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Self-Knowledge and Sincerity in

Northanger Abbey, Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park

Mackenzie Gilmore

At the end of Mansfield Park, Edmund Bertram—an aspiring clergyman and a man of religious faith—states that “the most valuable knowledge…[is] the knowledge of ourselves and of our duty” (473). Theorists Kenneth L. Moler and Lionel Trilling both argue that the search for self-knowledge—particularly in the evolving social landscape of Austen’s time—is a theme through which Austen’s novels can be understood. Moreover, Austen’s theme of self-knowledge is connected to her Christian beliefs, revolving around a morality reminiscent of the Bible verse,

“how blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit!” (Psalm 32:2) This is particularly the case in Northanger Abbey, Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park, where the heroines—as is typical of the bildungsroman—develop towards greater self-knowledge. This self-knowledge is aided by the mentor-mentee relationship between the heroines (Catherine, Fanny, and Elizabeth) and their respective love interests: Henry,

Edmund, and Mr. Darcy (who either enact or symbolically represent the Christian values).

Inherently associated with self-knowledge is the Christian value of sincerity both with oneself and with others; Lionel Trilling, in Sincerity and Authenticity, provides a historical and semantic interrogation of the eponymous traits, grounding them in the context of Austen’s novels.

Catherine, Fanny, and Elizabeth are all sincere characters, and a reoccurring motif in Austen’s novels is to reward characters that make sacrifices in the present for the sake of sincerity. In both

Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park, sincerity is the crux of a successful romance and is foregrounded in moments of rejected marriage proposals. While Austen’s heroines pursue self- knowledge in a distinctly Christian, sincere fashion, they are contrasted by various foil characters 27 in the novels who, to their own ultimate detriment, disavow sincerity and whose self-knowledge is impeded by their reliance on materialist, class-based superficiality (reinforcing the moralism present in Austen’s novels).

While Catherine, Fanny, and Elizabeth all begin as immature or incomplete characters, their actions, though often naïve, strive towards self-knowledge, aided by the direct and indirect mentorship of their love interests. Lionel Trilling describes self-knowledge as a theme that pervades Austen’s work in his essay Emma, where he states, “Jane Austen is the first truly modern novelist of England” because of her awareness of the “psychological burden of the individual” and the “need to make private judgments of reality” (56).

The modern onus on the individual to make private judgments about reality is foregrounded in Northanger Abbey, with the sincere-but-naïve Catherine. Catherine’s mentor and romantic partner, Henry, encourages the development of self-knowledge by teaching her to judge the social landscape. His mentorship is represented metaphorically in his lesson on the picturesque at Beechen Cliff, where his didactic explanation “of foregrounds, distances, and second distances – side-screens and perspectives – lights and shades” (107) addresses the nuances of sociality. Another analogy Henry makes regarding sociality is between dancing and marriage, stating “fidelity and complaisance are the principle duties of both; and those men who do not choose to dance or marry themselves, have no business with the partners or wives of their neighbors” (74). Henry also admonishes her application of Gothic tropes onto reality through parody and confrontation, culminating in his reproach of her assumptions regarding his father, stating, “Dear Miss Morland, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained.

What have you been judging from?” (186) While Henry is criticizing Catherine’s misapprehension of reality, he is also acknowledging her incongruence—or insincerity—in light 28 of her personal and repressed judgment regarding his father. Ultimately, through acknowledgement of her misapprehension, he corrects the Janus-faced nature of her private and public beliefs. Henry’s benevolent role as a mentor is further signified by his vocation as a parson. Similarly, Catherine’s moral purity and malleability is signified by her status as a parson’s daughter. At the novel’s beginning, Catherine’s purity—characterized by the narrator as

“a look of wondering ignorance” (111)—manifests itself in naiveté, assuming everyone’s intentions are as sincere as her own, which is particularly troublesome with the duplicitous

Isabella. Ultimately, Henry teaches Catherine to judge with nuance, concluding with her recognition that people possess an “unequal mixture of good and bad” (188).

