There are dark sides to characters, but only Wickham has one; and these debts and elopements don’t really have the same power as mass drowning fiascos (Return of the Native) or penitentiary excursions to Australia (Great Expectations). Both elder sisters marry the only people the author made it realistic to, but I suppose Elizabeth could have married Wickham (‘she could think of nothing but Mr. Wickham’ in Volume one).
The characters are mind-numbingly one-dimensional compared to those of today’s sophisticated dramas (House, for example), excluding Mr Darcy, who undergoes an inversion (‘your reproofs had been attended to’) after Elizabeth pitilessly rejects him (‘you could not have made me the offer of your hand in any way that would have tempted me to accept it’). Jane is shy, pleasant, and (inevitably) handsome – to the point of implausibility and irritation (after discovering a disloyalty to the charitable wishes expressed in a dead father’s will: ‘nothing therefore remained to be done but to think well of them both’). Lydia is the teenage daughter who runs off with a soldier – ‘what a good joke it will be! I can hardly write for laughing’ (need more be said?) Mr. Collins, a pompous vicar: ‘Mrs. Collins and myself sincerely sympathize with you, and all your respectable family [my italics]’ – a typical insinuation by the snob. Mr. Bennet, a badly done Homer Simpson (a sarcastic and guy-ish family man; but not funny): ‘for God’s sake say no more of his partners. Oh that he had sprained his ankle in the first dance’.
Either Jane Austen completely underestimated the intellect of her audience in inventing the characters (not too complicated for the reader to remember and empathize with), she was not aware of the simplicity of her creation, or she purposefully wrote a light and easy-going drama for the temperament of the era. Personally I think it was a combination of the three: she sought to formulate a restrained and straightforward story and wasn’t aware how patronizing it was.
Little empathy can be summoned towards these people: fairly privileged families whose only worries seem to concern money (‘how great you will be! What pin money…’). The more they have, the higher status they are given by the other characters, and, more of an irritation, the author – the richest man, Mr. Darcy, is tall, ‘uncommonly handsome,’ has a beautiful house, ends up happily married, richer, and extra affable thanks to his persona alteration. We can find some satisfaction when his aunt is defied; but only as a result of Darcy’s contentment. The attitudes of the period account for much of this, notably the use of ‘condescending’ as a positive attribute. Seen in a different light though, Darcy’s instant self-enhancement could subsist as a reminder that seemingly perfect ‘gentlemen’ still have things to improve on before they can be suitable partners (Jane’s primary refusal supports this) and the rebellion against Lady Catherine diminishes the dominance of wealthy characters in the account.
It is a truth universally acknowledged by myself that early novels contain pretentious and flowery language (Dickens’s ‘partake to relate’, in Great Expectations a perfect example) but it is scarcely noticeable in good Victorian books; it is in this one. (My irrational exasperation stems from the unvarying employment of the word ‘vexed’ or ‘vexation’ instead of the plethora of synonyms available). It is a feat indeed then, when Austen writes a letter from Mr. Collins and intends it to be satirically ostentatious (‘to be lamented’, ‘licentiousness of behaviour’, ‘augmented’).
Writers of this age ‘prided themselves with extravagant usage of punctuation: in the crafting of elaborate sentences’ (‘mine’s longer than yours’’); now [2007], the comma suffices – over-punctuated sentences tiresome to readers & difficult to understand.
The structure of the book gives a predictability which is cringe-inducing after it’s finished: early on in the first volume there are balls where the Netherfield and Longbourn parties are introduced to each other; Jane and Elizabeth both find partners whose meetings on the dance-floor are related in detail, and it is these affiliations which end in marriage at the book’s conclusion. Austen may have been striving to produce an irony in Elizabeth’s first meeting with Darcy – her rudeness towards him contrasting with the deep affection experienced later on – but Darcy’s partiality is so obvious by his repeated hand-offerings; and his remarks at first (‘not handsome enough to tempt me’), compared with Elizabeth’s overdone disaffection (‘I quite detest the man’) rather blatantly reveal this. (My italics again, but you can just assume she said it like that – conceitedly).
The consequence of this work in the overall scheme of things is questionable, but as a widely renowned classic it must have made some impact into the literary world. It has some events to mildly shock the social attitudes of its day; the pre-marital elopement of Lydia and Wickham would have been viewed in rather disdainful light; but so much scorn is given to this by the characters in this book (‘the death of your daughter would have been a blessing in comparison to this’ – is written to the family by a distant relative they don’t really like and not thought of as at all ‘impertinent’) that no radical feelings are aroused. The work does, however, make an observation consistent with most of the feeling at the time: by fashioning a union based on passion and not mutual respect an unsuccessful one. Philosophically, the book doesn’t venture very deeply at all, unless the former placid arguments count.
