Dear Folks,

I want to discuss Jane Austen's treatment of gender wars. Our Lady takes a neutral position in this stupid struggle of the sexes; Jane Austen lived above it, the war was beneath her - not even worth her contempt. That is not to say that Jane Austen ignores the use of gender stereotypes by so many (say, the stereotypes that dominate American media offerings at present - all politically correct and all anti-male). But when our Lady allows a character to use stereotypes, they are portrayed for what they are - poor thinking.

Jane Austen was near death when she revived long enough to rewrite the ending to Persuasion. That ending contains one of the best examples of what I am trying to describe. Anne Elliot and Captain Harville are in a conversation which will, eventually, lead to the denouement of the entire novel. It is important for what I have to say, that you remember that Anne and Captain Harville are affectionate friends (later, Jane Austen's brother, Admiral Francis Austen, would claim that Captain Harville was modeled after himself). This conversation is, in fact, a gender war - a wanton use of stereotypes and over-generalizations. Anne appears to win the contest, but the novel is ended by showing her position to be wrong, at least in the case of Captain Wentworth. In other words, these contests are inevitable but meaningless. I will reproduce a good part of the debate for you. First of all, notice that this kind of debate can be - at least in Jane Austen's vision - sweetly civilized as well as lively. Harville's sister, Fanny, is recently deceased and the man she was to marry, has become engaged again. Harville begins

"... Poor Fanny! she would not have forgotten him so soon!"

"No," replied Anne, in a low feeling voice, "that, I can easily believe."

"It was not in her nature. She doated on him."

"It would not be the nature of any woman who truly loved."

Captain Harville smiled as much to say, "Do you claim that for your sex?" and she answered the question, smiling also, "Yes. We certainly do not forget you, so soon as you forget us. It is perhaps our fate rather than our merit. We cannot help ourselves. We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us. You are forced on exertion. You always have a profession, pursuits, business of some sort or other, to take you back into the world immediately, and continual occupation and change soon weakens impressions."

"... it does not apply to Benwick. He has not been forced upon any exertion ... ."

"True," said Anne, "very true; I did not recollect; but what shall we say, Captain Harville? If the change not be from outward circumstances, it must be from within; it must be nature, man's nature, which has done the business for Captain Benwick."

"No, no, it is not man's nature. I will not allow it to be more man's nature than woman's to be inconstant and forget those they do love or have loved. I believe the reverse. ... as our bodies are the strongest, so are our feelings; capable of bearing the most rough usage, and riding out the heaviest weather."

"Your feelings may be the strongest," replied Anne, "but the same spirit of analogy will authorize me to assert that ours are the most tender. Man is more robust than woman, but he is not longer lived; which exactly explains my view of their attachments. Nay, it would be too hard upon you, if it were otherwise. ... You are always labouring and toiling, exposed to every risk and hardship. Your home, country, friends, all quitted. Neither time, nor health, nor life, to be called your own. It would be too hard indeed" (with a faltering voice) "if a woman's feelings were to be added to all this."

"We shall never agree on this question. ... No man and woman would, probably. But let me observe that all histories are against you, all stories, prose and verse. ... I do not think that I ever opened a book in my life which has not had something to say on woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these are all written by men."

"... Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their story ... the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything. ... We can never expect to prove anything on this point. It is a difference of opinion which does not admit of a proof. We each begin with a little bias towards our own sex, and upon that bias build very circumstance in favour of it which has occurred within our own circle; many of which circumstances (perhaps those very cases which strike us the most) may be precisely such as cannot be brought forward without betraying a confidence or in some respect saying what should not be said. ... I hope that I do justice to all that is felt by you, and by those who resemble you. ... I should deserve utter contempt if I dared to suppose that true attachment and constancy were known only by woman. No, I believe you capable of everything good and great in your married lives. I believe you equal to every important exertion, and to every domestic forbearance, so long as - if I may be allowed the expression, so long as you have an object. I mean, while the woman you love lives, and lives for you. All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one, you need not covet it) is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone."

She could not immediately have uttered another sentence; her heart was too full, her breath was too much oppressed.

"You are a good soul," cried Captain Harville, putting his hand on her arm quite affectionately. "There is no quarrelling with you ... ."

Indeed, Anne is the best of souls and, soon, Jane Austen arranged that Anne would be proven wrong much to Anne's pleasure. Our Lady's own creator would not be so generous; for, soon after that, Jane Austen's life would end.

