Reshaping the Sexes in Sense & Sensibility

by Moreland Perkins
The University Press of Virginia, 1998

Elinor Dashwood: is she Jane Austen’s most successful fictional attempt to reconstruct clearly defined gender roles? Does she emerge as one of literature’s great intellectuals, both politically astute and community minded?

This fascinating text takes as its central thesis the view that Austen reshapes the socially constructed and patriarchal dominant gender stereotypes of her time in Sense and Sensibility. Elinor emerges as a unique literary character, superior to any other Austen heroine. For some readers, this argument may give pause and require some critical reflection. It certainly provokes a re-reading of the novel.

Perkins argues - if not always convincingly - that in the opening phase of Jane Austen’s authorial life she ‘most aggressively undertakes to reconstruct dominant concepts of gender.’ (p.5)

In Austen’s creation of Elinor Dashwood, Perkins believes she rendered not only an intellectual without literary equal but that she also imbued Elinor with much of her own character. Perkins asserts that Elinor is the closest invention in moral sensibility to her creator. He describes each as

an intellectual: to wit, unrelenting, dispassionate, analytical inquiry into the causes, contents, contexts and outcomes of individual persons’ conduct and experience, all conceived as ineluctably social; and the habit of taking pleasure in the pure play of ideas over her subject matter. (p.13)

Above all, the critical point is that this character is female in a world dominated by men. Intellect is not the sole preserve of the male!

Elinor Dashwood demonstrates the ability to analyse with depth and dispassion the complex issues of personality and societal expectations. She is able to re-evaluate, to think lucidly and to exercise considerable mental control. Her will is shown to be governed by a sensitive conscience and the ability to perceive the good in most circumstances. Perkins makes the analogy that Elinor reveals ‘statesperson-like’ aspects and behaves as a ‘politician’. He examines the foundation of her conduct, speculating as to its origins. He considers the devoutly Christian perspective, the ethical and moral rules by which Elinor appears to operate, and examines finally - with some conviction - the secular notion of general civility and community-mindedness that he ascribes to her. Perkins states, ‘I have interpreted her plan of general civility as motivated by the passion natural to her communitarian vocation, which resembles that of a dedicated public servant.’ (p.153) Even in this, Elinor is depicted against the prescribed gender role of her time: the worlds of politics and economics were largely closed to women. In her social function Elinor is most conscious of her commitments to those around her and appears to behave outside her conventionally defined gender role.

Even allowing for these many admirable qualities, Elinor is not presented as a mere idealisation. She suffers and feels loss. While her intellectual faculties are certainly superior, her emotional life is significant and resonates through her thoughts. Perkins explores this point:

There remains unresolved a certain conflict between the realism to which Austen is committed in this novel and the sense readers may have that, despite all the work we may do at grasping Elinor’s motivation, she still comes through to us at moments as something of an idealisation. (p.169)

He argues that Austen allows Elinor to be believable through the use of dramatic irony and a comic context. The incident he cites as evidence for this view is Colonel Brandon’s discussion with Elinor and his request that she conveys his offer of the living of Delaford to Edward Ferrars. Of course, this action would allow Edward to marry Lucy Steele and at the same time, ironically, contribute to Elinor’s personal unhappiness. The comic misreading of this scene arises from Mrs Jennings, who overhears only selected parts of the conversation and immediately believes Colonel Brandon has proposed to Elinor. Austen’s artistic economy and her perceptive understanding of human nature makes Elinor’s world much more realistic and her situation far less ideal.

Edward Ferrars, readers would generally agree, is not a handsome Mr Darcy, a gentlemanly George Knightley or a dashing Captain Wentworth! Edward is reticent, inhibited and not an aggressive masculine suitor. In characterisation and aspiration he is more consonant with the female gender. He fails to enforce his patriarchal power as an elder son, he is disinterested in wealth and social pre-eminence, he is self-deprecating and desires no more than a happy domestic life. Perkins identifies these qualities as a reconstruction of Edward’s gender. Yet, what makes Edward an interesting character is that he is presented and accepted as an appropriate love match for the extraordinary Elinor.

Not only do Edward and Elinor break their respective stereotypes, Perkins also subjects Marianne’s passionate feelings and affectionate public demonstrations towards Willoughby to a similar analysis. She, too, he argues, rejects the conventionally prescribed genteel and unequal courtship rituals. He presents an interesting case for perceiving Marianne’s non-conformist tendencies as being wish fulfilment or representative of the hidden inner desires of her creator. What becomes problematic in such a reading is Marianne’s acceptance of Colonel Brandon’s offer of marriage.

