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2/6/02 anonymous - Pride and Prejudice - Comedy or Tragedy?

Dear Ashton,

I have read some of the posts on your Board, and while I find them very interesting I believe there is one very important perspective that has been somewhat neglected, and that is the philosophical assertions of Jane Austen.   I have posted part of the argument I submit to you here elsewhere; the conclusions (or lack thereof) are still to be posted (this is being done through fiction, those that follow it, should not read the present post, it will spoil the story).   Truth springs from very limited sources: ultimately, only from science or full dialectic debate.   I will not repeat over and over that the following is my own opinion, not facts, but it is important that you keep that in mind - it is the authority of the argument that I'm after, not the argument of the authority - it is by disputing my opinion (not by accepting it) that we all can reach a better understanding of the propositions I'm about to make.

I must focus my analysis to develop the argument.   I choose to do so through Darcy and Elizabeth, and I do it because of the fascination that these characters still exercise in the imagination of the audience.   Time turned out to be the best evidence of JA genius in creating them.   The argument on this post focus in what I consider the core of this fascination, its main element: rationalization of feelings.   Later, depending on how successful my experiment with this post is, I plan to present the pride and the prejudice aspects of them.

The characters in Emma, particularly the supporting cast, are better developed than the ones in Pride and Prejudice; yet Pride and Prejudice is one of the most beautiful fabrics in English literature, it is so intricately woven that one pulls two strands of it and ends up on a different point of the pattern.   And what a pattern it is! hints of what we are, simply by virtue of being human.   It is philosophy at its best.

Rationalization of feelings is one of JA favorite themes, she explores it, with more or less intensity, in every single one of her novels; more obviously, in Sense and Sensibility. This is hardly surprising.   Every human being is multi-dimensioned, every single one of us acts based in emotion and reason (in my personal observation, based more in emotion than in reason). If I may, that is hardly what distinguishes us from other mammals (as anyone who has ever had a pet will confirm) such distinction probably lies in enough abstract thinking, not per se, but to allow creativity (the Human Genome Project and Celera are one of the vindications in my life.   Wait until next year for complete confirmation of how similar to mice we really are, much more than we like to believe has been my guess for decades).

While reason and emotion are the motors for human action, and each one of us, as an individual, uses them as one sees fit - one can hardly deny it - in general males and females use them in different fashion.   I am presenting this as an axiom, but there are arguments to justify it.

The problem here lies that a long, long, long time ago the Greeks, who are the pillar of Western civilization philosophical beliefs, defended one code: male rationalization fights against irrational (i.e. emotional) persuasion of women.   Of course, the dynamics of social life are extremely complex, so, even if I accepted the Greek argument at face value (which I don't), I could only do it in the context of direct interaction between one man and one woman.

Look at Pride and Prejudice from this angle and you will see that JA turns the tables on the Greeks. Elizabeth is constantly acting based on reason (even her determination to marry for love is rational, probably based on her experience with her parents marriage). Darcy is the one who cannot, despite his rational objections, repress his feelings, thus in the crucial essence of the drama, he acts based on emotion. He succumbs to love, in spite of his reason - doesn't the audience get a feeling of the strength of his emotion because of that? doesn't the audience know how difficult that really is?

Please note: I am not saying that Elizabeth has no emotions, or Darcy has no reason, I'm focusing on what leads them to act the way they do - and in my view Elizabeth ends up being the more rational of the two.

While I can hardly doubt that some men do act that way, it is unconventional, and it is, in my opinion, one of the main factors why Darcy fascinates the female mind (there are some other factors, not the least important of which is that money and social status have in women some of the same effects that youth and beauty have in men).

One of the problems with my argument is that other philosophical currents, at least as important as the Greeks (the Chinese, and some Indian) reach that same conclusion that the Greeks do: men act more rationally than women.   I do have arguments against this conclusion (based on a primitive necessity - procreation of genes), but I'm still not sure of the intrinsic logic of my own arguments - when many different cultures, with such diversified history and beliefs, reach the same conclusion I tend to respect it (they cannot be all wrong and I right).