This same dynamic is echoed in Mansfield Park where the passive Fanny is mentored by her cousin, and parson-in-training, Edmund. While Fanny is excessively meek, she is far less naïve than Catherine and her conservative, moralistic values are both in her nature and aided by

Edmund (as is also the case with her relatively astute judgments of other’s character). Edmund’s own sincerity presumably allowed the trait to flourish to a greater extent in Fanny under his mentorship, as is evident when Edmund discusses his pastoral vocation as his “duty to teach and recommend [conduct],” which Fanny sincerely agrees with in “gentle earnestness” (96).

In Pride and Prejudice, the mentor-mentee relation—relative to the other two novels—is a horizontal rather than top-down dynamic, with self-knowledge coming as a result of the dialectical tension between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. Elizabeth, a far more active protagonist, begins as a staunch individualist who possesses a hubristic sense of her ability to judge the social landscape, but over the course of the novel, she develops towards relinquishing her prejudice towards Mr. Darcy’s shy and arrogant comportment. While Mr. Darcy is not as symbolically representative of Christianity as the parsons Henry and Edmund are, his distinctly Christian traits 29 starkly contrast with the superficiality of the novel’s inept parson, and Elizabeth’s other suitor,

Mr. Collins. This contrast demonstrates that sincerity rather than title makes someone a worthy

Christian mentor. Even Wickham, who attempts to manipulate Elizabeth’s opinion of Darcy, concedes that he is “liberal-minded, just, sincere, rational, honorable, and perhaps agreeable”

(73) – an exhaustive list of traits that characterize, or at least gesture to, Darcy’s embodiment of the Christian ideal.

While self-knowledge is developed by these mentor relationships, it is the characters’ respective sincerity or insincerity that determines their ultimate fate. In Lionel Trilling's Sincerity and Authenticity, he differentiates the two titular terms historically and semantically. He defines sincerity as the “congruence between avowal and actual feeling” (2), using Polonius’ line from

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet — “this above all: to thine own self be true and it doth follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man” (3)—as a literary example. Trilling distinguishes authenticity—being true to oneself—as having historically usurped sincerity as the predominant value, arguing that sincerity is interpersonal whereas authenticity is individualistic

(sincerity being more apt for analyzing Austen’s texts because they navigate interpersonal relations and societal roles) (11-12). The paramount status of sincerity, in both Mansfield Park and Pride and Prejudice, is foregrounded at the crux of their romantic plots, in moments of rejected proposals, and as a topic of profound meditation—or moment of grace—for their respective heroines. While sincerity is a foregrounded theme in Northanger Abbey, it is made most conspicuous through insincere characters like John and Isabella Thorpe.

Gary Kelly in “Religion and Politics” asserts that Austen’s active protagonists tend to be affected by “grace” (seemingly divine, spontaneous self-realization) in a moment of humility and realization (163). Elizabeth’s moment of grace occurs when she re-reads Mr. Darcy’s letter, 30 bemoaning, “I, who have prided myself on my discernment...till this moment I never knew myself” (185) – an admission of excessive pride and deficiency of self-knowledge. Upon this realization, Elizabeth properly discerns the sincerity and goodwill behind Mr. Darcy’s previously infuriating letter, stating, “Mr. Darcy’s explanation there had appeared very insufficient…[but] widely different was the effect of a second perusal” (185). This personal revelation equates the reading of a letter to the reading of people, suggesting that unjust presuppositions—particularly those founded on a lack of self-knowledge—influence interpretation. Mr. Darcy epitomizes how sincerity is a virtue rewarded in Austen’s novels. For example, despite emphasizing Elizabeth’s

“inferiority” because of “family obstacles which judgment had always opposed to inclination”

(168) (a harsh yet honest truth) it is this brutal honesty that differentiates him from Wickham’s falsities, and serves as the crux for his eventual relationship with Elizabeth. Therefore, what

Darcy lacks in decorum, he compensates for by way of sincerity.