This is a scholarly and well-researched argument. Perkins’ direct engagement with the reader sustains our interest in his views. He provides considerable reference to other academic viewpoints and uses a wealth of examples to support his strongly made and clearly developed case. At times, the points may be strained a little. Of course, this will depend on the reader’s own appreciation and reading of Sense and Sensibility but this text entices us into a fascinating reconsideration of Austen’s portrayal of the nature of men and women and their socially approved gender roles.

The book is well presented, attractively bound and printed in clear type on good quality paper. While there is no bibliography, a considerable amount of bibliographical material is found in the end-notes.

Kerry-Ann O'Sullivan

Jane Austen

by Deirdre Le Faye
British Library series Writers’ Lives

The Sydney Morning Herald’s Column 8 published some years ago an item calculated to chill the heart of any reader of Sensibilities:

Let us not criticise the young for ignorance of Jane Austen. Janet Lyell, of Waitara, was queueing in the city for Sense & Sensibility when a woman of similarly mature years asked ‘Do you think this will be a nice film?’ Janet replied: ‘If you like Jane Austen you’ll like it.’ ‘Oh, I haven’t seen her in anything else,’ was the reply.

In the face of such ignorance, one cannot have too many books, videos or radio programmes that tell the world who Jane Austen was, when and where she lived, and what it was she did that has made her a household name in our own day. Readers have always been tempted to identify the author with some of her heroines; especially Elizabeth Bennet (for the younger Jane), and Anne Elliot (for the more mature). But now, it seems, the cinematic and TV versions of her stories have so confused newcomers to her work that they can hardly tell Jane Austen from Jennifer Ehle, or Elinor Dashwood from Emma Thompson. This is surely a sad state of affairs! Jane Austen herself was, as her readers know, a mistress – perhaps the mistress – of ironic double-speak; what a reflection on our times it is that the simpler the language in which facts about her life are now conveyed, the better. Her novels needed no illustrations for the readers of her day: her words revealed all they needed to know. Yet the more colourful the pictures that can be found to accompany contemporary biographies of this writer, the more likely will they be to achieve some impact.

‘That was a wonderful movie! I must read the book! And I wonder what the author was like?’ It is evident, from the numerous new editions of Austen’s novels that have appeared in recent years, and the ceaseless supply of illustrated books about Jane Austen which have accompanied them, that publishers have been quick to seize the opportunities flowing from the popularity of the films. And on the whole, they have done well by Jane Austen, an author whose life did not, at least on the surface, have anything to interest the sensation-seeker. Not noted for gadding about the world or living it up in London in the manner of Byron or Shelley, Jane Austen’s life was a quiet one, practically without incident. The age in which she lived was, however, both colourful and rumbustious, and although she probably never met a Regency rake in her life (and certainly disapproved of the Prince Regent when she met him), a good deal can be achieved by setting the author in the context of her times.

A good example of this branch of the genre of illustrated author biography is Maggie Lane’s Jane Austen’s World: The Life and Times of England’s Most Popular Author, which Carlton Books published in 1996. Lane’s book is lavish in its use of stills from the films (including the ‘reviled’ 1940 film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice), and draws additionally on a multitude of paintings, prints, drawings and engravings of the period.

Deirdre Le Faye, on the other hand, writes this biography of Austen as if the films made from the author’s books did not exist. Her study aims to present Jane Austen as a writer of novels (as distinct from a writer of screen plays!) and every word and picture in her text relates to those circumstances of her life and personality from which the novels can be perceived to spring. Resembling Lane’s book in being richly illustrated from prints, paintings and drawings of the period (some pictures and portraits occur in both books, but that was inevitable, and probably unavoidable), Jane Austen also draws on some well-chosen photographs of our own times. Le Faye’s account of Jane Austen’s life does not undertake analysis or literary criticism, concentrating instead on placing the author precisely where first-hand memories can illuminate her character: in the heart of her family.

From the first comments made about Jane Austen (by her father, the Revd George Austen, writing the day after her birth) to the memoirs and recollections which were printed following her death, we see Jane Austen as she was seen by her contemporaries. Every member of the family and the small circle of close friends who together made up her first ‘reading public’, comes to life in this book in text and pictures. Le Faye scrupulously avoids the temptation to identify any of these persons with one or another character in the Austen novels, and as a result of this restraint has given us as complete and accurate a picture as anyone could hope to have of the circumstances of a life: Jane Austen’s life, not the life of a creature of her authorial imagination. Warmly recommended.

