From "Jane Austen and Edward Said: Gender, Culture and Imperialism", by Susan Fraiman

http://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/issues/v21/v21n4.fraiman.html



"The cherished axiom of [Jane] Austen's unwordliness is closely tied to a sense of her polite remove from the contingencies of history. It was Q. D. Leavis (1942) who first pointed out the tendency of scholars to lift Austen out of her social millieu, gallantly allowing her gorgeous sentences to float free, untainted by the routines of labor that produced them and deaf to the tumult of current events.1 Since Leavis, numerous efforts have been made to counter the patronizing view that Austen, in her fidelity to the local, the surface, the detail, was oblivious to large-scale struggles, to wars and mass movements of all kinds. Claudia Johnson(1988), for example, has challenged R. W. Chapman's long-standing edition of Austen for its readiness to illustrate her ballrooms and refusal to gloss her allusions to riots or slaves and has linked this writer to a tradition of frankly political novels by women.2 It is in keeping with such historicizing gestures that [Edward] Said's Culture and Imperialism 3 insists on Mansfield Park's participation in its moment, pursuing the references to Caribbean slavery that Chapmen pointedly ignored. Yet while arguing vigorously for the novel's active role in producing imperialist plots, Said also in effect replays the story of its author's passivity regarding issues in the public sphere. Unconcerned about Sir Thomas Bertram's colonial holdings in slaves as well as land and taking for granted their necessity to the good life at home, Said's Austen is a veritable Aunt Jane - naive, complacent, and demurely without overt political opinion.



I will grant that Said's depiction of Austen as unthinking in her references to Antigua fits logically with his overall contention that nineteenth-century European culture, and especially the English novel, unwittingly but systematically helped to gain consent for imperialist policies (see C, p. 75). [The novel] was, Said asserts, one of the primary discourses contributing to a 'consolidated vision,' virtually uncontested, of England's righteous imperial prerogative (C, p. 75). Austen is no different from Thackeray or Dickens, then, in her implicit loyalty to official Eurocentrism. At the same time, Said's version of Austen in particular is given a boost by the readily available myth of her 'feminine' nearsightedness... This rendering of Austen is further enabled, I would argue, by Said's highly selective materialization of her... [Mansfield Park] is, in fact, almost completely isolated from the rest of Austen's work. If the truth be told, Said's attention even to his chosen text is cursory: Austen's references to Antigua (and India) are mentioned without actually being read...



But this picture of Austen is disembodied in not only a textual but also a larger social sense. Though recontextualized as an Eglish national in the period preceding colonial expansion, Austen's more precise status as an unmarried, middle-class, scribbling woman remains wholly unspecified. The failure to consider Austen's gender and the significance of this omision is pointed up by Said's more nuanced treatment of Conrad. According to Said, Conrad stands out from other colonial writers because, as a Polish expatriate, he possessed 'an extraordinarily persistent residual sense of his own exilic marginality' (C, p. 24). The result is a double view of imperialism that at once refutes and reinforces the West's right to dominate the globe. As Said explains, 'Never the wholly incorporated and fully acculturated Englishman, Conrad therefore preserved an ironic distance [from imperial conquest] in each of his works' (C, p. 25). Of course Austen was not, any more than Conrad, 'the wholly incorporated and fully acculturated Englishman.' Lacking the franchise, enjoying few property rights (and these because she was single), living as a dependent at the edge of her brother's estate, and publishing her work anonymously, Austen was arguably a kind of exile in her own country. If we follow out the logic of Said's own identity politics, Austen, too, might therefore be suspected of irony toward reigning constructions of citizenship, however much, like Conrad, she may also in many respects have upheld them. The goal of this essay is to indicate where and, finally, to suggest why Said so entirely misses this irony. My point, I should stress, is not to exonerate Austen of imperialist crimes. Surely Said is right to include her among those who made colonialism thinkable by constructing the West as center, home, and norm, while pushing everything else to the margins. The question I would raise is not whether Austen contributed to English domination abroad but how her doing so was necessarily inflected and partly disrupted by her position as a bourgeois woman."






From "In Defense of Flat Characters: A Discussion of their Value to Charles Dickens, and Leo Tolstoy", by George R. Clay

http://www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/IFR/bin/get.cgi?directory=Vol.27/&filename=Clay.htm



"...In Pride and Prejudice, by contrast, Jane Austen’s flat characters are not incidental to the Elizabeth–Darcy narrative; nor is that narrative a mere framework within which to introduce the likes of Mr. Collins and Mrs. Bennet. The hero–heroine relationship provides not just the main but the whole thrust of the novel, a thrust to which Austen’s subsidiary characters contribute in crucial ways. Their function is not, as in David Copperfield, to embellish the proceedings but to propel them. Mr. Collins’s behavior when we first meet him, as well as his marriage to Elizabeth’s friend Charlotte Lucas, are absolutely vital to Austen’s plot, for it is through Mr. Collins that Lady Catherine de Burgh first comes in contact with Elizabeth. As for Lady Catherine’s typecast egocentric snobbishness, it is essential to Darcy’s two marriage proposals: the first (an odious one) when Elizabeth visits Charlotte at Rosings; then at the end of the novel when Lady Catherine inadvertently convinces Darcy to try again, that this time Elizabeth might not turn him down.



