Dear Meister and Julie,

Thank you for your thoughtful responses to some of the ideas I put forth. It certainly is an interesting line of discussion, and one which I think is central as regards Austen.

Allow me to respond to Meister by saying that first, I think the tendency is creeping in to interpret the works and the terms being discussed by twentieth century standards. I say this with regard to the terms "stereotype" and "romanticism". I agree with you whole-heartedly that the term "stereotype" is generally inapplicable to Austen’s works because, as I touched on in my first posting, "stereotype" suggests a character who could be anyone that falls within a basic set of parameters. For example, the "mean, crotchety police chief" that seems to be a requirement in every "buddy cop" film is a stereotype: he does not have to be Sam the police chief who is a curmudgeon because he suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome resulting from a friendly fire incident in Vietnam and a dysfunctional home life with an alcoholic wife, etc., etc. No, we don’t have to have reasons why, or any great depth of character. Why is he a police chief? Because he’s a curmudgeon. Why is he a curmudgeon? Because he is a police chief. No other information is given or required. Change the faces, change the name plates on the desk, have one chewing incessantly on a cigar butt, have one with sweat stains under his arm pits and drinking scotch on the rocks  they are still the same character. Marianne Dashwood, on the other hand, is not a one-dimensional stock romantic character, interchangeable with any other like character in literature. (Though I know of critics who argue that she is, and they make a compelling argument.) Clearly, as I know you agree, Austen’s characters are not stereotypes.

However, they are types. Now, I know this idea seems revolting to we who live in the age of the individual. But we simply cannot overestimate how much influence Samuel Johnson and neoclassicism had on eighteenth century English literature, including Jane Austen. To tell Jane Austen that her characters were "types" would have been a compliment in the highest degree, so why should it be difficult to imagine that she had that specifically in mind while writing?

Allow me to explain. Johnson, in his Preface to Shakespeare, lauds Shakespeare for writing characters that are of "general nature," but not stereotypical. Johnson argues, in a way, against stereotypes (although he wouldn’t have called them that), because extreme neoclassicists like Voltaire and Dennis censured Shakespeare for not making his kings "kingly" enough (i.e., they were capable of murder, drunkenness, and other vices decidedly less than "royal"): "Dennis is offended, that Menenius, a senator of Rome, should play the buffoon  and Voltaire perhaps thinks decency violated when the Danish Usurper is presented as a drunkard." (Talk about stereotypes). "But Shakespeare always makes nature predominant over accident  and if he preserves the essential character, is not very careful of distinctions superinduced and adventitious. His story requires Romans or kings, but he thinks only on men." This is all true of Austen as well: her story requires a woman of high social standing like Lady Catherine in P&P, but she thinks only on proud, conceited, irascible, stuffy old ladies. However, as human as Lady Catherine is, she is still a type. And this is a good thing.

I’ll explain further. Johnson also writes in his Preface : "It is proper to inquire, by what peculiarities of excellence Shakespeare has gained and kept the favour of his countrymen." (The same inquiry applies to Austen as well). He continues: "Nothing can please many, and please so long, but just representations of general nature. Particular manners, can be known to few, and therefore few only can judge how nearly they are copied. [That is Johnson’s argument against using highly individualized characters.  E.P.] ... Shakespeare is above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the poet of nature  the poet that holds up to his reader a faithful mirror of manners and of life. His characters are not modified by the customs of particular places, unpracticed by the rest of the world ... or by the accidents of transient fashions or temporary opinions: they are the genuine progeny of common humanity such as the world will always supply, and observations will always find. His persons act and speak by the influence of those general passions and principles by which all minds are agitated... In the writings of other poets a character is too often an individual  in those of Shakespeare it is commonly a species." This is Johnson’s way of explaining why, when we read about a character like Mr. Woodhouse in Emma, we exclaim, "Gee, I know someone just like that!" To Austen, he was a "species", and she knew people would have that reaction for that reason.

It is not important whether or not we agree with Johnson’s assertions here. What is important is that Austen did. She considered Johnson one of her masters. The scholar Reginald Ferrer concurs on this point when he writes, "Austen’s heroes and heroines and subject-matter are, in fact, universal human nature, and counterminious with it, though manifested only in one class, with that class’ superficial limitations, in habits and manner of life."