Sincerity also becomes focalized when Elizabeth must reject Mr. Collins’ marriage proposal despite the high-degree of material gain it promises and social pressure to accept it. The language Elizabeth uses when rejecting Mr. Collins’ proposal echoes Trilling’s definition of sincerity, when she emphatically asserts herself as “a rational creature, speaking the truth from her heart” (98). Her disinclination to marry Mr. Collins contrasts her close friend, Charlotte

Lucas, who, subsequent to Elizabeth’s rejection, insincerely obliges Mr. Collins’ offer (solely for the sake of her ascension in the social hierarchy). Edward Copeland in his essay “Money” argues that one of Austen’s pervasive tropes is “Charlotte Lucas syndrome” (141): the dreaded predicament of a single woman without money. Therefore, worries that Elizabeth’s rejection will leave her a moneyless spinster are valid, and further emphasize her sincerity. 31

As a general rule, the characters in Mansfield Park have their fate determined by the degree to which they are sincere. Fanny’s sincerity is tested by her secret infatuation with her cousin Edmund, whose marriage to Mary Crawford appears inevitable. She meditates on rectifying this contradiction, suggesting she “endeavor to be rational” via “a sound intellect and an honest heart” (271), but this attempt to rationalize is proven futile – any attempt to reorient proves insincere. Much like Elizabeth’s realization, Fanny’s inability to deceive herself is a subtle example of grace, playing out in the narrative like a case of divine intervention, which propitiously leaves her available to Edmund. Furthermore, the importance of sincerity to

Mansfield Park’s romances is two-fold: Mary Crawford’s insincerity dissolves her relationship with Edmund and Fanny’s sincerity ensures that she declines Henry Crawford’s marriage proposal (doing so on the basis of his impropriety). While Edmund is connected to the role of pastor, Henry is symbolically represented by his role as actor – a signification of his duplicitousness. When Mary speaks to Edmund about Henry’s affair with Maria, rather than criticize the behavior, she laments their discovery. Her approval of insincerity is irrevocable, dissolving her highly probable marriage with Edmund. Meanwhile, Fanny rejects Henry’s proposal because, as she says with “the earnestness of sincerity,” they are “unfitted for each other by nature, education, and habit” (336) – an uncanny echo of Elizabeth declining Mr.

Collins’ offer. This rejection is met with astonishment and displeasure from her patriarchal uncle, but as is the case in Austen novels, Fanny is handsomely rewarded for her sacrifice; the momentary pain yields a far greater reward when Henry’s impropriety reaches Sir Bertram’s awareness and, as a corollary, he holds her in higher esteem.

While Mary and Henry are both shown to be insincere, they are also examples of the contagious and magnetizing quality of sincerity in Austen’s novels. When Mary begins her 32 romantic interest in Edmund, she describes “his sincerity, his steadiness, his integrity” (67) -

Christian values that, like Fanny, attract her to him. These three values can be considered distinctively Christian values in the context of Mansfield Park because Henry vocationally strives to be a clergyman, as previously mentioned. The same is also the case for Henry’s attraction to Fanny, which Mary suggests would have “fixed him” (469). Therefore, despite

Henry and Mary Crawford’s eventual moral corruption, each is respectively attracted to Fanny and Edmund precisely because of their moral purity, and this inclination, though rather fleeting, briefly draws them in the direction of lives of relative salvation.

While Austen’s heroines and their love interests exude Christian values of sincerity, truth, and self-knowledge, they are juxtaposed with foil characters that are superficial, materialistic, and reminiscent of the Bible verse, “there is nothing reliable in what they say; their inward part is destruction itself; their throat is an open grave; they flatter with their tongue” (Psalm 5:9). There are numerous characters that meet these criteria: in Northanger Abbey, there is Isabella and John

Thorpe, the patriarchal General Tilney, and Mrs. Allen; in Pride and Prejudice, there is George

Wickham, Mr. Collins, and Lady Catherine de Bourgh; and in Mansfield Park, there is Mrs.

