In addition, the passive-aggressive personality lS characterized by a resistance to life's normal demands, creating a childishly manipulative dependency, coupled with stubbornness, convenient forgetfulness, and deliberate inefficiency. These individuals may be so socially withdrawn and self-absorbed that there is an almost total absence of intimacy or real affection, although they project an overwhelming need for the affection of others (Goulet 140-43). The reasons for passive-aggression are many and complex. Taught from an early age to be nice, one quickly learns that it is not nice to be overly aggressive or hostile. While most people learn positive assertive skills, the passive- aggressive individual lacks these skills and resorts to an undercover aggression that is not easily identifiable. Passive-aggression allows one to attack and 1 defend and still be perceived as nice. This passive violence can be very damaging to the recipient (Cole 3-8). However, passive-aggression is an immature defense. When normal assertiveness is inhibited by neurotic guilt or fear of external retaliation, one regresses to a dependent position, and behavior becomes passive. In many cases the proper assertiveness skills exist, but anxiety prohibits their use. This nonassertive and compliant behavior in relationships hides the suppressed anger behind social phobias, panic disorders, and anxiety attacks, creating a general inadequacy to perform at a normal, mature level. Unable to relax enough to learn more adaptive coping behavior, the passive, dependent personality resorts to passive-aggressive tactics to manipulate others into coping for him or her (Perry 165-67). Passive-aggression and dependent personality are relatively recent clinical diagnoses, seen for the first time following World War II (Goulet 140). Jane Austen, however, was creating the passive-aggressive character nearly 150 years earlier. Without access to modern psychological teaching, she created textbook perfect characters, especially in Mr. Woodhouse and Mrs . Churchill of Emma, Lady Bertram of Mansfield Park, and Mary Musgrove 2 and Penelope Clay of Persuasion, while Sanditon is a biting satire on hypochondria and invalidism, one of the most common forms of passive-aggressive manipulation. Not all of Jane Austen's passive-aggressive characters are the same, but all exhibit some form of dependent and manipulative behavior common to this personality disorder that she examines from all angles. It can be no accident that most of these characters bear a strong resemblance to Jane Austen's mother. Mrs. Austen was an invalid who, in her later years, rarely left her sofa (Halperin 295). Jane Austen's exasperation with her mother's hypochondriacal ways is apparent in her letters, as in one to her niece Caroline where she says: "Your Grandmama is not quite well, she seldom gets through the 24 hours without some pain in her head" (Chapman, Letters 455). Even in her grief at her father's death she cannot resist a caustic comment on her mother's inability to cope. She writes to her brother Francis: "My mother is tolerably well; she bears up with great fortitude, but I fear her health must suffer under such a shock" (146). Further corroboration of Mrs. Austen's invalidism is given in James Austen-Leigh's account of the family move in 1771: "Mrs. Austen, who was not then in strong health, performed 3 the short journey on a feather-bed" (7). He also gives us a glimpse of her fondness for the sofa. When he arrives for a visit with Mrs. Austen, she tells him, "you find me just where you left me--on the sofa" ( 9) . It makes little difference whether Mrs. Austen's illness was real or imagined. Her invalidism created a dependency on her daughters while allowing her to shirk her responsibility to them. This dependency obviously preoccupied Jane Austen when she created such life-denying parental figures as Mr. Woodhouse, Lady Bertram, and Mrs. Churchill. While these fictional characters are exaggerated, they must surely reflect Jane Austen's feelings for her mother, and at the same time provide a safe outlet for the anger and frustration caused by living with a passive tyrant. As Emma tells Mr. Knightley: "Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may ben (146). 4 Chapter One: Mr. Woodhouse Mr. Woodhouse is a victim of his own insecurities and fears, suffering from hypochondria, excess anxiety, social withdrawal, and depression. His anxiety frequently borders on hysteria, and he uses his invalidism to maintain a tyrannical hold on Hartfield and to a lesser degree, Highbury (White 233). Superficially he is seen as a kind­ hearted, polite old man; however, he is really a selfish hypochondriac. In his own words, "invalids . are privileged people" (57). Mr. Woodhouse is an extreme example of social withdrawal only slightly less lethargic than Lady Bertram of Mansfield Park. He happily exists in a closed world where life has no variety, complexity, or zest. It is a world where his valetudinarian wishes are forever acceded to because denial of even the most trivial of them provokes a bout of hypochondria or anxiety. At Hartfield Mr. Woodhouse has achieved a womb-like insulation against the external world, so that each excursion into even so small a society as Highbury causes him to feel severe anxiety and 5 nervousness as he ventures into what he perceives as an alien environment (Duffy, "Emma" 42). He claims to adore his daughter, yet he "could not be induced to get so far as London, even for poor Isabella's sake" (91). Donwell Abbey, home of his good friend Mr. Knightley, borders Hartfield, but "he had not been at Donwell Abbey for two years" (356) Therefore, it is not surprising that he will not travel the sixteen miles to London. By his own admission, he lived "out of the world" (252) and "never went beyond the shrubbery" (26). This avoidant or phobic personality causes Mr. Woodhouse to be extremely sensitive to any potential rejection, humiliation, or shame, and to become devastated by the slightest suggestion of criticism or disapproval (Simons 775). The passive-aggressive personality meets confrontation and criticism with a slightly condescending attitude of hurt dismay at what they consider an unjust accusation. There is also a tendency to misinterpret the remarks of others, seeing censure where it does not exist, as when Mr. Woodhouse responds to Mr. Knightley's teasing remarks to Emma, "I am afraid I am sometimes very fanciful and troublesome" (10) (777). Although he 1s fanciful and troublesome, at this particular moment he is not the subject 6 of discussion. His self-esteem is easily damaged, and despite his desire for affection and acceptance, he has withdrawn from society and close personal relationships. Mr. Woodhouse is selfishly altruistic in his concern for his coachman and his "poor horses" (8). He uses this concern to cover the fact that "his horror of late hours and large dinner-parties made him unfit for any acquaintance, but such as would visit him on his own terms" (20). Mr. Woodhouse, "having been a valetudinarian all his life" (7), with his "habits of gentle selfishness" and his complete inability to "suppose that other people could feel differently from himself" (8) perceives a world that consists almost entirely of threats to his own health and happiness. It is a confined and somewhat suffocating world in which appetites are too easily satisfied by basins of "nice smooth gruel" (105). It has almost nothing in common with the real world, but it is a version that is tolerated, and those, like John Knightley, who are too sharply critical of it are apt to sound merely churlish (Williams 117-18).
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