With regard to the notion that Jane Austen is a writer of romantic novels, first, I think we have to clarify our terminology. Is she a Romantic novelist? Certainly not. (This I can substantiate to the hilt if need be, but I hope that it is a premise generally understood.) Do her novels contain some romance? Certainly. But Charlotte Bronte herself wrote, "Her business is not half as much with the human heart as with the human eyes, mouth, hands, and feet... The passions are perfectly unknown to her  she rejects even a speaking acquaintance with that stormy sisterhood." Believe it or not, Bronte thinks Austen would take these criticisms as a compliment. I think Bronte may be a bit harsh on Austen, but her point is well-taken. When Mr. Elton makes "violent love" to Emma in the carriage, he holds her hand.

With regard to the antonyms of "sense" and "sensibility", you are absolutely right: "the mature person is, by definition, she that has brought these two aspects into concert." This, in effect, proves what Julie and I have been trying to say. If the novel begins with both Marianne and Elinor possessing a healthy balance of both sense and sensibility, what would be left to write about? The whole point of the novel is the maturation, the psychological journey, of two women. Marianne begins the novel with an excess of sensibility, while Elinor begins with an excess of sense. You wrote: "Marianne was not led to her mistakes by her reading or by a new intellectual movement, she was led to the brink by her sensibilities and by the arts of an expert seducer." What does Willoughby represent? He represents the dawning of the new age of Romanticism, (though no one had given it a title at the time)  he is a proto-Romantic. Austen was skeptical of this form of literature  indeed, her reasons lie in her neoclassical influences (also, see Maria Edgeworth). Willoughby represents what happens when one succumbs to the passions (the very same passions that writers like Wordsworth, Byron, and so on, were beginning to explore). Marianne is a warning to readers that, as Kahlil Gibran wrote, "passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction." She is only redeemed through the maturation of sense--a redemption, as you point out, which is kind on Austen’s part. Edgeworth’s Julia (from Letters of Julia and Caroline), a character who was, in some ways, a prototype for Austen’s Marianne, dies tragically for her mistakes.

Sir,

Oh dear, oh dear, another examination of the letters?  I wish people would give the poor woman some peace!  I would hate to have all my telephone conversations (of which Jane Austen's letters are a brilliant equivalent) held up to scrutiny.  My comment about censorship relates to some reading, the authorship of which I can't recall, in which I remember the comment that Jane Austen's letters compare poorly with those of other writers. The point being made was that other writers of her, and also of later, periods, wrote knowing full well that their letters would be collected and, hopefully, published. Jane Austen's letters were exclusively private documents, not meant to be 'handed down with the eclat of a proverb'.

Re: the famous dead baby incident: It is almost impossible for us, in our society, to realise how much of an everyday matter death was in Jane Austen's day. She actually made one even better comment, and she meant it for publication: 'The Musgroves had the misfortune of a very useless, unprofitable son, and had the good fortune to lose him before he was one-and-twenty'.  She goes on to state that he was very little missed or regretted, though quite as much as he deserved. I personally have no problem with that sentiment, and nor do many families, but these days it is not polite to say so!

Please keep the Child Welfare Department from my door!

Julie

Dear Kate and Ashton,

Well done, Kate!  Your position is supported by the text, and by Darcy himself:

'...What do I not owe to you!  You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous.  By you, I was properly humbled.  I came to you without a doubt of my reception.  you shewed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.

'Had you then persuaded yourself that I should?'

'Indeed I had.  What will you think of my vanity?  I believed you to be wishing, expecting my addresses.' Vol. 3, Ch 16.

Now, if that is what Darcy honestly says he thought, who are we to disbelieve him?  And more importantly, who are we to disbelieve the author?

Dear Julie and Kate,

I am going to assume that your last paragraph is a kind of intellectual hiccup. You are too intelligent to imagine that to disbelieve a character's statement is to disagree with the author. Your citation is well known by me and has already been brought to the attention of this bulletin board by others, and it does seem to bring my position into question. The answer is I simply don't believe Darcy. It would be too difficult--I wouldn't even try to convince any woman of that because the gender cherishes the possibility that Elizabeth surprised Darcy at the parish. There is a need for women readers to believe that in spite of the overwhelming evidence that Darcy cannot possibly mean what he says. BUT, I can do one thing--an insidious thing. I will remind you of one incident that occurs at about the same time in the novel, when Darcy obviously says something that cannot possibly be true. You will agree with me and that will not mean that you are so presumptuous as to disagree with Jane Austen. It WILL mean that both of you are on the way to getting in touch with your machismo--umm--actually--well, forget that.