Norris and Mary Crawford. Each novel has a foil that starkly contrasts sincerity—Isabella

Thorpe, George Wickham, and Mary Crawford—and each one aids in asserting Austen’s

Christian morality: the primacy of self-knowledge – both by exemplifying its antithesis and tempting the heroine away from sincerity. Mary Crawford, as stated in Lionel Trilling’s

Opposing Self, is the antithesis of Fanny Price. Instead of being allied to sincerity, she is allied with its opposite: deception. Mary’s charismatic duplicitousness, her criticism of Edmund’s vocation as a parson, her attempt at tempting Fanny into marrying her brother, and her overall levity towards religious morality gives her a satanic quality (Hernandez). George Wickham, who 33 is described as “honored with the title of seduction” (260), is like Mary Crawford a satanic character, who charismatically tempts Elizabeth, while also frivolously spending money, seducing women with the intention of exploiting them for their fortune, et cetera. George

Wickham—like the serpent in the Garden of Eden—leads to both Elizabeth’s fall from moral ignorance as well as to her heightened capacity to discern between the good and the evil.

Similarly, Isabella Thorpe’s manipulation contrasts with Catherine’s moral purity, one example being her seduction of Captain Tilney while being engaged to James Moreland. This leads Henry to sarcastically mock Catherine who fails to recognize Isabella’s deception, teasing, “I understand: she is in love with James, and flirts with Frederick” (143). In all three cases these characters are punished for their insincerity by the book’s end.

The other more tertiary insincere characters are often associated with an ostentatious, façade-like taste in architecture, decoration, and gardening, among other things, as Austen critic

Josephine Ross suggests in The Beauty of the Place. In this sense, many of these characters have their superficiality signified by material goods, phony gestures of charity, or an uncultivated taste for the arts. John Thorpe, for example, incessantly hyperbolizes about the speed of his horses, the quality of his carriage, and in general, “his conversation…beg[ins] and end[s] with himself and his own concerns” (64). Furthermore, he also reveals he “never read[s] novel[s]” (47), an illustration of his philistinism, lack of self-knowledge, and inability to make social judgments – starkly contrasting Austen’s heroines who are readers. Another example is Mrs. Norris, who acts behind a façade of charity, urging Sir Thomas to adopt Fanny while the narrator observes it to be

“impossible for her to aim at more than the credit of projecting and arranging so expensive a charity…in the happy belief of being the most liberal-minded sister and aunt in the world” (9).

Moreover, Mrs. Norris is not just superficially benevolent, she is directly malevolent, exploiting 34 and bullying Fanny. In Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Collins is an example of this superficiality, putting a far greater premium on his connection with Lady Catherine de Bourgh than his role as a parson. In this sense, Austen’s novels establish a tension between two opposing modes of being: striving for Christian values of honesty and self-knowledge versus remaining ignorant to oneself, behaving manipulatively, and sacrificing sincerity for social clout.

In this sense, Austen’s novels have a certain degree of moral seriousness that is, in many ways, obscure to a modern, secular sensibility. While many of the aforementioned observations would likely seem plainly obvious to a reader steeped in the Christian values of the early 19th century, they are worth underscoring from a 21st-century perspective. Her heroines are beacons of sincerity and strive for self-knowledge both independently and through the mentorship of their masculine love interests. The value of sincerity is the determining factor in romantic relationships, and characters’ sincere behavior is something they are handsomely rewarded for in all three novels; in contrast, the insincere foil characters are punished for their misgivings.

Ultimately, the emphasis on sincerity gives Austen’s novels a distinctly religious and moralizing aura.

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Bibliography

Austen, Jane. Mansfield Park. Knopf Publishing Group, 2006.

———. Northanger Abbey. Edited by Marilyn Butler and Coralie Bickford-Smith, Penguin

Classics, 2011.

———. Pride and Prejudice. Edited by James Kinsley, Oxford University Press, 1990.

Copeland, Edward. “Money.” The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen, edited by Edward

Copeland and Juliet McMaster, Cambridge University Press, 2014, pp. 131–149.

Hernandez, Alex. “Mansfield Becomes Home.” Austen & Her Contemporaries: ENG323H . 16

Nov. 2017, Toronto, University of Toronto.

Kelly, Gary. “Religion and Politics.” The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen, edited by

Edward Copeland and Juliet McMaster, Cambridge University Press, 2014, pp. 149–170.

Trilling, Lionel. “Emma.” Encounter, June. 1957, pp. 49-59.

———. Sincerity and Authenticity. Harvard University Press, 1997.