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In Jane Austen’s Pages, Death Has No Dominion In Jane Austen’s Pages, Death Has No Dominion
(1 day later)
“Mansfield Park,” Jane Austen’s third novel, ends with the felicitous union of its heroine, Fanny Price, and her cousin Edmund Bertram, and so well deserved is their happiness that they might be forgiven for achieving it over someone’s dead body:“Mansfield Park,” Jane Austen’s third novel, ends with the felicitous union of its heroine, Fanny Price, and her cousin Edmund Bertram, and so well deserved is their happiness that they might be forgiven for achieving it over someone’s dead body:
Equally formed for domestic life, and attached to country pleasures, their home was the home of affection and comfort; and to complete the picture of good, the acquisition of Mansfield living, by the death of Dr. Grant, occurred just after they had been married long enough to begin to want an increase of income and feel their distance from the paternal abode an inconvenience.Equally formed for domestic life, and attached to country pleasures, their home was the home of affection and comfort; and to complete the picture of good, the acquisition of Mansfield living, by the death of Dr. Grant, occurred just after they had been married long enough to begin to want an increase of income and feel their distance from the paternal abode an inconvenience.
How ruthlessly Austen does it, sandwiching Dr. Grant’s last breath between the merits of Fanny’s and Edmund’s life — “country pleasures,” “affection and comfort,” “the picture of good” — and that pesky “inconvenience” of a lesser-paying job farther away from Mansfield Park than they would like. Dr. Grant exists to be dispensed with; in the end, he is nothing to Austen and her characters but an administrative hurdle. Death may have him, and he must suffer the indignity of being killed off in an aside in the novel’s penultimate sentence to boot.How ruthlessly Austen does it, sandwiching Dr. Grant’s last breath between the merits of Fanny’s and Edmund’s life — “country pleasures,” “affection and comfort,” “the picture of good” — and that pesky “inconvenience” of a lesser-paying job farther away from Mansfield Park than they would like. Dr. Grant exists to be dispensed with; in the end, he is nothing to Austen and her characters but an administrative hurdle. Death may have him, and he must suffer the indignity of being killed off in an aside in the novel’s penultimate sentence to boot.
The celebration of Austen this year, two centuries after her death at 41 on July 18, 1817, masquerades seamlessly as a celebration of her life, in part because she has proved immortal, and in part because as a writer she had so little time for mortality on the page. What was death to Jane Austen? We readers feel its inconvenience most acutely in material terms; had she lived longer she might have written six more novels, though the six she completed have amply sustained 200 years of entertainment, analysis, multimedia adaptation and, lately, zombie attack, which is more than one can say for Fanny Burney.The celebration of Austen this year, two centuries after her death at 41 on July 18, 1817, masquerades seamlessly as a celebration of her life, in part because she has proved immortal, and in part because as a writer she had so little time for mortality on the page. What was death to Jane Austen? We readers feel its inconvenience most acutely in material terms; had she lived longer she might have written six more novels, though the six she completed have amply sustained 200 years of entertainment, analysis, multimedia adaptation and, lately, zombie attack, which is more than one can say for Fanny Burney.
Austen covered sufferers of chronic illness: Mrs. Smith in “Persuasion,” Anne Elliot’s confidante, wise and infirm before her time; the invalids of “Sanditon,” Austen’s final, incomplete manuscript. She excelled at hypochondriacs: Mrs. Bennet, in “Pride and Prejudice,” with her nerves; Mr. Woodhouse, in “Emma,” ever vigilant against a chill. Nor were her characters deaf to the rumble of time’s winged chariot: Anne Elliot’s vain father, Sir Walter, entertains a theatrical horror of aging. To him, crows’ feet and sun-damaged skin spell social suicide, a fate worse than — well, you know.Austen covered sufferers of chronic illness: Mrs. Smith in “Persuasion,” Anne Elliot’s confidante, wise and infirm before her time; the invalids of “Sanditon,” Austen’s final, incomplete manuscript. She excelled at hypochondriacs: Mrs. Bennet, in “Pride and Prejudice,” with her nerves; Mr. Woodhouse, in “Emma,” ever vigilant against a chill. Nor were her characters deaf to the rumble of time’s winged chariot: Anne Elliot’s vain father, Sir Walter, entertains a theatrical horror of aging. To him, crows’ feet and sun-damaged skin spell social suicide, a fate worse than — well, you know.
