When
we read a story about a couple who want to be together but are being kept
apart, a young woman secretly in love with an unavailable man, or some other
romantic entanglement involving hope and disappointment, we’re usually rewarded
at the end with a happy couple getting married, all set to live happily ever
after. At first glance, it seems as if Jane Austen delivers. All the
ingredients are there. The couples, the obstacles, the hopes, the
disappointments, the anxieties, and then the marriage! But if we pay closer
attention to these stories, and think about the details, rather than read the
word marriage and feel satisfied, we see that Austen is not really giving us
what we think she’s giving us. Two novels to consider are Sense and Sensibility, and Persuasion.
Both demonstrate Austen’s ability to write a happy ending that will satisfy the
reader who wants to hear wedding bells - but may also leave them with the
feeling that things are not quite perfect. Marriage is not a happy ending. It’s
just one part of a life that has to be lived in society, with the people that
surround you, and the social expectations, hierarchies, and hypocrisies remain.
At
first, Sense and Sensibility appears
to give us the perfect ending. Elinor and Edward finally get together, and
Marianne realizes that actually Willoughby is a scoundrel, and that Colonel
Brandon is the one for her, and they get married too. But is this ending really
as happy as it seems? This may be Elinor’s dream come true, but Marianne never
wanted to marry Col. Brandon. She ends up losing her own dreams of passionate
love, and seems to marry Brandon out of a sense of duty - a feeling that she
should stop being silly and childish, and just marry the good man. Happily, she
does “in time” become as much devoted to Brandon as she was once to Willoughby,
but the fact that she married him before that happened seems to indicate that
she wasn’t necessarily the most glowing bride to ever walk down the aisle (268).
And what about the
fact that Edward has been deprived of his inheritance? Yes, he and Elinor are
in love, and neither one of them ever yearned to be rich, but by rights they should
have been a great deal better off financially than they end up. Instead the
money goes to Robert and Lucy! “While Robert was inevitably endowed with a
thousand pounds a year, not the smallest objection was made to Edward’s taking
orders for the sake of two hundred and fifty at the utmost; nor was anything
promised either for the present or in future” (264). Despite this injustice, we
do know that Edward and Elinor are very happy together – Edward has “an
increasing attachment to his wife and his home” and “the regular cheerfulness
of his spirits” shows that this lack of fortune, (and of fair play), does not
make him bitter (267). So while on the one hand, we have to accept that Elinor
and Edward have been dealt with unfairly, we also have the satisfaction of
knowing that they are happy together. At least Jane Austen gives us that!
However, the
injustice must be considered. It’s Edward’s good character that loses him the
fortune. If he had broken his promise to marry Lucy, he would never have been
disinherited. The twist of the knife is that his repulsive brother, Robert,
steals Lucy from him (at least that’s what Robert thinks – Lucy herself knows
the truth, there), and still gets the money. And duplicitous Lucy ends up
netting herself a rich husband. Where is her comeuppance? She ends up being the
darling of Mrs. Ferrars, having managed to climb high up the social ladder, and
lives in financial comfort beyond anything she has a right to expect. In Sense and Sensibility hypocrisy is
ignored, manipulation and flattery are rewarded, and emotional honesty and
honorable behavior is punished. Is this Austen commenting on the fact that
hypocrites do frequently win, and polite society is full of people who behave
in a despicable way, and are yet considered respectable?
Even Persuasion, the most romantic of
Austen’s novels, doesn’t give us the pure, romantic, happy ever after ending
that we think it does. We are
delighted for Anne and Wentworth – their marriage seems like one we’ve been
waiting years to see. But while we’re reveling in the joy of their union, and
Anne’s happiness, we are told “the dread of a future war [is] all that could
dim her sunshine” (168), and suddenly the idea of Anne and Wentworth having a
long and happy life together seems to be in doubt. Another point is that Anne
is not spared the shame of having an awful family. There’s no big
reconciliation scene, and there are no apologies for past behavior. They don’t
improve, as we might have hoped - they are consistent in their silliness, their
vanity, and their pompousness. They don’t grow as characters, they don’t learn,
they are still awful, and Anne knows it.
We also have to
consider Mr. Elliot and Mrs. Clay’s actions, and decide what we think their
future holds. These two are obviously champion manipulators. Mr. Elliot’s
motives for pursuing Anne having already been revealed to us, we now hear “how double a game he had been playing”,
when he moves to London, and Mrs. Clay soon follows him, thereby abandoning her
hope of marrying Sir Elliot, and possibly producing an heir to his fortune.
There’s a question mark over whether Mrs.Clay is even craftier than Mr. Elliot
though – “She has abilities, however, as well as affections; and it is now a
doubtful point whether his cunning or hers, may finally carry the day” (167) –
Mrs. Clay may end up becoming Mr.Elliot’s wife herself, and still getting her
hands on the fortune, as wife of the current heir - but who ever the true
champion is, they both find a way not to lose what they have been striving for.
And where is their punishment? Again, we are given players who have been
working their craft steadily, all along. Even when their plans become derailed,
they find a way to get back in the game, and are still welcome in polite
society, despite their sly and manipulative behavior.
So, bad people don’t
always get their comeuppance, hypocrites can (and usually do) thrive, Marianne
doesn’t marry a man she is passionately in love with, Edward and Elinor will
never be rich, Anne’s family, with their vanity, and their high regard for
money and pedigree, remain a source of shame to her, and Anne and Wentworth may
soon be separated by war. It seems that Jane Austen didn’t want to give her
readers unrealistically happy endings, and instead wanted to write stories that
would ring true. Marriage, as Austen seems to know, doesn’t fix everything.
People will still cheat, there will still be hypocrisy, vanity, greed, and
snobbishness in the world, and danger will still lurk. But even so, we can
still enjoy a good wedding when it comes around.
No comments:
Post a Comment