In this same theme, I should point out that JA places the connection between reason and emotion exactly where the Greeks put it (and where I believe it lies): Hope. In a nut shell: reason feeds hope, hope feeds feelings.   Hope is the edge of the sword of which reason and emotions are different sides of the blade, and, indeed, it cuts both ways.   (When Prometheus tells the Chorus that he is being punished by Zeus for having saved human kind, the Chorus asks him how did he do it.   He answers that he saved mortals from foreseeing doom, when the Chorus asks how he cured such sickness Prometheus answers: "I placed in them blind hopes."  See Prometeus Bound - honestly, I cannot dispute the essential veracity of this assertion.)

For a long time I wondered if JA understood what she was doing, or if she simply observed it. Then it daunted me:  Cassandra.   Nothing of what we feel or think is really new - JA knew it, (extensive reading).   When I re-read The Oresteia, Aeschylus - where Cassandra first lived on Stage, I saw it.   It's all in there, the pride, the pride swallowed to vanity, the prejudice, the right against right, the love-in-hate, the hate-in-love, the woman that can act with more reason than men, the hope ...   There is much more Greek Tragedy in Pride and Prejudice than most people are willing to see - disguising it is probably JA biggest accomplishment.

2/6/02 Ashton - reply

Dear anonymous,

I am very glad that you stopped by today; you have given us much to think about and that is the purpose of this bulletin board. Most of what you say is compelling, so compelling that I agree with much of it. However, as you say, to agree is not of much help, so I have searched out some few things that I do not find convincing or not completely convincing.

First of all, some obvious things can be said. The words "comedy" and "tragedy" have technical meanings and criteria. Unless I miss my guess, the obvious answer to your question, according to those traditions, is "comedy", and "tragedy" cannot be accommodated. Also, I don't understand the point you make in your last paragraph. "Cassandra" was the name of both Jane Austen's mother and sister. As well as I can remember, our Lady used that name only in her juvenilia. Greek names were in vogue then; for example, her paternal aunt's name was Philadelphia. The regency fashions, that we all admire in Jane-Austen films, were attempts to reproduce the classical Greek fashion. etc.

Darcy does become irrational in one certain sense, and he does that after knowing better. He decides during Elizabeth's stay at Netherfield - and explicitly admonishes himself - to not encourage any tender feelings in her because he senses that it would be a bad marriage from an economic standpoint. He then works to detach Bingley from Jane because he senses, incorrectly, that she does not love his friend. And after all that rational thought, he falls apart at the sight of Elizabeth and proposes to her - that is the height of irrationality and contrasts with the rational proposal of Mr. Collins. In the aftermath, Elizabeth herself wonders at Darcy's behavior (read her thoughts immediately upon Darcy's departure from the parsonage.) That is important because it shows that Jane Austen clearly knew what she was about in this passage.

However, I should point out that Elizabeth persists in her attachment to Wickham in spite of warnings from every quarter - including from her beloved sister and her favorite aunt - that she was not thinking clearly about her involvement. Her reply to her Aunt Gardiner is the epitome of rationalizing wrong choices. Elizabeth's attachment to Wickham was born of attraction, and spurred on by prejudice - and it was irrational.

You are likely right about the Greeks, but where I was raised, men were thought of as emotional and women as calculating. These gender characterizations result in that awful concept, "becoming whipped", a condition that young boys knew was like baldness, unpleasant and inevitable. I would say that, to such a person, Mrs. Bennet, Miss Bingley, and Charlotte Lucas are recognizable. In the subculture in which I was raised, Pride and Prejudice resonates without bringing anything especially new into our understanding - but, it does resonate.

2/6/02 anonymous - Comedy or Tragedy

Dear Ashton,

In my last paragraph I'm trying to answer a puzzle that I created to myself. Did JA understand human behavior, or did she simply observe it, and reproduced it in her work. Before you become angry, let me explain: While her work leads me to believe she understood her age, limited experience, relatively small circle of social interaction leads me to believe that she couldn't understand it without outside help (there are not enough sources of knowledge in her world, outside her family and books). I find comforting to believe that exactly because of the time and family she lived in, JA was more likely (at least more likely than most people today) to have received a classical education (I'm using this word in the sense of instruction). I believe she understood what she was about, because she studied it and digested the knowledge she received. I can hardly believe that it arose exclusively from her observation of other people.