To All,

Since Cheryl asked me to elucidate my reading Mansfield Park as Fanny's search for the security of a family home, I'm only too glad to comply. It seems to me that Austen was explicit in emphasizing this theme.  Here are some examples:
1) When the Crawfords arrive at Mrs. Grant's house, Mrs. Grant thinks them frivolous in their attitude toward marriage.  "You are as bad as your brother, Mary  but we will cure you both. Mansfield shall cure you both - without any taking in. Stay with us and we will cure you."  Here the battle is explicitly defined: will Mansfield change the Crawfords, or the Crawfords change Mansfield?
2) Lovers Vows is dangerous because it brings unknown "outsiders" to Mansfield.  The residents argue about who will be least objectionable.  But the objections to the play based on modesty and propriety are symbolized by the horrible "alterations" to Mansfield.  They are actually (shudder) building a theater.  This is where the Crawfords come close to "changing" Mansfield instead of being changed by it.
3) The expedition to Sotherton is about the desire to "improve" the place - a concept which, if reapplied to Mansfield, would make Fanny shudder with horror.  "Nothing was fixed on - but Henry Crawford was full of projects and ideas."  That's the problem with Henry - too many ideas - too much desire to "improve" things.  Next thing you know, he'll want to overhaul Fanny.

Mansfield is also contrasted to Fanny's parents' home in Portsmouth - a loud, cold, dingy place, lacking the warmth, light, and peace of Mansfield.  London and Portsmouth represent the sinful world of men.  Mansfield is the world of nature - where young men are revered for being ordained, not mocked.

In the Portsmouth scene, Austen uses the weather, setting of the Price household, and contrast of light and dark to set the mood.  Mansfield Park (being in the country) represents a sort of bucolic Eden.  The Crawfords (having lived in London) represent the almost Satanic effect of city life.  Portsmouth (another city) is repeatedly contrasted to Mansfield, in order to establish Fanny's almost religious longing for this Paradise.

The Price's Portsmouth home is cold and dark, contrasted with Mansfield which is light and (despite being frigid hitherto) is warmed on Fanny's last day when Sir Thomas orders a fire for Fanny's room.  In Portsmouth, "In walked Mr. Price.... (who called out for a candle  no candle was brought.... Fanny, with doubting feelings... sank down again on finding herself undistinguished in the dusk."

Of course even sunshine palls in the city, as Austen makes explicit:
" ...the sun's rays falling strongly into the parlour, instead of cheering, made her still more melancholy  for sun-shine appeared to her a totally different thing in a town and in the country. Here, its power was only a glare, a stifling, sickly glare.....  There was neither health nor gaiety in sun-shine in a town..."

When Henry visits Fanny, and they walk out by the sea, they reach a point half-way between God's bucolic nature, and the unnatural, stifling influences of the town.  Mr. Price's loud voice is softened by the natural setting.  The day is lovely, and, like the daily English weather report, filled with "bright intervals."  The weather represents Fanny's relationship with Crawford, as it reaches its high point.  And Crawford turns to the subject dearest to Fanny's heart:
"(The conversation) turned to Mansfield. He could not have chosen better  that was a topic to bring back her attention and her looks almost instantly. It was a real indulgence to her to hear or to speak of Mansfield..."

He had a great attachment to Mansfield himself  he said so  he looked forward with the hope of spending much, very much, of his time there  always there, or in the neighbourhood."
What's this?  Is Henry Crawford (like Darth Vadar) ready to turn from the dark side, and reach out for Eden?

But no.  MP is no fairy tail. Fanny's ride to Mansfield with Edmund, where nature glows, and "farther beauty is known to be at hand" reads like a return to the Garden, or the ascension of Eurydice.  She doesn't look back.

Dear Bruce,

Bruce: you make Mansfield Park sound almost like a novel about free will.  Did JA attempt, in her small way, to justify God's way to man?  Fanny's meeting with Henry Crawford in Portsmouth is the heart of the novel, as is her refusal to advise on the best course of action. Had Fanny done her Christian duty and given Henry the advice he wanted and needed, their fates would have been different.  I choose to be believe that Henry was salvageable even in his sister wasn't and that Fanny would have benefited from the marriage as well.

If the concept of cousins or (quasi) siblings breeding is distasteful, what about two clones such as Fanny and Edmund?  Prudishness, sanctimony, condescension, and bigotry doubled and redoubled.  To paraphrase the movie: "That's not love, that's playing with oneself."