But Austen never killed off a major character. The absence is striking in light of the 19th-century works that followed hers, in the genre she helped pioneer — novels by Dickens, the Brontës, George Eliot in which death begins as much as it ends. Death creates orphans, the Victorians’ sprightly vehicle for social mobility — Oliver Twist, say, and Jane Eyre. The death of a parent could open the door to poverty, neglect and abuse or — a happier plot point — inheritance. Death could tug readers’ heartstrings, drive serial sales or lend credence to controversial scientific theories, as with the spontaneous combustion of the rag-and-bone man Mr. Krook in “Bleak House,” an impossible conversion of matter into ooze that Dickens lustily defended. Death could usher offstage characters who have transgressed beyond the point of redemption, notably women whose passion outpaced social mores. Deathbed scenes could fuel dramatic discord over wills and legacies. Death could gesture toward righting the wrongs of a revolution, as in “A Tale of Two Cities.” It could even lay waste to entire fictional worlds. By the time “Wuthering Heights” is over, the moor is littered with the bodies of characters who have perished of mismanaged ardor, with scarcely a housekeeper left to tell the tale.But Austen never killed off a major character. The absence is striking in light of the 19th-century works that followed hers, in the genre she helped pioneer — novels by Dickens, the Brontës, George Eliot in which death begins as much as it ends. Death creates orphans, the Victorians’ sprightly vehicle for social mobility — Oliver Twist, say, and Jane Eyre. The death of a parent could open the door to poverty, neglect and abuse or — a happier plot point — inheritance. Death could tug readers’ heartstrings, drive serial sales or lend credence to controversial scientific theories, as with the spontaneous combustion of the rag-and-bone man Mr. Krook in “Bleak House,” an impossible conversion of matter into ooze that Dickens lustily defended. Death could usher offstage characters who have transgressed beyond the point of redemption, notably women whose passion outpaced social mores. Deathbed scenes could fuel dramatic discord over wills and legacies. Death could gesture toward righting the wrongs of a revolution, as in “A Tale of Two Cities.” It could even lay waste to entire fictional worlds. By the time “Wuthering Heights” is over, the moor is littered with the bodies of characters who have perished of mismanaged ardor, with scarcely a housekeeper left to tell the tale.
It wasn’t Austen’s chosen task to reflect England’s average life expectancy or infant mortality rate, any more than she chose to describe in detail the evils of empire, war or slavery. This was not for lack of personal experience with those statistics. In “Jane Austen: A Brief Life,” reissued this month from Yale University Press (the book is just 174 pages long, so the title works both ways), the Austen scholar Fiona Stafford writes: “By 1817, she had seen the lives of two first cousins, three sisters-in-law, her sister’s fiancé and her cousin’s husband all cut short. She had lost her father and mourned the deaths of aunts and friends. Her letters are scattered with references to stillbirths and miscarriages, to mothers who died in labor and to infants who succumbed soon afterwards.” Austen’s preference, in comedic mode, was to concern herself more with friendship and courtship than with last rites. Sometimes you can see the gears shift to make it so. For example, she arranges de facto orphanhood for Fanny Price, who is sent from home at age 10 to stay with her aunt and uncle at Mansfield Park, not by inflicting bodily harm on Fanny’s poor parents but simply by asserting that they have plenty of other children among whom to divide their scarce resources and even scarcer attention. Let them live — as far as the reader is concerned, their lives are of little consequence.It wasn’t Austen’s chosen task to reflect England’s average life expectancy or infant mortality rate, any more than she chose to describe in detail the evils of empire, war or slavery. This was not for lack of personal experience with those statistics. In “Jane Austen: A Brief Life,” reissued this month from Yale University Press (the book is just 174 pages long, so the title works both ways), the Austen scholar Fiona Stafford writes: “By 1817, she had seen the lives of two first cousins, three sisters-in-law, her sister’s fiancé and her cousin’s husband all cut short. She had lost her father and mourned the deaths of aunts and friends. Her letters are scattered with references to stillbirths and miscarriages, to mothers who died in labor and to infants who succumbed soon afterwards.” Austen’s preference, in comedic mode, was to concern herself more with friendship and courtship than with last rites. Sometimes you can see the gears shift to make it so. For example, she arranges de facto orphanhood for Fanny Price, who is sent from home at age 10 to stay with her aunt and uncle at Mansfield Park, not by inflicting bodily harm on Fanny’s poor parents but simply by asserting that they have plenty of other children among whom to divide their scarce resources and even scarcer attention. Let them live — as far as the reader is concerned, their lives are of little consequence.