Ultimately the question I'm trying to answer in my last paragraph is: how someone at her age, in a small circle of social interaction (sidewalks are sources of knowledge), could have achieved such depth into human nature? What did she know that few young women do? Is it possible to replicate it?

Curiosity is the emotion of knowledge, and most young people are very curious (and very creative). But it is only digesting knowledge that understanding is achieved, and that is what most young persons don't do, they don't give themselves the trouble (I'm not saying they should).  I can give you some famous examples if I'm being too abstract. How the heck did JA do it?

If one accepts that the individual degree of intelligence, sensibility, susceptibility (if you will) do play a role into an individual's degree of understanding (as long as the individual allows this sensitivity to sing, instead of shutting it up, as several do) one cannot deny that there is also another element that influences it: emotional maturity (some people call it emotional intelligence). There is a certain pattern in how we achieve judgments, in how we form opinions about ourselves and the others, and there is a reason why most legal systems require (as they have always done) a minimum age for certain public tenures from Judges, to Presidents, to Kings ... It is very, very rare for an individual to reach emotional maturity before one proves oneself. Again, from where did JA derived her wisdom? - nobody is born with it, it's not a talent!

Indeed, Elizabeth's age is, for me, the biggest weakness of her as a character. Elizabeth is too mature, too self assured for someone her age, in her position. She acts as if she were 30 something, and successful, not 20 and still waiting to prove herself to the world (and yes, I am taking into consideration the historical differences between society's expectations 200 years ago and now, and the different responsibility of a woman's role that issues thereof).

Doesn't your point about Wickham just adds to my argument, rather than disproves it? (or else, I'm a sophists, which might be the case ... I'm not sure). The fact that she reaches the wrong conclusion does not disprove that she acted on reason (indeed, when very rational people shut down their sensitivity and/or their emotions they either make the wrong choices, or end up in the madhouse, in my experience). Had Elizabeth acted on her emotions she would keep on feeding her attraction (attraction is an emotion more akin to curiosity than to love, if you think about it) for Wickham until she was in love with him (he is a charmer, in spite of being a charlatan). She doesn't. She was not in love with Wickham when she received Darcy's letter - she never felt in love with Wickham ... in fact she stopped at the first obstacles (the only ethical answer to Elizabeth's questions to Mrs Gardiner about the mercenary and prudent motive has to be based on emotion even there, she avoids it - she is a single 20 year old woman who was attracted to the guy, for goodness sake! want more rational than that? - or am I missing something?).

Regarding the differences between men and women, I mentioned it, I disagree with the Greeks (with the Chinese and all others). I do it based on my personal experience, but I do within certain parameters: Men are much more romantic than women, more idealistic (I know much more men that want to marry and have a family than women) - and to a certain extend more emotional, but men are afraid (on social interaction) of showing themselves susceptible (most men cannot see that susceptibility is a strength, not a weakness), the reason for that (in my own  interpretation of what several have told me) is that men are afraid of being judged by other men. Being judged by society is men's Achilles' tendon. Sounds familiar, Mr. Darcy?

Women are more pragmatic, and, yes, to a certain extend more rational (although I like to believe there is a difference between being rational and being calculating). They do, excuse me for the huge generalization, have a even bigger tendency than the other gender to focus on appetites, not on motives (men who do it, do it simply for sex  women who do it, do it almost without limits, in several areas of life - they are the calculating ones). Judging themselves is women's Achilles' tendon. ditto, Miss Bennet.

How did JA learn that? Any feedback will be welcome.

P.S.: the subject line was a last minute thought, quite innocently meant ... but I do not subscribe to the Aristotelian view of tragedies (moral struggle culminating in ultimate defeat).

2/6/02 Ashton - response

Dear anonymous,

I deeply regret that I might have given you the false impression that I am in the slightest bit angry. Nothing could be further from the truth. My impression was that you were trying out some ideas, looking for constructive criticism, and would then begin a draft for your ultimate purpose. You were not explicit - there is no need to be - but you did hint at such a purpose. I am old, I look old, and so you might think of me as a grandfather interested in what you are doing. You must not think of me as an authority, because I have neither the credentials nor the standing of such a person.