I'm having trouble coming up with any of JA's heroines, excepting Catherine Morland, who actually like the city. Anne Elliot actively dislikes Bath, Emma apparently seldom visits London, close as it is.  Marianne at least claims to prefer the country while Elinor (as usual) has no opinion at all.  The Gardiners invite Elizabeth to tour the lake country, but not to stay with them in London.  I'm sensing a pattern here.

I myself leaving for that Sodom-on-the-Pacific, San Francisco, early Sunday morning where I shall eat lots of Chinese food, haunt the local bookstores searching for obscure tomes of forgotten lore, and do lots of nerdy things in general.  I hope everyone has an excellent week.
Cheryl

Dear Cheryl,

I always understood it to be quite a nice place .... though I hate cities myself.

Fanny voiced some of your thoughts regarding Mr Crawford herself, when she, unhappy herself in Portsmouth, and worried about Susan's future, muses on a possible marriage to Henry, imagining him entering 'most kindly' into a scheme to provide Susan with a civilised home.  What she was doing, I feel, is imagining how life might have been had things been different, which they weren't.  I'm not too sure about Henry - I don't know how he would have taken to having his life being made subject to Fanny's constant fears, strictures and moral qualms - how he would have coped even with having to go to church each Sunday with his wife!  Once the thrill of the chase were over, I rather think he would have become bored, and Fanny would have found herself spending a lot of time alone at Everingham.

Jane Austen herself is supposed to have been voicing something of her own views on Bath, through the voice of Anne Elliot   she wrote of leaving it (or was it Portsmouth?  I can't remember) 'with what happy feelings of release!' after the family had been in lodgings there. She certainly seems to have been happiest in the country.  Mansfield Park is often seen as a metaphor for the solid, established Tory values (country) at war with the new, licentious behaviour (city) of the fashionable world, especially that of the court of the Prince Regent.

Regarding Emma, she does not seem to go anywhere.  Mr Knightley and Mrs Weston are united in their concern for her isolation 'she goes so seldom from home!'  Emma states that she has never seen the sea   nor has she seen Box Hill, a local feature within a morning's drive from Hartfield. All this, of course, is courtesy of Mr Woodhouse.  If he thinks a dinner engagement ten minutes' drive from Hartfield is likely to kill them all, how would he cope with the idea of London?  And of course, Emma is very young.  Until the opening of the novel, the only possiblility of a trip to London would have been in the company of her sister's family, when they returned there from a Hartfield visit, with Miss Taylor minding Mr Woodhouse back home.  But how would she get back again?  Mr Woodhouse would have burst a gasket at the very thought. After Miss Taylor's marriage, any extended visit would be impossible, as Mr Woodhouse (the old toad) would have to be left alone.

Elizabeth and her sister Jane do often stay with their aunt and uncle in London. A trip to the Lakes would have been more of a novelty, as evinced by Elizabeth's wish to take Jane (who had recently spent some weeks in London with the Gardiners) with them.

As for the Dashwood girls - well, in that novel everybody seems to spend so much time catering to Marianne's whims, it is difficult to decide what they might think of anything else!
Julie

Dear Laurie,

I have actually thought about it. Mansfield Park was the catalyst. You see, I have come to regard MP as a departure in Miss Austen's oeuvre. It is, to my instinct, most definitely a Nineteenth Century Novel, anticipating in its embryonic social consciousness the sprawling contributions of Mr. Boz. Fanny's punitive exile to her parents' squalid abode (though only comparitive squalor  in real terms they are well above the truly wretched) is genuinely shocking to the reader who, like Fanny, has come to take certain social niceties for granted. It is an ice water plunge, compliments of Jane.

Furthermore, the novel treats the question of vice and its consequence with a gritty maturity.  Maria Rushworth's transgression and its price lack the wild excess of an earlier century. They are matter-of-fact, believable, and common as dirt. The reader feels them the more deeply, squirms more sincerely. Had Maria been cast into a volcano one might shrug or sigh. She might even have died of a well-deserved fever. It happens. But the prospect of Aunt Norris, forever, made my flesh crawl.

The other novels never quite take me there, not that I need to be taken there too often. I don't think MP is even my favorite (I never CAN get over P&P). The situations Miss Austen paints in her other novels approach what I am referring to. She can simultaneously make us despise a character and feel that character's pain (I am thinking of Miss Bingley). She wrote not so much about individuals in society as about the INDIVIDUAL navigating society--a concept that I tie to the dix-neuvieme. It is there in all of her work, but only in Manfield Park does it burst into full bloom. Individual Fanny, by her devotion to principle, navigates to a happy conclusion. Individual Maria, by her carelessness, sinks herself. Never is the dichotomy more pronounced (right way/wrong way) than in MP.