In David Copperfield, the antics performed by Flats are of little consequence beyond stirring our delight and riveting our attention. But each of the developments involving Flats in Pride and Prejudice is important precisely because of the way it affects the difficult Elizabeth–Darcy romance. Thus, while the two novels are very different in the way their authors use flat characters, in neither one could the flat characters’ contributions have been made by round characters. Their very flatness is what qualifies them to do what they do. In Dickens’s novel, their unforgettable freakishness, plus the fact that they are not developing, is what allows Dickens to create so many eccentric subsidiaries, so colorfully described that they reach a critical mass (so to speak) and are able to take over the main show. In Pride and Prejudice the Flats’ comically stubborn consistency is what allows them to exacerbate Elizabeth and Darcy’s problems, and then (think of Lydia and Wickham’s elopement) provide opportunities for resolving them. More roundness in any of these Flats would have undercut the development of Austen’s protagonists. For example, to have made Lady Catherine not consistently awful, but able to change her outlook and behavior for the better, would have taken something away from Darcy and Elizabeth.



This was demonstrated by the 1941 film, Pride and Prejudice, when Aldous Huxley and Jane Murphin, the scriptwriters, turned Edna May Oliver’s Lady Catherine into a developing character: one who sheds her egocentric self and comes around to finally approving of Elizabeth and Darcy’s marriage. While this generated a warm and wooly Hollywood-style ending, it seriously detracted from Austen’s concept of Darcy’s role by undercutting the individuality, determination, strength of character, and personal development behind his decision to marry Elizabeth despite his aunt’s wholehearted disapproval and her veiled threats of disinheritance. For Darcy to develop to the extent that the novel allows him to, Lady Catherine had to remain a non-developing character: flat rather than round..."






From "Anti-Romanticism in Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility", by Skylar Hamilton Burris

http://www.literatureclassics.com/AncientPaths/jane2.html



"In an age that extolled the virtues of expressing emotion and being sensible to the beauty of nature and literature, Jane Austen wrote a novel to champion sense and moderation. The main characters of Sense and Sensibility, Elinor and Marianne, serve as representatives of these opposing world views. Throughout the novel, sensibility is mocked whereas sense (not a cold reason, but a moderate practicality) is praised. By the end of the novel, sense triumphs as the emotional Marianne, "[i]nstead of falling sacrifice to an irresistible passion," makes a practical match based not on volatile emotions, but on the steadier, quieter feelings of respect and friendship, trusting that, in time, these too can grow into love (372).



Marianne is criticized for her "excess of . . . sensibility," emotions which can "have no moderation" (5). She believes that for any man to attract a woman, he must have romantic qualities: "spirit,""fire," a passionate love for literature, music, and art, rather than a mere admiration (15). The author is no doubt parodying the romantic view by taking Marianne’s requirements to an extreme: "I could not be happy with a man whose tastes did not in every point coincide with my own. He must enter into all of my feelings; the same books, the same music must charm us both" (16). Marianne does not, like Elinor, appreciate Edward for his moral virtues, but cares foremost about his sentiments; in her opinion, he does not read with proper emotion.



Marianne applies her romantic standards to Willoughby and Colonel Brandon. Brandon initially appears to her to be a stuffy old bachelor, but Willoughby seems perfectly romantic. When he enters the scene, he does so in a dashing, adventurous way, rescuing Marianne from her fall on the hills. She quickly ascertains all his opinions to make sure they coincide with her own. Elinor quips, "You know what he thinks of Cowper and Scott; you are certain of his estimating their beauties as he ought . . . Another meeting will suffice to explain his sentiments on picturesque beauty and second marriages, and then you can have nothing further to ask . . . " (45). But the shallowness of this romantic world view is revealed when Willoughby’s character as a seducer is exposed. The key issue, for Austen, is not a man’s romantic sentiments, but his moral virtues. Edward is lauded because--however unromantic it may be to marry someone you do not love--he is willing to honor his word to Lucy. Brandon is lauded for being "sensible" and "gentlemanlike" and for his generosity to Edward (32). His patient, respectful love of Marianne is contrasted with Willoughby’s socially reckless attentions, such as riding off alone with Marianne in his carriage (64). Willoughby’s passionate sharing of Marianne’s tastes is contrasted with Brandon’s more steady admiration of her musical abilities; he is not thrown into exaggerated and perhaps artificial raptures like the rest of the company; rather, he pays her "only the compliment of attention" (33). Finally, Willoughby’s romantic "rescue" of Marianne is contrasted with the more practical--and perhaps more helpful--assistance that Colonel Brandon renders during Marianne’s sickness. "The comfort of such a friend at that moment as Colonel Brandon," reflects Elinor, ". . . how gratefully was it felt!" (304).



Colonel Brandon is not without deep feeling. But his feelings are appropriately tempered and directed by his reason. Sense, in this novel, is the proper master of sensibility. The role of emotion is not wholly rejected, but the romantic notion that emotion ought to reign supreme is."