Before I get started again, I will invite you to do something that is peripheral to our discussion. If you have a copy of Deirdre Le Faye's edition (1995) of Jane Austen's letters, I suggest that you read #68(D).

You raise some interesting questions. For example, can a writer write entirely from experience or is an extensive education required? I might ask the counter question, is a formal education of much help to a novelist? I suspect it is not, because so few great novelists have been academics. If formal education was of great value, then all great writers would have been Ph.D.s and their best work would have come late in life. Neither observation is true. Incidentally, your question is an old one and the best example I can think of is the debate over whether Shakespeare actually wrote the plays he is credited with, or was it Roger Bacon? An excellent summary of that argument is Mark Twain's Is Shakespeare Dead?. Oddly, Mark Twain takes the position taken by many others - Shakespeare could not have written the plays because he had not the opportunity to be educated well enough for the task. (I say "oddly" because what does this say about Twain himself? He was not provided much of a formal education!) It seems to me that if your focus shifted to Shakespeare, you might find yourself in the Mark Twain camp. That's fine, there is nothing wrong with that - so long as that is where you want to be.

Yes, Jane Austen's social circle was somewhat confined; but, that can be overstated. Remember, two of her brothers were important Navel officers. Six years before her first novel appeared, brother Frank captained a ship that carried an Admiral's flag during the blockade at Trafalgar. Her younger brother - her only younger sibling - eventually became the Commander in Chief of the India and China stations. (He is credited with the conquest of Burma.) Her brother Henry was a London Banker and our Lady frequently visited there. His wife had previously married into the French nobility, so Jane Austen met French émigrés - again, before she began publishing.

We all know that Jane Austen wrote great, enduring novels at a very young age. Or do we? I think we know no such thing. No version of a manuscript from that early period exists. We do know that all six of her novels were published from manuscripts that were created or extensively revised after Jane Austen had reached her thirties.

After all that, I should add the observation that the social circles depicted in Jane Austen's novels were far more confined than the author's.

I will now give you a data point that is an outlier - so you may want to discard it. I think that most men don't care much about what other men think. Which is not to say they are unwilling to take advice or instruction. I mean that the opinions of others will rarely affect behavior. The basic problem is that a man knows he is capable of becoming deeply committed, more committed than his female partner. That is why he is so careful not to make that commitment. A man's only real choice is which woman is to rule him. I remember when I was young that girls were asking for commitment after only a few dates. I managed to avoid that (for a while), the girl would become grieved, and I would feel terrible - until I noticed how easily and how soon she could get over it.

2/7/02 anonymous - I'll be back.

Dear Ashton,

It was I that conveyed the wrong impression. When I wrote "don't be angry" I meant to be funny - I'm not very funny when I write, specially without the help of HTML devices, which I'm too lazy to include. Your first impression was accurate, it is the civilized debate what I'm after.

Thank you for your input. I will follow your suggestion, read the letter, and give the matter some thought. If and when I reach a position I'm comfortable with, I'll be back.

By the by, you sound like my father, he used to say that the last word in his house was always his: "Yes, dear" - I still believe that was not always the case.

2/7/02 Bruce - Great American Novel

To All,

Phillip Roth wrote The Great American Novel and it's a pretty good novel, too, especially if you're a baseball fan.  Haven't you read it, Mr. Sports fanatic Ashton?  The first chapter includes a discussion of who wrote the great American novel between Hemmingway and Word Smith (who is supposedly writing this book).

The book is a history of the third Major League of baseball, which was eliminated and then expunged from all records because it was taken over by Communists.  I still like to argue for Luke Gofannon (a character in the novel) when the conversation at one of the high-class salons I sometimes frequent turns to a discussion of who was the greatest baseball player of all time.

The idea that there is some sort of "American Character" that can be captured in a novel is a strange one. Aren't we MORE diverse than those puny little European countries whence we came?

Mark Twain was not a racist.  He hated everybody equally.

From the Meister: Lou Gerhig before integration
(1947), and Sandy Koufax or Bob Gibson after.

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