I begin the set-up of this one by quoting from Darcy's letter to Elizabeth: "...- But there were other causes of repugnance;... these causes must be stated, though briefly...that total want of propriety so frequently, so almost uniformly betrayed by (your mother), by your younger sisters, and occasionally even by your father. ..." Much later, Darcy and Bingley returned to Longborn after Lydia's wedding when, you may remember, the mother's behavior was not much improved--on the contrary. Darcy must have noticed because Elizabeth made this observation at a dinner party "(Darcy) was on one side of her mother. (Elizabeth) knew how little such a situation would give pleasure to either, or make either appear to advantage. She was not near enough to hear any of their discourse; but she could see how seldom they spoke to each other, and how formal and cold was their manner when they did." And now we come to the quote that you must explain (I know how you can wheedle). It takes place a very short time later and during Darcy's second proposal; Elizabeth takes the initiative and thanks Darcy for his kind treatment of Lydia and she does that on behalf of all her family. Darcy replies "...But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe I thought only of you." I don't know why Jane Austen became slightly convoluted at this point in the novel; perhaps she wanted Darcy to only say things that Elizabeth wanted to hear whether they were true or not. I certainly think it more likely that Darcy had a newly found respect for her family than that he hopped and skipped along to the parish at Hunsford oblivious to Elizabeth's true feelings.

Incidentally, who do I have to be so that I may be allowed not to believe one of Darcy's statements?

Dear Meister,

You say that you have trouble believing that Darcy means what he says when he confesses his embarrassment for taking for granted Elizabeth's acceptance of his proposal at Hunsford. I have been wrong on a multitude of occasions and this may be another, but I have to say that if you could convince me of the merits of your argument I would have to make a sudden downwards assessment of Darcy's character. Do you want that on your conscience? If ever two people honored and valued honesty, it must be these. They have each suffered from the directness and unrelenting integrity of the other and emerged from the ordeal thankful for the self-knowledge and understanding which result. For Darcy to dissemble at this point when such fastidious soul-baring is going on seems completely out of character and at odds with the mood of the scene. Nor do I believe that he is necessarily dishonest when he professes "respect" for Lizzy's family. I have always supposed that he means to include Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner whom he already admires and will come to "really love". He must also by this stage have formed a higher opinion of Jane through a better understanding of her feelings for Bingley. Perhaps too his judgement of what is "propriety" has been tempered somewhat by a more conscious appraisal of the actions of some of his own nearest and dearest. Who do you have to be to disbelieve Darcy, you ask. In this case I think you have to be the bold but desperate defender of a hopeless position!

Sincere regards

From the Meister: I am only guessing, but I imagine that Darcy told Elizabeth that she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Would you call that insincere? I would not because I think of Darcy as euphoric and otherwise not guilty by reason of insanity. I also imagine he told her that she had not at all treated him with prejudice (you call her prejudiced behavior "unrelenting integrity"). If so, would you accuse him of "dissembling" in that instance as well? I would not because I believe that this was a time when Darcy was putting into practice a good principle that Elizabeth made quite explicit to her sister: "In cases such as these, a good memory is unpardonable!". Nothing I say can possibly lower your estimate of Darcy--he can't fall off your floor. Your interpretation of his first proposal makes him seem a stupid fool. Your interpretation is entirely correct if applied to Mr. Collins's proposal, perhaps you prefer to think of all men in this way.

Dear All "expert" JA readers,

I recently read the book Sense and Sensibility.  I enjoyed it but have run into a problem.  I don't know the answer to the essay question.  Here it is: Although literary critics have tended to praise the unique in literary characterization, many authors have employed the stereotyped character successfully.  In a well-written essay, show how the conventional or stereotyped character or characters function to achieve Austen's purpose.  Of course, I picked the book that does not have Cliff's Notes.  I have a feeling the answer has to do with how Marianne plays the role of sensibility.  I am not sure though.  Please anyone who can help me, please do.  School starts soon!

Thanks,
C.S.H.

Every arithmetic problem has a single, correct answer. (Well- except "what is one divided by zero?" does not have an answer in the conventional sense.) Algebra problems might have multiple sets of correct answers; for example, "find x and y such that x+y = 2". English essay questions always have a multitude of equally correct answers. It is just a matter of finding an answer that you are comfortable with and that you can most easily justify. If you think that Marianne is the answer, then go with it and produce a well-written essay to back-up your choice. Remember, the point is to write a well-written essay, and not to discover some unique answer that is known by every intelligent person except yourself.