But Austen’s closest flirtation with death is the near miss: the almost fatal injury or illness that changes a character’s direction. It happens most memorably to young women whose high spirits propel them over the line of propriety. In “Sense and Sensibility,” Marianne Dashwood, betrayed by her inconstant lover, Willoughby, walks out in an unhealthy rainstorm and contracts a virulent fever. In “Persuasion,” Louisa Musgrove sustains a serious blow to the head after a stunt meant to charm her apparent suitor, Captain Wentworth. Their deaths would have offered a certain kind of cautionary tale. Instead, the young women emerge from their convalescences more sober, more attentive to their misdeeds, better suited as life partners for two different, sober, attentive men. But Austen’s closest flirtation with death is the near miss: the almost fatal injury or illness that changes a character’s direction. It happens most memorably to young women whose high spirits propel them over the line of propriety. In “Sense and Sensibility,” Marianne Dashwood, betrayed by her inconstant lover, Willoughby, walks out in the wet after a rainstorm and contracts a virulent fever. In “Persuasion,” Louisa Musgrove sustains a serious blow to the head after a stunt meant to charm her apparent suitor, Captain Wentworth. Their deaths would have offered a certain kind of cautionary tale. Instead, the young women emerge from their convalescences more sober, more attentive to their misdeeds, better suited as life partners for two different, sober, attentive men.
And in “Persuasion,” Austen gives us a different kind of near miss — not a near death but a near life, which introduces the first of that novel’s many explorations of disappointment and regret. The novel’s second paragraph makes reference to a stillborn son between the daughters Anne and Mary, a brother and heir whose existence would have spared the Elliot family removal from their ancestral home. The Elliots of Austen’s last published novel are the Bennets of “Pride and Prejudice” all over again, with an unworthy cousin lurking at the business end of an entail. But the stillborn boy, mentioned so prominently (he has no name, but he does have a birth date), adds the frisson of might have been. For Austen, his lack of life marks the most poignant death of all: the death of possibility.And in “Persuasion,” Austen gives us a different kind of near miss — not a near death but a near life, which introduces the first of that novel’s many explorations of disappointment and regret. The novel’s second paragraph makes reference to a stillborn son between the daughters Anne and Mary, a brother and heir whose existence would have spared the Elliot family removal from their ancestral home. The Elliots of Austen’s last published novel are the Bennets of “Pride and Prejudice” all over again, with an unworthy cousin lurking at the business end of an entail. But the stillborn boy, mentioned so prominently (he has no name, but he does have a birth date), adds the frisson of might have been. For Austen, his lack of life marks the most poignant death of all: the death of possibility.
Once you notice that stillborn child, you begin to sense the specter of mortality ranging over Austen’s work — as evocative in her world, perhaps, as mortality itself. Consider “Pride and Prejudice,” the story of five marriageable young women that brims with the promise of physical and intellectual attraction. Still, death gives the novel its reason for being. Mr. Bennet may be in perfect health, but when he dies, his estate will lawfully go to his obsequious cousin Mr. Collins, and that is the reason for his wife’s aggressive matchmaking, for her obnoxious recital of her daughters’ suitors’ annual incomes. It is the reason Jane, the responsible eldest, succumbs to riding out in the rain, risking serious illness, to secure Mr. Bingley’s affection — better she die in pursuit of him than die an impoverished spinster. Mrs. Bennet may be ridiculous, but she knows all too well that she and her children must fend for themselves once her husband is gone.Once you notice that stillborn child, you begin to sense the specter of mortality ranging over Austen’s work — as evocative in her world, perhaps, as mortality itself. Consider “Pride and Prejudice,” the story of five marriageable young women that brims with the promise of physical and intellectual attraction. Still, death gives the novel its reason for being. Mr. Bennet may be in perfect health, but when he dies, his estate will lawfully go to his obsequious cousin Mr. Collins, and that is the reason for his wife’s aggressive matchmaking, for her obnoxious recital of her daughters’ suitors’ annual incomes. It is the reason Jane, the responsible eldest, succumbs to riding out in the rain, risking serious illness, to secure Mr. Bingley’s affection — better she die in pursuit of him than die an impoverished spinster. Mrs. Bennet may be ridiculous, but she knows all too well that she and her children must fend for themselves once her husband is gone.
Mr. Bennet’s recusal from most of these matters of the heart prefigures his erasure from the property; he acts out his disappearance on a daily basis by hiding in his library. But he has one asset he can freely bequeath to his favorite daughter, Elizabeth: his wit. She uses it. Verbal acuity, as Austen knew, is the gift that keeps on living.Mr. Bennet’s recusal from most of these matters of the heart prefigures his erasure from the property; he acts out his disappearance on a daily basis by hiding in his library. But he has one asset he can freely bequeath to his favorite daughter, Elizabeth: his wit. She uses it. Verbal acuity, as Austen knew, is the gift that keeps on living.