Yasmine Gooneratne

A Jane Austen Encyclopedia

by Paul Poplawski
Greenwood Press Connecticut 1998

In the Preface the author indicates that the book has two central aims: ‘to present the known facts about Jane Austen’s life and works in as uncluttered and straightforward a manner as possible’ and to make ‘a worthwhile addition to what is, admittedly, already a fairly crowded market’. To do this he organises his material into three separate but interdependent parts that deal with the chronological contexts, an encyclopedia of Jane Austen’s life and works and finally a set of bibliographies.

The first part, although mainly a list of dates and facts, as befits a chronology, is quite readable and actually includes three different chronologies. In the first, the Chronology of Jane Austen’s Life and Works, we find such snippets as:

1770: It starts to become clear that George Austen (now about 4) is mentally disabled. He is sent like all the Austen children to be nursed by a local family after being weaned, but unlike them never returned to become a regular member of the Austen family.

1787: Jane Austen aged 11 begins her literary writing and her total literary earnings were somewhere in excess of £1625.

Although I am aware it would date, it would still have been useful to have had some indication here of what is the modern day equivalence to this amount. One final example:

1821: 283 copies of Northanger Abbey/Persuasion were remaindered.

Imagine picking that one up at your local 19th century garage sale! Next is an Historical Chronology 1750-1820. Jane Austen did not write in ignorance of her political or social context, as some earlier critics would have it, and this section details that context. The Literary Chronology 1749-1820, outlines ‘the literary and intellectual context of Jane Austen’s life and work’, listing the major works and authors of this period, with particular attention to those known to have been read by Jane Austen. Part One also includes a map, a genealogical chart and various illustrations of items such as clothing and carriages.

Part Two, which is the Encyclopedia of Jane Austen’s Life and Works, is the main body of the volume, beginning with ‘Abbots, the two’ (Harriet Smith’s fellow pupils at Mrs Goddard’s school) and ending with ‘Younge, Mrs’ (former companion to Georgiana Darcy and present associate of Wickham). The stated aim is to provide

a comprehensive guide to the works of Jane Austen, concentrating principally on the plots and characters of her novels, including short essays on their main themes and on the critical reception of Austen’s work since the early 19th century...there are separate entries for every character in all the major novels and nearly all the minor and unfinished novels...[these are written]...with a view to extending or deepening the reader’s understanding both of the nature of the parent novel and the character’s role and position in it.

The character entries are predominantly descriptive and self-explanatory. However, the author is somewhat ungenerous toward Charles Bingley, who is mentioned as being persuaded by his sisters and Mr Darcy that Jane is ‘not good enough for him’. That was certainly part of their argument, but surely it was Darcy’s representation that Jane did not love him which was more instrumental in persuading him to leave Netherfield (p 85).

The inclusion in this section of those referred to by characters in the novels, ‘people’ who are often footnoted in some, but by no means all, editions, such as 'Miss Larolles, ‘the inimitable Miss Larolles’ or ‘without emulating the feelings of an Emma towards her Henry’ (both from Persuasion), would improve the work; this would also add to our understanding of, in this case, Anne’s feelings and thoughts.

The biographical entries are succinct and interesting. These will be of special value when reading a biography, with so many people of similar names, such as Mary and Martha Lloyd, let alone all the various Austens and their spouses and children. Entries on each major and minor work are summaries rather than critiques, while the entries on ‘Criticism’ and ‘Themes and Concerns’ are detailed, yet short enough, to offer the reader an ‘overview of the dominant themes of the novels and Austen’s critical reputation and thus provide a starting point for further reading and research’. Themes and concerns are subdivided under Marriage, Morals, Manners and Money.

Part Three is a series of Bibliographies. It covers (1) Jane Austen’s own writings, (2) a bibliography of critical books that includes ‘every work, published up to 1996, devoted solely or largely to Jane Austen...designed to indicate the development of Austen studies over two centuries’ and (3) a selective bibliography of critical essays and articles including key 19th century essays and reviews, and 20th century studies selected mainly from the past two decades. All sorts of books, pamphlets and essays are listed to whet your appetite. For example, do you want to know about Sibling Love and Incest in Jane Austen's Fiction? – look no further than Glenda A Hudson’s 1992 book of that name. Or try ‘On Reading Trash’ by Lillian Robinson in her Sex, Class & Culture, 1986, which discusses Jane Austen in relation to the Regency romances of Georgette Heyer.