Just between you and me, I don't believe the premise of the question. I don't believe that Jane Austen ever used "stereotyped characters". That is not just my opinion: Look at this opinion of E.M. Forster or at this one of Sir Walter Scott. These are men of great literary stature and they completely contradict the premise of the essay question. I will not tell you how I would write that essay because I will do nothing that will get you into the same trouble I made for myself in school.

Dear C.S.H.,

What a horrible essay question you have been given!  But I would suggest that the authors of the question are drawing your attention to a technique that Jane Austen used herself, and most obviously in Sense and Sensibility and Northanger Abbey. In both of these works, she identifies a hackneyed form in popular literature, draws a character or two along those lines, and then proceeds to tear the genre to pieces.  S&S is a satire on excessive romanticism, and Northanger Abbey combines a satire on the same topic with an overlay of satire on the Gothic Romance.  If you really want to appear clever in your answer, do a quick read of some of her juvenilia, where she does the same thing.  I'm not going to tell you which bits to look up, because they aren't going to give me the grade, but it won't take you long to find what I mean.

I disagree with the Meister here, because I dislike S&S: my only impulse is to slap Marianne Dashwood's face and tell her to bloody well grow up - but then, I'm just another convict.  I feel that Marianne would have irritated the author as well.  She is using her, I feel, to illustrate a 'fashion' of excessive feeling, and to show how incompatible it is with life in the real world.  Ms. Dashwood is essentially an attention-seeking young woman.

Does this help?
Julie

Dear C.S.H.,

Allow me to respectfully disagree with the Meister, and elaborate a bit (for what it's worth) on Julie's thoughtful comments on Romanticism in Jane Austen, and more importantly to your essay question, the notion of "stereotyped" characters in Sense & Sensibility.

I don't think the question is as terrible as Julie believes it is, though I think the term "stereotype" is inappropriate because it suggests that Austen’s characters are little more than "stock" characters, and that they are too general to be believable individuals. Most readers would agree that this is certainly not the case. However, the essay question does address an issue in Austen that is important and rather near and dear to my heart. Samuel Johnson once wrote, "To judge rightly of an author, we must transport ourselves to his time, and examine what were the wants of his contemporaries, and what were his means of supplying them." In Austen’s case this is a complicated question, because when she wrote S & S some of her contemporaries were clinging to the fading Neoclassicism and Classical Realism of the eighteenth century, while many, like Wordsworth, were breaking away from reason in favor of passion and burgeoning Romanticism. Austen, I think most would agree, identified with the former group more than the latter. This is important in S & S, because in many ways the novel is a distrustful examination of the "imagination" and "passions" exalted by the new breed of Romantics through a Classical Realist lens (sense vs. sensibility).

It is well-known that Austen read and was influenced by Samuel Johnson, whose works were the culmination of Classical Realism. In his critical essays, Johnson suggested that the "poet" (the definition of which I stretch here to mean "writer" and "observer of humankind") should "examine, not the individual, but the species  to remark general properties and large appearances  he does not number the streaks of the tulip, or describe the different shades in the verdure of the forest." This, I would argue, is what Austen does, and is why her novels still affect people in the same spirit they were intended to affect her readers two hundred years ago: they describe people we know, not as individuals, but as types.

Dear Mr. Priest,

Thank you for putting my thoughts into better form than I was able to muster on the day!  On the subject of stereotype, I suppose what I was trying to say was that Jane Austen, in the two novels that are the most satirical of then popular genres, that is, Sense and Sensibility and Northanger Abbey, puts into some of her characters' mouths the jargon of the then popular writing of the day, and uses other characters to deflate the notions.  Thus, after Marianne Dashwood's silly rhapsody on Autumn, 'it is not everyone who has your passion for dead leaves', from Elinor.  I know I am in a minority in that I prefer Northanger Abbey to Sense and Sensibility, but I find Henry Tilney's rebuttal of Gothic romance absolutely terrific.  I find him an altogether more sophisticated character than anything to be found in Sense and Sensibility.