From the Meister: What an excellent, excellent
posting! Thank you so very much.

Dear Laurie,

I have read a number of novels from both centuries, but that doesn't really qualify me to place Austen in either of them stylistically.  I once had a prof. that said that Austen was a bridge between the centuries.  I rather like that image, but I haven't really given much thought as to how appropriate it is.  This prof. said the same thing about Scott.  Anyway, this whole century thing is rather arbitrary.  Somebody somewhere told us when each begins and ends, but there must be a better way of classifying writers - if we must.  And we are human, aren't we? So a-classifying we go.  Place me in with the group who says that Austen writes in the Austen style. She's as fine an example as any.

Dear Ray,

Don't change your persona - I'm just getting to know this one, and from what I've read, it's rather too much fun to abandon. If you must change, however, I say, if you must change, son, you can go a long way as Fog Horn Leghorn, my absolute favourite southern gentleman.

In spite of Ash's attempts to pad your itinerary, you seem to have a full schedule.  However, if, on your trip, you happen to stop at a place where the lawns have been in existence for at least four centuries and are laid out like a bolt of green velvet across a gentle slope, then, please roll down the hill, humming "Greensleeves" as you create some for yourself.

If the lawn is wet, or posted with "keep off" signs, you may forego the rolling, as my object is to create a moment, not pneumonia or a police record.  But in such an event, you must approach the first 75-year-old cyclist you see and encourage her to sing along.  (You may then wish to take that opportunity to let the air out of her "tyres" and speed ahead of her while she tries to hit the high notes).

Dear Heather,

Hey, I like your assignment to have a "moment" and I invite others to make similar assignments. Let me know what I can do that you would like to do as regards visiting the various sites and I will not only do it, but report on it (with photos). Now comes the bad news. Heather, I have already done exactly what you suggest. On one of my trips to England I rolled down a hill covered with four hundred-year-old grass laid out like a carpet. It was at Chatsworth House. I was walking up a steep slope from that fantastic, long flagstone waterfall headed towards some greenhouses. I lost my footing, fell down and began to roll down the hill. The only difference between your scenario and reality was that I was NOT singing Greensleeves.

The English, being English, completely ignored me as I rolled past. Americans (including my wife) on the other hand laughed and tried to catch it all on videotape, no doubt hoping to make a killing on America’s Funniest Home Videos.

Dear Ray,

Here's one for you.  Read a few of Jane's letters, and find a description of one of her local walks, and then see if you can do it yourself - I mean 'if' because the topography might now be different.  But it would be nice, wouldn't it?  You could even try walking it in pattens!

See if you can find a recipe for spruce beer, while you're about it.  I've never been able to find out what that might be.
Julie

Dear Julie,

I am looking foward to walking in the footsteps of our lady. It seems I spend more time planning trips than I do actually taking the trips, and I have been looking at maps for months now. The first walk I will take, the one from Alton to Chawton is one that she walked many times, My guess is that there is now traffic flying by at breakneck speeds (and on the wrong side of the road).

Here is Spruce Beer.

SPRUCE BEER

5 gallons of water
1/8 pound of hops
1/2 cup of dried, bruised ginger root
1 pound of the outer twigs of spruce fir
3 quarts of molasses
1/2 yeast cake dissolved in 1/2 cup of warm water or 1/2 cup
of liquid homemade yeast

In a large kettle combine the water, hops, ginger root and
spruce fir twigs. Boil together until all the hops sink to the
bottom of the kettle. Strain into a large crock and stir in the
molasses. After this has cooled add the yeast. Cover and leave
to set for 48 hours. Then bottle, cap and leave in a warm place
(70-75 degrees F) for 5 days. It will now be ready to drink.
Store upright in a cool place.

The only problem we would have making the stuff here is that we do not have a warm place that is cool enough. It never stays below 70 for five days in a row around here. Now as to drinking it, I'll pass.

Dear Ray,

I'm not very good at contemplative moments...but you could indulge yourself in an afternoon of county cricket and marvel that sportsmanship does still exist somewhere.  I don't suppose Mr. Darcy's descendants will invite you to fish so that's out.
Cheryl

Dear Ray,

Take a decent picture of our Lady's writing desk at Chawton. Make sure it is well lit and clear. I hope you will then allow me to use it to replace the one currently at the top of the references page. I will properly acknowledge you of course. A side view as well as a top view would be especially nice. If you are in the side view, that would be wonderful.