What a study of the text reveals is how sexist it seems to the modern reader – an aspect virtually ignored until the 1900s; the main attractions of the genders are money and appearance respectively, with a condescending contemplation of ‘accomplishedness’ added to the female features (‘a woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing and the modern language to deserve the word; and beside all this…’): personality doesn’t seem to feature at first. But the scenario with Darcy and his two proposals counters this philosophy, and makes an extremely discreet statement.
Alternatively
There must be something that makes the novel a universally acknowledged classic. Here are some of the ways Jane Austen attempts to quell boredom…
In contemplating this, it must be taken in mind that social attitudes were at a peak of mildness and placidity in the Victorian period (table legs = table unmentionables); much less was required to imply passion to the reader (this rather paradoxically – Victorians must have needed much dirtier minds). In the complete book I don’t think there is one romantic physical gesture cited; even the language goes little further than expressing how cheerful the speaker is (‘I was utterly delighted’); but when Austen does want to construct specific atmospheres she demonstrates a range of artistic techniques to achieve this: inside the first chapter of the third volume there is a scene possessing an excitement foreign to the rest of the book. Austen introduces Darcy back into the story without any real preceding apprehension: ‘while the former was conjecturing as to the date of the building, the owner of it suddenly came forward from the road, which led behind it to the stables’. This remark is so subtle that it takes a few seconds to contemplate what has actually happened – in that respect we share exactly the feelings that Elizabeth must be experiencing. Various dialogues in the preceding volume give the impression that there is no danger of Darcy’s materializing; and the consistent tepidity of the novel assure us that Austen wouldn’t stoop so low as to fabricate a coincidence like this that when it does happen it seems ingenious.
There are some attractive and imaginative narrative techniques inside the book which momentarily quench the monotony, and when I read the fourth chapter of the third volume, I have to confess that I was intrigued. The chapter is narrated on the behalf of a character other than the main focus of the story (Elizabeth), in the standard form of a letter. But interestingly, there are two correspondences making up the chapter, one composed a day after the other; which is a rational way to break up the continuity of the story – and thus generate some much required tension. The form of the novel – three separate volumes – could have several motives: printing restraints, a desire to make more money, writer’s block (more time to keep the publishers happy)* or genuine artistic consideration. Indeed, the events fit pretty tidily into three sections, with cliff-hangers at the end of the preceding two (will they stay in London…oh, they will; what will happen when they get to Mr. Darcy’s house…they’ll...they’ll meet Mr. Darcy). The book has a standard relationships-problems-weddings structure.
Jane Austen’s choice of language is pretty limited to the rigid and self-important vocabulary necessitated by the presence of upper-class Victorian females (vexed, delighted, utterly…); she employs this to great effect though, probably owing to her own circumstances. Aside from the abovementioned portentous dispatch there are some instances of words employed for a specific effect: Darcy’s letter in chapter twelve of the second volume is a good example – Austen writing on behalf of an apologetic and mildly arrogant rejectee. Darcy pleads her ‘justice’ in perusing his countenance, and he offends her out of ‘necessity’. The previous example especially is both humble and superior: he only insults her because he is forced to; nevertheless he is taking a liberty by considering a necessity to affront. (I resisted an urge here to cross reference Jane Austen with Catherine Tate. It’s obvious who the real genius is…) Patterns of words are exploited throughout; recurrently the phrase structure of the adverb ‘most’ followed by an adjective in creating speech for the fairer sex: ‘most displeased’, ‘most agitated’, etc. The effect achieved is much the same as the abovementioned – an upper-class verbalization.
The spectrum of emotional effects throughout the whole book is small. From the depiction of mild anticipatory discomfort to the fairly strong sense of awkwardness portrayed in Elizabeth’s meetings with Darcy subsequent to the receiving of the explanatory letter, there is no contrast harsh enough for us to relate in any significant way to the character’s happiness at the end of the story.
In conclusion, despite my judgment of this book as an uneventful, upper-class, pretentious, boring novel so distant from today’s morals as to be almost surreal; which only approaches the mildly amusing in the half-hearted humour directed at the un-funny comments by Mr. Bennet above; I can go as far to say that when compared with the two greatest writers of her era, Austen has a comfortable top-three placement.