None of Jane Austen's characters are stereotypes, but their author does allow them to voice stereotyped codswallop, for the purpose of then allowing her other characters to deflate them.  Marianne Dashwood is a much more sympathetic character than Isabella Thorpe she is presented as a serious creation, to be taken seriously, but both are also (to me) one-dimensional.  Perhaps that is because they are being used to illustrate a literary style that irritated their creator?
Julie

Dear Eric and Julie,

First of all, I am deeply grateful to both of you and to anyone else who takes the time and makes the effort to respond to the students who post to our community. Certainly, both of you have provided enough good thoughts to give C.S.H. a good start on the class assignment.

Both of you have suggested that you differ most profoundly from me on the question at hand, and you are quite correct in thinking that, more correct than you might suspect. What I will try to do here is to sharpen the differences; maybe that will lead to more discussion.

I must say that I am absolutely convinced that Jane Austen could differentiate between Lord Byron and Ann Radcliffe. The former was a "romantic" and the latter wrote gothic novels. Jane Austen did not attack the romantics in Northanger Abbey; indeed, she did not even attack an entire genre. She quite clearly focused upon Ann Radcliffe. To be more precise, she focused upon those readers of Ann Radcliffe who took the gothic novel too seriously. JA did that, not because she thought Mrs. Radcliffe overly concerned with feelings and emotions (why would she think that?), rather JA did that because she thought the novels to be silly--and they were silly. What she did cannot even be considered an attack. She is clearly sympathetic to Catherine and, eventually, leads her away from her naivete. What Julie identifies as "Henry Tilney's rebuttal of Gothic romance" is merely his remonstration to Catherine to think more rationally. So, what is a sharply focused aspect in Jane Austen's novel has been blurred into a generalized attack by most modern readers. This says far more about the needs of the readers. Eric goes so far as to state that this generalized attack is directed at the romantics--I don't think so.

Jane Austen would sometimes allow one of her characters to exhibit an infatuation with Radcliffe novels in order to indicate the degree to which that character was naive or immature. She did use that device again, but certainly not in Sense and Sensibility--she used the device again in Emma. In fact, Marianne Dashwood shared a taste in reading with--get this--Jane Austen!

Jane Austen created three of the most romantic characters in literature: I am thinking of Marianne Dashwood, Fanny Price, and Anne Elliot--these are romantic and nearly tragic figures. (It was not in Jane Austen's nature to allow any one of the three a tragic final fate.) Show me more romantic literary characters, anytime and anywhere--I challenge you. In fact, I believe that it is this romantic aspect of her novels that makes Jane Austen's writing so appealing. Let me be quite explicit, Jane Austen is a writer of romantic novels. (Cannot you see a parallel between Fanny Price and Jane Eyre or a parallel between Marianne Dashwood and Anna Karenina?)

The next point has to do with the fact that "sense" is not the antonym of "sensibility". The antonym of "sense" is "nonsense" and the antonym of "sensibility" is "insensibility" or "insensitivity". The title is Sense and Sensibility and is neither Sense and Nonsense nor Sensibility and Insensitivity. "Sense" and "sensibility" are not necessarily antagonistic in the human nervous system; indeed, the mature person, by definition, is she that has brought these two aspects into concert. Another common myth is that Marianne and Elinor represent definitive forms of "sense" and "sensibility". If I thought that an even remote possibility, I would be signing on to the hypothesis that the two of you have brought to this bulletin board. I am not signing. People who think this way are making the same mistake about Elinor that Marianne made. How can you possibly ignore the pain that Elinor went through? I can only repeat to you, on Elinor's behalf, what she said to Marianne: "I understand you.--You do not suppose that I have ever felt much--...--If you can think me capable of ever feeling--surely you may suppose that I have suffered now. ...". And Marianne could so suppose because she had a great deal of sense and understanding. Marianne was not led to her mistakes by her reading or by a new intellectual movement, she was led to the brink by her sensibilities and by the arts of an expert and experienced seducer. Julie wants to slap her but I, like Colonel Brandon, would prefer to put a pistol ball into Willoughby. Now, there's a difference for you! And, like Anna Karenina, Marianne begins a spiral downward into a tragic death. We all use the expression "to die of a broken heart" and Jane Austen explained how that is possible. I mean that Marianne's decline is completely plausible. However, Jane Austen would not let that happen (I love Jane Austen). Then, after her near-death experience, Marianne began a long series of wonderful conversations with Elinor, and the result is Marianne's maturation--her sensibility is brought into concert with her inherent good sense. Of what better use is to be made of an older sister?

Stereotypes? No, indeed.

I can point to one implausible thing: In my own mind, I cannot imagine at what point Julie would have slapped Marianne?

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