When you stand at the gravesite, think of the rest of us. Most of us will never stand in your place.

Drink the water at Bath. We expect you to complain - who wouldn't?

We want to see many photos of yourself - and English women.

Dear Ray and Cheryl,

Who the hell is Hazel Motes?
Julie

Dear Julie,

Hazel (or Haze) Motes is the central character in the Flannery O’Connor novel, Wise Blood. Motes is, to me, the most freighting of the southern gothic characters in that he is so totally unhinged from reality and yet is walking the streets among us. Her wears barbwire around his chest and keeps rocks and shards of glass in his shoes. His religious fervor is at the same time a high calling and complete blasphemy. Street preaching is his life and what he teaches is the "Church of truth without Jesus Christ Crucified". To compound the gothic tone of Motes, it seems that everyone else in the book is just as crazy as he is.

Needless to say those of us living here in Georgia (both the book and the author are set here) tell our northern friends that O’Connor was writing all that kind of stuff just so she could sell books to gullible Yankees. When there are no Yankees around we shudder because we see Haze on the street. I will say that we do not see him as much as we used to, probably because he is at home glued to the TV watching wrestling.

Anyway, Wise Blood is a good place to start if you want to understand exactly what southern gothic is.

My attempt to assume a persona has, so far, met with two suggestions., Hazel Motes and Foghorn Leghorn. What I was hoping for, I say what I was hoping for, was that someone would suggest something more along the lines of whether I should go as Ashley Wilkes or Rhett Butler?

From the Meister: Geeez - What's
wrong with going as a Bret Favre?

Dear Julie,

Hazel is the protagonist of that classic of Southern literature "Wise Blood" written by Flannery O'Connor, all around crazy lady from Milledgeville Georgia.  It details Hazel's adventures while trying to turn himself into an atheist.  I recommend all of her works very highly.  "Revelation", "A Good Man is Hard to Find", and "Good Country People" in particular. If you remember that her work is intended to be humorous, it may help, but as much as I enjoy her writing, it's not for everyone.

Dear Ashton,

I appear to be a minority of one in my belief that Elizabeth's dislike of Darcy at the beginning of their relationship is genuine. We shouldn't confuse what the mythos has become (immediate dislike hides and unspoken attraction) with JA's original intent.  After all, P&P and S&S are clearly against "first impressions" (even hidden as dislike) as a basis for love.

I like the point you make in your posting  "How It All Played Out" about Darcy blathering on, saying all the wrong things during his first proposal. (Doesn't it remind you of that great Heinlein line "My mouth was living a life of its own, wild and free.") It makes me like and understand him all the more.  One of the reasons he doesn't speak much among strangers is that he's not a man who normally trusts himself to speak on important matters without serious thought and rehearsal beforehand. His proposal shows how wise his normal course is.

It's also interesting to note that when Elizabeth meets Georgiana for the first time, Georgiana shares the exact same reputation and faults as her brother.  But Elizabeth now is willing to think the best, rather than the worst.

"Since her being at Lambton, she had heard that Miss Darcy was exceeding proud, but the observation of a very few minutes convinced her that she was only exceedingly shy.  She found it difficult to obtain even a word from her beyond a monosyllable."   Who does this remind us of?

And  "Georgiana's reception of them was very civil, but attended with all that embarrassment which, though proceeding from shyness and the fear of doing wrong, would easily give to those who felt themselves inferior the belief of her being proud and reserved."

With her embarrassing family in front of her, Elizabeth sees Mr. Darcy's shyness and interprets it as pride and reserve.  With her fashionable Aunt and Uncle along, she's free to see Georgiana's true feelings.

"The next variation which their visit afforded was produced by the entrance of servants with cold meat, cake, and a variety of all the finest fruits...but this did not take place till after many a significant look and smile from Mrs. Annesley to Miss Darcy had been given, to remind her of her post."

How differently Elizabeth would had interpreted these actions a few months before.  She would have been eager to take offense  to believe Miss Darcy simply wanted them to cut their visit short perhaps, or believe that the parade of servants was an ostentatious display calculated to impress or embarrass her.

To me this poses the question what exactly is it that opens Lizzie's heart?  I know the standard answers, but through the whole novel she acts as if she's too embarrased by the idea of falling in love to ever be caught at it.

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