The book is clearly set out, well researched and comprehensive within the parameters set for it. A useful reference work, it would be a worthy addition to any library, though it is expensive at US$78. At the conclusion of the preface Paul Poplawski (Senior Lecturer in English at Trinity College Camarthen in Wales where he specialises in Jane Austen, Modernism and Post-Colonial literatures) states his hope that it will prove conducive to new ways of looking at Jane Austen and to point the way to new ideas for research into her life and works. ‘I hope somebody cares for these minutiae’ writes Jane to Cassandra and 186 years later, there are many of us who obviously do.

Amanda Jones

Chawton: Jane Austen’s Village

by Rupert Willoughby, 1998

The best feature of this booklet of 36 pages is that it sets Jane Austen in a living landscape. It provides us with differing types of information that bring the village of Chawton to life.

While introducing us to the physical features of Chawton, the author reveals something of the nature of the village. We learn that the ‘parish of Chawton had had a long aversion to pubs’ and that the traffic on the new road to Winchester was ‘at its busiest in Jane Austen’s day’. It was a living, thriving village with ‘nearly a thousand years of ... recorded history’ beginning with the Doomsday Book.

Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of village life. Chapter One deals with the ‘arteries of communication’ through the parish and places Jane Austen’s home by its location within that system. We learn all about the varying roads and the ‘Pilgrim’s Way’. Chapter Two, by focusing on the Great House, highlights the role played by both the ‘lords of the manor’ and the village organisation. A fascinating history of Chawton House is opened to us, right up to 1919 when its influence came to an end. In Chapter Three the focus is on the royal involvement. The appearances of the various kings in the parish and their actions to enforce the ‘Law of the Forest’ and all that that meant for the parish is recounted. We learn of the dangers that surrounded the village at different times in Chapter Four. There were the highway-men who lurked along the Pass of Alton and the thieves who skulked in Chawton Park Wood. Then there was Sir Adam de Gurdon, ‘a prototype of Robin Hood’. The record of the attempt of successive kings to curb this criminal activity is very interesting.

The last chapter, which is the second half of the booklet, is taken up with describing the various significant buildings in the village. Entitled ‘A Remarkably Pretty Village’, this chapter is really for the ‘locals’ or for those who know the Chawton environs very well. A great number of facts are presented in a very short space. Many buildings in the village are mentioned and a potted history given of each one. This tends to make the chapter a little more difficult to read. The easy style of the previous chapters is lost in the detail of buildings with which many readers would be unfamiliar.

Having visited Chawton, I recognise much of what Willoughby writes about. Having read Chawton: Jane Austen’s Village I know that there is much more to see next time.

Dennis Nutt

The Jane Austen Quiz Book

by Helen Barton

This little self-published quiz book by English Austen enthusiast Helen Barton is only the second Austen quiz or puzzle book I have ever encountered. The other, Maggie Lane’s The Jane Austen Quiz & Puzzle Book, was published quite some time ago in 1982. This is a very simple little book, divided into sections based on the individual novels or themes, eg Love and Marriage, Jane Austen’s Life. I must confess I didn’t find it very taxing. Some typical questions (and there were much easier ones) are:

• Three heroines have first names beginning with the letter E. Name as many as you can.
• Name the character who is an orphan and who has been living with the Campbell family.
• Name the person Mr Collins marries in Pride & Prejudice.
• At the end of Persuasion the Musgrove sisters are both engaged to be married, but to whom? Match up the right names.
  (a) Henrietta
  (i) Captain Benwick
  (b) Louisa
  (ii) Charles Hayter

Maggie Lane’s earlier book offered a greater variety of puzzles, including crosswords and find-a-word type puzzles and name games. Lane’s questions were also much more challenging.

This wee book is an inexpensive diversion for members seeking a bit of fun, without intellectual strain. It may also well be a good introduction for quiz-minded non-member friends! The answers are printed in the back of the book (making it slightly harder to cheat).

The Jane Austen Quiz Book is available to JASA members though our Regency Fair stall, and mail-order for $15.

Meghan Hayward
JASA members will recall that it is Meghan who produces the very clever – even fiendish – quizzes we enjoy on country weekends and other JA days.

Lackington Allen & Co, booksellers, Finsbury Square, was 'one of the curiosities of the metropolis ... on account of the vast extent of its premises, and of the immense stock of books'.

From Ackermann, R: The Repository of arts. literature, commerce, manufactures, fashion and politics (1809 - 28).

FEEDBACK: info@jasa.net.au

22 June 1999

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